Latest news with #Didymos
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
US Representatives worry Trump's NASA budget plan will make it harder to track dangerous asteroids
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. On Thursday (May 15), the U.S. House Committee on Space, Science and Technology convened with scientists to discuss a rather exciting topic: What can NASA do if we identify a dangerous asteroid on a collision course with Earth? It was an especially prudent subject given all the recent fuss about asteroid 2024 YR4, which had a notable chance of hitting our planet before scientists refined its position and deemed it harmless. Most of Thursday's conversation surrounded the agency's highly anticipated Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, which should greatly improve hazardous asteroid detection capabilities as a whole. However, there were also many efforts to address the elephant in the room: the Trump administration's recently announced intention to slash NASA's top-line funding by 24% for the upcoming fiscal year. The proposed cut to the agency's science programs — which includes its planetary defense work — is even deeper, at 47%. Outlined in the White House's "skinny budget proposal," as it's called, the top-line reduction would be the "largest single-year cut to NASA in American history." "If enacted, the Trump administration's skinny budget proposal risks putting NASA on a path to irrelevance," Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-North Carolina) said during the hearing. "It threatens our economic and national security, surrenders U.S. leadership and space to our adversaries, and jeopardizes our competitiveness and standing on the world stage. That's a strategic posture I simply cannot accept." The NEO Surveyor mission is the first space telescope that'll be dedicated to locating asteroids that could threaten Earth, NASA says. It's the agency's next big step in upping the nation's planetary defense game, which was really brought to the forefront for the public in 2022 with the DART mission. DART, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, sent a spacecraft to smash into an asteroid called Dimorpohos. Dimorphