Don’t miss this week’s moon-Jupiter-Saturn trio

View larger. | Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog.

Originally published at Guy Ottewell’s blog. Reprinted here with permission.

On the morning of Tuesday, May 12, 2020, comes a concentration of three bright bodies within a circle less than 5 degrees wide.

Jupiter has been catching up with Saturn, and now, when the moon pays its monthly visit, they are close enough to form this trio. It is at its tightest on May 12 at 14:00 UTC, which is four or more hours earlier by American clocks. Translate UTC to your time zone. So, for Europe, Africa and the Americas, the nearest time for viewing the trio is the morning of May 12.

The centers of the three will fit within a circle of diameter 4.7 degrees. This is as seen from the center of the Earth; from my northern latitude in the U.K., the moon, which descended through the ecliptic on May 10, will appear farther south, so that the gathering appears less tight. In the picture at the top of this post, the moon is drawn – at twice its real size – in the positions where it is seen from the location, but the arrows between moon dates are where the moon would be seen from Earth’s center.

Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog.

This space view is from 15 degrees north of the ecliptic plane, and shows the paths of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn in May 2020, with sightlines from Earth to those planets at May 12 at 14:00 UTC. The dashed line indicates the vernal equinox direction.

After this trio event, the moon will reach its last quarter position on May 14 (14:00 UTC), near the spot marked “Earth’s direction of travel” in the top diagram. The last quarter moon, 90 degrees west of the sun, is crossing our orbit ahead of us.

And, because Earth is starting to overtake the two planets on the inside, both go into apparent retrograde motion, Saturn on May 11, Jupiter on May 14. One result is that there comes a quasi-conjunction, a moment when the angular distance between them is at a minimum before opening back out: this will be on May 18, when Jupiter will be 4.7 degrees west of Saturn.

To add to the complexity, little Pluto appears close by but in the farther background. Read more: Jupiter gives us Pluto in 2020

Quite a geometric tangle. To clarify it to myself, I had to trace the to-and-fro movements of Jupiter and Saturn from month to month down my Zodiac Wavy Chart for 2020:

Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog. Read more about the Zodiac Wavy Chart.

The two giants will continue to retrograde, through their oppositions on July 14 (Jupiter) and 20 (Saturn); will resume forward motion on Sep. 12 (Jupiter) and 29 (Saturn).

Their 20-year conjunction will come on May 12, 2020, as seen from Earth.

Bottom line: The planets Jupiter and Saturn are exceedingly near each other now on the sky’s dome, heading for a 20-year conjunction later this year. See them with the moon on May 12!

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View larger. | Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog.

Originally published at Guy Ottewell’s blog. Reprinted here with permission.

On the morning of Tuesday, May 12, 2020, comes a concentration of three bright bodies within a circle less than 5 degrees wide.

Jupiter has been catching up with Saturn, and now, when the moon pays its monthly visit, they are close enough to form this trio. It is at its tightest on May 12 at 14:00 UTC, which is four or more hours earlier by American clocks. Translate UTC to your time zone. So, for Europe, Africa and the Americas, the nearest time for viewing the trio is the morning of May 12.

The centers of the three will fit within a circle of diameter 4.7 degrees. This is as seen from the center of the Earth; from my northern latitude in the U.K., the moon, which descended through the ecliptic on May 10, will appear farther south, so that the gathering appears less tight. In the picture at the top of this post, the moon is drawn – at twice its real size – in the positions where it is seen from the location, but the arrows between moon dates are where the moon would be seen from Earth’s center.

Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog.

This space view is from 15 degrees north of the ecliptic plane, and shows the paths of Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn in May 2020, with sightlines from Earth to those planets at May 12 at 14:00 UTC. The dashed line indicates the vernal equinox direction.

After this trio event, the moon will reach its last quarter position on May 14 (14:00 UTC), near the spot marked “Earth’s direction of travel” in the top diagram. The last quarter moon, 90 degrees west of the sun, is crossing our orbit ahead of us.

And, because Earth is starting to overtake the two planets on the inside, both go into apparent retrograde motion, Saturn on May 11, Jupiter on May 14. One result is that there comes a quasi-conjunction, a moment when the angular distance between them is at a minimum before opening back out: this will be on May 18, when Jupiter will be 4.7 degrees west of Saturn.

To add to the complexity, little Pluto appears close by but in the farther background. Read more: Jupiter gives us Pluto in 2020

Quite a geometric tangle. To clarify it to myself, I had to trace the to-and-fro movements of Jupiter and Saturn from month to month down my Zodiac Wavy Chart for 2020:

Illustration via Guy Ottewell’s blog. Read more about the Zodiac Wavy Chart.

The two giants will continue to retrograde, through their oppositions on July 14 (Jupiter) and 20 (Saturn); will resume forward motion on Sep. 12 (Jupiter) and 29 (Saturn).

Their 20-year conjunction will come on May 12, 2020, as seen from Earth.

Bottom line: The planets Jupiter and Saturn are exceedingly near each other now on the sky’s dome, heading for a 20-year conjunction later this year. See them with the moon on May 12!

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Cool! A Hubble photo translated to music

We stumbled on this video via a May 3, 2020, re-post at ScienceAlert. Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida of System Sounds in Toronto – which calls itself “a sci-art outreach project” – created the video. It’s part of NASA’s Astrophysics Visualizations series. NASA explained the video this way:

Space becomes sonified in this visualization of a cluster of galaxies imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Time flows left to right, and the frequency of sound changes from bottom to top, ranging from 30 to 1,000 hertz. Objects near the bottom of the image produce lower notes, while those near the top produce higher ones. Most of the visible specks are galaxies housing countless stars. A few individual stars shine brightly in the foreground. Stars and compact galaxies create short, clear tones, while sprawling spiral galaxies emit longer notes that change pitch. The higher density of galaxies near the center of the image – the heart of this galaxy cluster, known as RXC J0142.9+4438 – results in a swell of mid-range tones halfway through the video. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 acquired this image on August 13, 2018.

Cool!

Here’s the original Hubble image of galaxy cluster RXC J0142.9+4438, later “sonified” by Russo and Santaguida. NASA wrote: “Galaxies abound in this spectacular Hubble image; spiral arms swirl in all colors and orientations, and fuzzy ellipticals can be seen speckled across the frame as softly glowing smudges on the sky. Each visible speck of a galaxy is home to countless stars. A few stars closer to home shine brightly in the foreground, while a massive galaxy cluster nestles at the very center of the image; an immense collection of maybe thousands of galaxies, all held together by the relentless force of gravity.” Read more about this image, which is via ESA/ Hubble & NASA, RELICS.

Bottom line: Musicians and scientists turned a Hubble Space Telescope image – of galaxy cluster RXC J0142.9+4438 – into music.

Via ScienceAlert

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We stumbled on this video via a May 3, 2020, re-post at ScienceAlert. Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida of System Sounds in Toronto – which calls itself “a sci-art outreach project” – created the video. It’s part of NASA’s Astrophysics Visualizations series. NASA explained the video this way:

Space becomes sonified in this visualization of a cluster of galaxies imaged by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Time flows left to right, and the frequency of sound changes from bottom to top, ranging from 30 to 1,000 hertz. Objects near the bottom of the image produce lower notes, while those near the top produce higher ones. Most of the visible specks are galaxies housing countless stars. A few individual stars shine brightly in the foreground. Stars and compact galaxies create short, clear tones, while sprawling spiral galaxies emit longer notes that change pitch. The higher density of galaxies near the center of the image – the heart of this galaxy cluster, known as RXC J0142.9+4438 – results in a swell of mid-range tones halfway through the video. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 acquired this image on August 13, 2018.

Cool!

Here’s the original Hubble image of galaxy cluster RXC J0142.9+4438, later “sonified” by Russo and Santaguida. NASA wrote: “Galaxies abound in this spectacular Hubble image; spiral arms swirl in all colors and orientations, and fuzzy ellipticals can be seen speckled across the frame as softly glowing smudges on the sky. Each visible speck of a galaxy is home to countless stars. A few stars closer to home shine brightly in the foreground, while a massive galaxy cluster nestles at the very center of the image; an immense collection of maybe thousands of galaxies, all held together by the relentless force of gravity.” Read more about this image, which is via ESA/ Hubble & NASA, RELICS.

Bottom line: Musicians and scientists turned a Hubble Space Telescope image – of galaxy cluster RXC J0142.9+4438 – into music.

Via ScienceAlert

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Moon and 3 morning planets May 11 to 14

These next several mornings – May 11, 12, 13 and 14, 2020 – let the waning moon introduce you to three bright morning planets. Jupiter is by far the brightest of the threesome, beaming some seven times more brilliantly than either Saturn or Mars. Jupiter also outshines all the stars. You’ll have no trouble identifying Jupiter. Mars and Saturn are fainter, but – like Jupiter, and like the moon – follow the approximate path of the ecliptic (sun’s path) across our sky. Thus the three planets, and the moon, make a small, graceful arc across our predawn sky. Mars and Saturn are almost equally bright (Mars is a tad brighter), and there are other ways of distinguishing Saturn from Mars. First of all, Saturn shines in close vicinity to Jupiter, and these two worlds will remain close together on the sky’s dome for the rest of 2020. Find dazzling Jupiter first, and that nearby bright world will be the ringed planet Saturn any time this year. Remember … you need a telescope to see Saturn’s rings.

Now use Jupiter and Saturn as pointers, to find Mars. Look along the approximate path traveled by the sun and moon, in the direction toward the sunrise. Mars will be the next-brightest object along this path. Also, you can distinguish Mars from Saturn by color. Mars glowers red while Saturn appears golden. If you can’t tell the color difference with your eyes alone, try using binoculars.

By the way, there’s a dwarf planet, Pluto, up there, too. Pluto is some 1,000 times too faint to be viewed with the eye alone, however. Pluto and Jupiter are having a triple conjunction in 2020. Read more: Jupiter gives us Pluto in 2020

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Frank Lu in Arlington, Texas caught this image of the 3 planets on May 4, 2020. He wrote: “Constellation Capricornus flanked by Mars on the left and Saturn and Jupiter to the right. Mars is rapidly moving further away.” The planets are bright and can be seen from inside most cities, but you need a relatively dark sky to see Capricornus. If you have one, note that Capricornus looks like an arrowhead. Thanks, Frank!

Right now, our planet Earth is heading around on the inside track in its smaller and faster orbit around the sun, so that the distance between us and the slower-moving planets – Jupiter, Saturn and Mars – is decreasing as we speak. These planets, in turn, are slowly but surely brightening in Earth’s sky day by day.

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are superior planets (planets that orbit the sun outside of Earth’s orbit). Any superior planet is at its brightest in Earth’s sky whenever the Earth swings in between the sun and that superior planet. When that happens, the superior planet is said to be at opposition, because it’s opposite the sun in our sky (rising at sunset, highest up in the sky at midnight and setting at sunrise).

Opposition happens when Earth flies between an outer planet, like Mars, and the sun. This happens yearly for most of the outer planets (except Mars – which reaches opposition every other year). Illustration via Heavens Above.

Opposition is an extra special time to view planets in our sky. Not only is the planet at its brightest for the year for some weeks around then, but it’s up all night long, beaming from dusk until dawn. The brightness change of Jupiter and Saturn will be relatively subtle. On the other hand, the change in the brightness of Mars will be profound and dramatic in 2020. We explain why in this post about Mars and the moon.

Opposition dates in 2020:

Jupiter: July 14, 2020
Saturn: July 20, 2020
Mars: October 13, 2020

Note how closely in time Jupiter and Saturn reach opposition. That’s because, as mentioned above, they are near each other on our sky’s dome. Jupiter and Saturn will remain close companions all year long, and these twin beacons will be out first thing at dusk/nightfall, starting late July 2020.

Now note how much farther away in time Mars’ opposition will be. Mars doesn’t reach opposition until October 2020. That’s because – as a planet whose orbit lies just outside Earth’s orbit around the sun – Mars not only undergoes a dramatic brightness change at opposition, but, also, around the time of its opposition, we see it move rapidly in front of the stars.

Thus, in the coming weeks and months, you can watch as Mars makes a beeline in front of many constellations.

The planets of the solar system to scale by size (but not distance). In their order going outward from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. To know the planetary distances in astronomical units, click on Heavens-Above: Solar system.

Bottom line: Before sunrise these next several mornings – May 11, 12, 13 and 14, 2020 – use the moon to locate the king planet Jupiter, the ringed planet Saturn, and the red planet Mars.

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These next several mornings – May 11, 12, 13 and 14, 2020 – let the waning moon introduce you to three bright morning planets. Jupiter is by far the brightest of the threesome, beaming some seven times more brilliantly than either Saturn or Mars. Jupiter also outshines all the stars. You’ll have no trouble identifying Jupiter. Mars and Saturn are fainter, but – like Jupiter, and like the moon – follow the approximate path of the ecliptic (sun’s path) across our sky. Thus the three planets, and the moon, make a small, graceful arc across our predawn sky. Mars and Saturn are almost equally bright (Mars is a tad brighter), and there are other ways of distinguishing Saturn from Mars. First of all, Saturn shines in close vicinity to Jupiter, and these two worlds will remain close together on the sky’s dome for the rest of 2020. Find dazzling Jupiter first, and that nearby bright world will be the ringed planet Saturn any time this year. Remember … you need a telescope to see Saturn’s rings.

Now use Jupiter and Saturn as pointers, to find Mars. Look along the approximate path traveled by the sun and moon, in the direction toward the sunrise. Mars will be the next-brightest object along this path. Also, you can distinguish Mars from Saturn by color. Mars glowers red while Saturn appears golden. If you can’t tell the color difference with your eyes alone, try using binoculars.

By the way, there’s a dwarf planet, Pluto, up there, too. Pluto is some 1,000 times too faint to be viewed with the eye alone, however. Pluto and Jupiter are having a triple conjunction in 2020. Read more: Jupiter gives us Pluto in 2020

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Frank Lu in Arlington, Texas caught this image of the 3 planets on May 4, 2020. He wrote: “Constellation Capricornus flanked by Mars on the left and Saturn and Jupiter to the right. Mars is rapidly moving further away.” The planets are bright and can be seen from inside most cities, but you need a relatively dark sky to see Capricornus. If you have one, note that Capricornus looks like an arrowhead. Thanks, Frank!

Right now, our planet Earth is heading around on the inside track in its smaller and faster orbit around the sun, so that the distance between us and the slower-moving planets – Jupiter, Saturn and Mars – is decreasing as we speak. These planets, in turn, are slowly but surely brightening in Earth’s sky day by day.

Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are superior planets (planets that orbit the sun outside of Earth’s orbit). Any superior planet is at its brightest in Earth’s sky whenever the Earth swings in between the sun and that superior planet. When that happens, the superior planet is said to be at opposition, because it’s opposite the sun in our sky (rising at sunset, highest up in the sky at midnight and setting at sunrise).

Opposition happens when Earth flies between an outer planet, like Mars, and the sun. This happens yearly for most of the outer planets (except Mars – which reaches opposition every other year). Illustration via Heavens Above.

Opposition is an extra special time to view planets in our sky. Not only is the planet at its brightest for the year for some weeks around then, but it’s up all night long, beaming from dusk until dawn. The brightness change of Jupiter and Saturn will be relatively subtle. On the other hand, the change in the brightness of Mars will be profound and dramatic in 2020. We explain why in this post about Mars and the moon.

Opposition dates in 2020:

Jupiter: July 14, 2020
Saturn: July 20, 2020
Mars: October 13, 2020

Note how closely in time Jupiter and Saturn reach opposition. That’s because, as mentioned above, they are near each other on our sky’s dome. Jupiter and Saturn will remain close companions all year long, and these twin beacons will be out first thing at dusk/nightfall, starting late July 2020.

Now note how much farther away in time Mars’ opposition will be. Mars doesn’t reach opposition until October 2020. That’s because – as a planet whose orbit lies just outside Earth’s orbit around the sun – Mars not only undergoes a dramatic brightness change at opposition, but, also, around the time of its opposition, we see it move rapidly in front of the stars.

Thus, in the coming weeks and months, you can watch as Mars makes a beeline in front of many constellations.

The planets of the solar system to scale by size (but not distance). In their order going outward from the sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. To know the planetary distances in astronomical units, click on Heavens-Above: Solar system.

Bottom line: Before sunrise these next several mornings – May 11, 12, 13 and 14, 2020 – use the moon to locate the king planet Jupiter, the ringed planet Saturn, and the red planet Mars.

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Arc to Arcturus, spike to Spica

Tonight, look outside in the evening and learn a phrase useful to sky watchers. The phrase is: follow the arc to Arcturus, and drive a spike (or speed on) to Spica. You can use this phrase in any year.

First locate the Big Dipper asterism in the northeastern sky. Then draw an imaginary line following the curve in the Dipper’s handle until you come to a bright orange star. This star is Arcturus in the constellation Bootes, known in skylore as the bear guard.

Arcturus is a giant star with an estimated distance of 37 light-years. It’s special because it’s not moving with the general stream of stars, in the flat disk of the Milky Way galaxy. Instead, Arcturus is cutting perpendicularly through the galaxy’s disk at a tremendous rate of speed … some 100 miles (150 km) per second. Millions of years from now this star will be lost from the view of any future inhabitants of Earth, or at least those who are earthbound and looking with the eye alone.

Now drive a spike or, as some say, speed on to Spica in the constellation Virgo.

Spica in the constellation Virgo looks like one star, but this single point of light is really a multiple star system – with two hot stars orbiting very close together – located an estimated distance of 262 light-years away from Earth.

Here’s another way to verify that you’re looking at Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo.

Bottom line: Follow the arc to Arcturus, and drive a spike to Spica.

Big and Little Dippers: Noticeable in northern sky

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Tonight, look outside in the evening and learn a phrase useful to sky watchers. The phrase is: follow the arc to Arcturus, and drive a spike (or speed on) to Spica. You can use this phrase in any year.

First locate the Big Dipper asterism in the northeastern sky. Then draw an imaginary line following the curve in the Dipper’s handle until you come to a bright orange star. This star is Arcturus in the constellation Bootes, known in skylore as the bear guard.

Arcturus is a giant star with an estimated distance of 37 light-years. It’s special because it’s not moving with the general stream of stars, in the flat disk of the Milky Way galaxy. Instead, Arcturus is cutting perpendicularly through the galaxy’s disk at a tremendous rate of speed … some 100 miles (150 km) per second. Millions of years from now this star will be lost from the view of any future inhabitants of Earth, or at least those who are earthbound and looking with the eye alone.

Now drive a spike or, as some say, speed on to Spica in the constellation Virgo.

Spica in the constellation Virgo looks like one star, but this single point of light is really a multiple star system – with two hot stars orbiting very close together – located an estimated distance of 262 light-years away from Earth.

Here’s another way to verify that you’re looking at Spica, the brightest star in the constellation Virgo.

Bottom line: Follow the arc to Arcturus, and drive a spike to Spica.

Big and Little Dippers: Noticeable in northern sky

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EarthSky astronomy kits are perfect for beginners. Order today from the EarthSky store

Donate: Your support means the world to us

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Whoa! Comet ATLAS got brighter this week

Comet ATLAS – the comet that doesn’t want to die – via Terry Lovejoy (@TerryLovejoy66 on Twitter).

Earlier this year, comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) seemed to be brightening steadily. Many hoped it would become bright enough to see with the eye alone. Then suddenly the comet appeared to disintegrate, breaking our hearts. Widely distributed Hubble Space Telescope images showed the comet in multiple pieces. Now there’s news about the comet again. Veteran comet observer Terry Lovejoy reported on Twitter earlier today (May 9, 2020) that he observed the comet brightening over the past several nights:

Just when we thought it was all over for Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) the comet starts to brighten again. Here I document a steady increase in the brightness of the central condensation over 4 nights. Images come courtesy @iTelescope_Net T11 scope at Mayhill, NM. pic.twitter.com/0vd9OKsVoY

— Terry Lovejoy (@TerryLovejoy66) May 9, 2020

That’s all we know so far. It’s likely just a temporary surge. By the way, in case you’re wondering, we trust Terry Lovejoy to provide an accurate report on the comet’s changing brightness. He’s discovered six comets himself and taken countless wonderful images of comets. Thank you, Terry!

As astronomers know … comets are unpredictable. We’ll keep you updated if we hear more.

Bottom line: Images from veteran comet observer Terry Lovejoy show Comet ATLAS brightening from May 5 to May 9, 2020.

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Comet ATLAS – the comet that doesn’t want to die – via Terry Lovejoy (@TerryLovejoy66 on Twitter).

Earlier this year, comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) seemed to be brightening steadily. Many hoped it would become bright enough to see with the eye alone. Then suddenly the comet appeared to disintegrate, breaking our hearts. Widely distributed Hubble Space Telescope images showed the comet in multiple pieces. Now there’s news about the comet again. Veteran comet observer Terry Lovejoy reported on Twitter earlier today (May 9, 2020) that he observed the comet brightening over the past several nights:

Just when we thought it was all over for Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) the comet starts to brighten again. Here I document a steady increase in the brightness of the central condensation over 4 nights. Images come courtesy @iTelescope_Net T11 scope at Mayhill, NM. pic.twitter.com/0vd9OKsVoY

— Terry Lovejoy (@TerryLovejoy66) May 9, 2020

That’s all we know so far. It’s likely just a temporary surge. By the way, in case you’re wondering, we trust Terry Lovejoy to provide an accurate report on the comet’s changing brightness. He’s discovered six comets himself and taken countless wonderful images of comets. Thank you, Terry!

As astronomers know … comets are unpredictable. We’ll keep you updated if we hear more.

Bottom line: Images from veteran comet observer Terry Lovejoy show Comet ATLAS brightening from May 5 to May 9, 2020.

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Lunar Flashlight to seek ice on the moon

Artist’s concept of the Lunar Flashlight searching for ice deposits in deep, shadowed craters near the south pole of the moon. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

NASA is moving forward with its Artemis program, whose goal is to land the first woman and next man at the moon’s south pole by 2024. See this April 2020 report. When humans return to the moon this time, they’ll likely stay longer than their Apollo counterparts in the late 1960s and ’70s; the record stay during the Apollo missions was about 75 hours.

To accomplish future longer stays on the moon, lunar astronauts might utilize some natural resources from the moon itself, in particular water ice said to have been confirmed to exist in 2018, in deeply shadowed craters at the moon’s poles. This ice can be melted and purified for drinking; it can be used for rocket fuel. Enter Lunar Flashlight – a briefcase-sized satellite, also known as a CubeSat – with a projected launch date of 2021 and a specific mission of detecting naturally occurring surface ice in shadowed craters on the moon.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) described the innovative Lunar Flashlight technology on April 27, 2020. A new peer-reviewed paper about it was published in the April 2020 issue of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

What is the Lunar Flashlight and what will it do?

View larger. | Scientists directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the moon’s surface in 2018. The image shows the distribution of surface ice at the moon’s south pole (left) and north pole (right), detected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument. Blue represents the ice locations, plotted over an image of the lunar surface, where the gray scale corresponds to surface temperature (darker representing colder areas and lighter shades indicating warmer zones). The ice is concentrated at the darkest and coldest locations, in the shadows of craters. Image via NASA.

Basically, Lunar Flashlight acts like a spotlight. Lunar Flashlight will scan the surface with a near-infrared laser beam, shining down on the lunar surface to help scientists look for deposits of ice near the lunar south pole. Barbara Cohen, principal investigator of the mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the JPL statement:

Although we have a pretty good idea there’s ice inside the coldest and darkest craters on the moon, previous measurements have been a little bit ambiguous.

Scientifically, that’s fine, but if we’re planning on sending astronauts there to dig up the ice and drink it, we have to be sure it exists.

Mission profile and timeline for Lunar Flashlight. Image via Cohen et al./ IEEE.

Commercial and custom-built components of Lunar Flashlight. Image via Cohen et al./ IEEE.

From the paper:

Lunar Flashlight is a very small satellite [about 5 x 10 x 14 inches, or 12 × 24 × 36 cm], developed and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, that will search for water ice exposures and map their locations in the moon’s south polar region. The Lunar Flashlight mission will demonstrate technologies for NASA such as green propulsion and active laser spectroscopy while proving the capability of performing a planetary science investigation in the CubeSat form factor. Lunar Flashlight was selected in 2014 by the NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) program … Lunar Flashlight will be one of 13 secondary payloads launched on Artemis-1, currently scheduled for 2020.

Water ice deposits have been found by orbiting spacecraft, but Lunar Flashlight would allow the exact locations of deposits to be determined, which could then be mined and used by astronauts staying on the moon for long periods of time. It will also be the first lunar mission to use lasers to find the ice. John Baker, Lunar Flashlight project manager at JPL, said:

A technology demonstration mission like Lunar Flashlight, which is lower cost and fills a specific gap in our knowledge, can help us better prepare for an extended NASA presence on the moon as well as test key technologies that may be used in future missions.

Because the moon is virtually airless, it gets very hot in the sunlight, but extremely cold in the darkness, especially within deep craters that are permanently in shadow at the poles. In those cold places, water ice molecules can accumulate and remain stable on the surface. As Cohen explained:

The sun moves around the crater horizon but never actually shines into the crater. Because these craters are so cold, these molecules never receive enough energy to escape, so they become trapped and accumulate over billions of years.

Artist’s concept of Lunar Flashlight seen from above. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

Such deposits on the moon are of much interest, and necessary, for future astronauts who will want to stay on the moon for long missions, or even eventually stay there permanently in bases. It would be expensive to continually transport water from Earth to the moon, so using the available resources of the already-existing ice deposits makes sense.

Lunar Flashlight will beam its lasers into some of these craters where the ice is either known or suspected to exist. It will do this for at least two months, and will be able to map out where these deposits are with great accuracy.

How does Lunar Flashlight identify ice?

The spacecraft’s four-laser reflectometer, which incorporates spectrophotometry, will use near-infrared wavelengths in the laser beams. Those wavelengths will be absorbed by water ice, but bare rock will simply reflect them back to the spacecraft. If there is a lot of absorption in a crater, that would be evidence for widespread ice deposits. Those findings can then be compared with those from other orbiters that have previously found ice on the moon. Cohen said:

We will also be able to compare the Lunar Flashlight data with the great data that we already have from other moon-orbiting missions to see if there are correlations in signatures of water ice, thereby giving us a global view of surface ice distribution.

Lunar Flashlight will also be the first planetary CubeSat mission to use “green” propulsion, propellant that is less toxic and safer than hydrazine, which is commonly used by most spacecraft.

Barbara Cohen at Goddard Space Flight Center, principal investigator for Lunar Flashlight. Image via NASA/ Science and Exploration Directorate.

While ice on the moon may sound rather unusual, it isn’t really too surprising to scientists. Asteroids and of course comets can also contain water ice. Even Mercury, which is much closer to the sun than the moon, has ice near its poles, found by the MESSENGER spacecraft in 2012.

There are also two other missions on the Artemis-1 launch that will complement Lunar Flashlight; Lunar IceCube and LunaH-Map will make additional measurements, looking for ice and other hydrogen deposits at the lunar south pole and on the near side of the moon. Results from all three missions will be synergistic, simultaneously exploring the nature and distribution of water ice on the moon in advance of human exploration.

Missions like Lunar Flashlight will help NASA astronauts not only continue to explore the moon, but also set the stage for long-term and then permanent human settlement on our nearest neighbor in space.

Bottom line: NASA has designed a new CubeSat spacecraft, the Lunar Flashlight, to search for ice on the moon using laser beams.

Source: Lunar Flashlight: Illuminating the Lunar South Pole

Via JPL

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Artist’s concept of the Lunar Flashlight searching for ice deposits in deep, shadowed craters near the south pole of the moon. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

NASA is moving forward with its Artemis program, whose goal is to land the first woman and next man at the moon’s south pole by 2024. See this April 2020 report. When humans return to the moon this time, they’ll likely stay longer than their Apollo counterparts in the late 1960s and ’70s; the record stay during the Apollo missions was about 75 hours.

To accomplish future longer stays on the moon, lunar astronauts might utilize some natural resources from the moon itself, in particular water ice said to have been confirmed to exist in 2018, in deeply shadowed craters at the moon’s poles. This ice can be melted and purified for drinking; it can be used for rocket fuel. Enter Lunar Flashlight – a briefcase-sized satellite, also known as a CubeSat – with a projected launch date of 2021 and a specific mission of detecting naturally occurring surface ice in shadowed craters on the moon.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) described the innovative Lunar Flashlight technology on April 27, 2020. A new peer-reviewed paper about it was published in the April 2020 issue of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine.

What is the Lunar Flashlight and what will it do?

View larger. | Scientists directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the moon’s surface in 2018. The image shows the distribution of surface ice at the moon’s south pole (left) and north pole (right), detected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument. Blue represents the ice locations, plotted over an image of the lunar surface, where the gray scale corresponds to surface temperature (darker representing colder areas and lighter shades indicating warmer zones). The ice is concentrated at the darkest and coldest locations, in the shadows of craters. Image via NASA.

Basically, Lunar Flashlight acts like a spotlight. Lunar Flashlight will scan the surface with a near-infrared laser beam, shining down on the lunar surface to help scientists look for deposits of ice near the lunar south pole. Barbara Cohen, principal investigator of the mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the JPL statement:

Although we have a pretty good idea there’s ice inside the coldest and darkest craters on the moon, previous measurements have been a little bit ambiguous.

Scientifically, that’s fine, but if we’re planning on sending astronauts there to dig up the ice and drink it, we have to be sure it exists.

Mission profile and timeline for Lunar Flashlight. Image via Cohen et al./ IEEE.

Commercial and custom-built components of Lunar Flashlight. Image via Cohen et al./ IEEE.

From the paper:

Lunar Flashlight is a very small satellite [about 5 x 10 x 14 inches, or 12 × 24 × 36 cm], developed and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, that will search for water ice exposures and map their locations in the moon’s south polar region. The Lunar Flashlight mission will demonstrate technologies for NASA such as green propulsion and active laser spectroscopy while proving the capability of performing a planetary science investigation in the CubeSat form factor. Lunar Flashlight was selected in 2014 by the NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) program … Lunar Flashlight will be one of 13 secondary payloads launched on Artemis-1, currently scheduled for 2020.

Water ice deposits have been found by orbiting spacecraft, but Lunar Flashlight would allow the exact locations of deposits to be determined, which could then be mined and used by astronauts staying on the moon for long periods of time. It will also be the first lunar mission to use lasers to find the ice. John Baker, Lunar Flashlight project manager at JPL, said:

A technology demonstration mission like Lunar Flashlight, which is lower cost and fills a specific gap in our knowledge, can help us better prepare for an extended NASA presence on the moon as well as test key technologies that may be used in future missions.

Because the moon is virtually airless, it gets very hot in the sunlight, but extremely cold in the darkness, especially within deep craters that are permanently in shadow at the poles. In those cold places, water ice molecules can accumulate and remain stable on the surface. As Cohen explained:

The sun moves around the crater horizon but never actually shines into the crater. Because these craters are so cold, these molecules never receive enough energy to escape, so they become trapped and accumulate over billions of years.

Artist’s concept of Lunar Flashlight seen from above. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech.

Such deposits on the moon are of much interest, and necessary, for future astronauts who will want to stay on the moon for long missions, or even eventually stay there permanently in bases. It would be expensive to continually transport water from Earth to the moon, so using the available resources of the already-existing ice deposits makes sense.

Lunar Flashlight will beam its lasers into some of these craters where the ice is either known or suspected to exist. It will do this for at least two months, and will be able to map out where these deposits are with great accuracy.

How does Lunar Flashlight identify ice?

The spacecraft’s four-laser reflectometer, which incorporates spectrophotometry, will use near-infrared wavelengths in the laser beams. Those wavelengths will be absorbed by water ice, but bare rock will simply reflect them back to the spacecraft. If there is a lot of absorption in a crater, that would be evidence for widespread ice deposits. Those findings can then be compared with those from other orbiters that have previously found ice on the moon. Cohen said:

We will also be able to compare the Lunar Flashlight data with the great data that we already have from other moon-orbiting missions to see if there are correlations in signatures of water ice, thereby giving us a global view of surface ice distribution.

Lunar Flashlight will also be the first planetary CubeSat mission to use “green” propulsion, propellant that is less toxic and safer than hydrazine, which is commonly used by most spacecraft.

Barbara Cohen at Goddard Space Flight Center, principal investigator for Lunar Flashlight. Image via NASA/ Science and Exploration Directorate.

While ice on the moon may sound rather unusual, it isn’t really too surprising to scientists. Asteroids and of course comets can also contain water ice. Even Mercury, which is much closer to the sun than the moon, has ice near its poles, found by the MESSENGER spacecraft in 2012.

There are also two other missions on the Artemis-1 launch that will complement Lunar Flashlight; Lunar IceCube and LunaH-Map will make additional measurements, looking for ice and other hydrogen deposits at the lunar south pole and on the near side of the moon. Results from all three missions will be synergistic, simultaneously exploring the nature and distribution of water ice on the moon in advance of human exploration.

Missions like Lunar Flashlight will help NASA astronauts not only continue to explore the moon, but also set the stage for long-term and then permanent human settlement on our nearest neighbor in space.

Bottom line: NASA has designed a new CubeSat spacecraft, the Lunar Flashlight, to search for ice on the moon using laser beams.

Source: Lunar Flashlight: Illuminating the Lunar South Pole

Via JPL

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This weekend, watch for a morning moon

Image at top via Buddy Puckhaper of Charleston, South Carolina.

Full moon was May 7, 2020, and by May 8 the moon is in a waning gibbous phase, rising later and later at night. For the mainland United States, the May 8 moon rises in the southeast nearly two hours after sunset. The days following full moon present the perfect time to catch a daytime moon over your western horizon after sunrise. Watch for it!

If you’re a night owl, you might see the moon and the bright star Antares before your bedtime on May 8 and 9, 2020.

View the moon in your eastern sky late in the evening this weekend, perhaps before going to bed. It’ll be ascending in the east later and later each evening. Then look for it low in your western sky right after sunrise. Day by day, the lighted portion of the waning gibbous moon will shrink. The half-lit last quarter moon will come on May 14, 2020.

The moon is up in the daytime much of the time. But, because it’s pale against the blue sky, it’s not as noticeable during the day as at night. However, there are certain times of the month when the daytime moon is more noticeable, and this weekend presents one of those times.

You’ll often miss the moon during the day because it’s so pale against the blue daytime sky. Look closely this weekend, especially in the hours after sunrise. Look west! You’ll see it. Our friend Jenney Disimon in Sabah, North Borneo, caught this daytime moon on January 4, 2018.

Why is the daytime moon most noticeable now? The moon is up during the day half the time. It must be, since it orbits around the whole Earth once a month. A crescent moon is hard to see, though, because it’s so near the sun in the sky. At the vicinity of last quarter moon about a week from now, you might have to crane your neck, looking up, to notice it after sunrise.

This weekend’s moon is noticeable simply because the moon is still showing us most of its lighted face; it appears large in our sky. Also, in the hours after sunrise, the moon is fairly near the western horizon, so people out and about early this weekend might catch sight of it.

At mid-northern latitudes in North America, the moon will set nearly two hours after sunrise on August 17. It’ll set roughly one hour later after sunrise each day thereafter.

These recommended almanacs can help you find the moon’s setting time in your sky

Daytime moon seen on December 18, 2010. Image by Brian Pate. Used with permission.

Bottom line: The moon is now in a waning gibbous phase. Beginning Friday or Saturday morning – May 8 or 9, 2020 – shortly after sunrise, you’ll see it floating pale and beautiful against a blue sky. Look west!

Donate: Your support means the world to us

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2YPWZcR

Image at top via Buddy Puckhaper of Charleston, South Carolina.

Full moon was May 7, 2020, and by May 8 the moon is in a waning gibbous phase, rising later and later at night. For the mainland United States, the May 8 moon rises in the southeast nearly two hours after sunset. The days following full moon present the perfect time to catch a daytime moon over your western horizon after sunrise. Watch for it!

If you’re a night owl, you might see the moon and the bright star Antares before your bedtime on May 8 and 9, 2020.

View the moon in your eastern sky late in the evening this weekend, perhaps before going to bed. It’ll be ascending in the east later and later each evening. Then look for it low in your western sky right after sunrise. Day by day, the lighted portion of the waning gibbous moon will shrink. The half-lit last quarter moon will come on May 14, 2020.

The moon is up in the daytime much of the time. But, because it’s pale against the blue sky, it’s not as noticeable during the day as at night. However, there are certain times of the month when the daytime moon is more noticeable, and this weekend presents one of those times.

You’ll often miss the moon during the day because it’s so pale against the blue daytime sky. Look closely this weekend, especially in the hours after sunrise. Look west! You’ll see it. Our friend Jenney Disimon in Sabah, North Borneo, caught this daytime moon on January 4, 2018.

Why is the daytime moon most noticeable now? The moon is up during the day half the time. It must be, since it orbits around the whole Earth once a month. A crescent moon is hard to see, though, because it’s so near the sun in the sky. At the vicinity of last quarter moon about a week from now, you might have to crane your neck, looking up, to notice it after sunrise.

This weekend’s moon is noticeable simply because the moon is still showing us most of its lighted face; it appears large in our sky. Also, in the hours after sunrise, the moon is fairly near the western horizon, so people out and about early this weekend might catch sight of it.

At mid-northern latitudes in North America, the moon will set nearly two hours after sunrise on August 17. It’ll set roughly one hour later after sunrise each day thereafter.

These recommended almanacs can help you find the moon’s setting time in your sky

Daytime moon seen on December 18, 2010. Image by Brian Pate. Used with permission.

Bottom line: The moon is now in a waning gibbous phase. Beginning Friday or Saturday morning – May 8 or 9, 2020 – shortly after sunrise, you’ll see it floating pale and beautiful against a blue sky. Look west!

Donate: Your support means the world to us

from EarthSky https://ift.tt/2YPWZcR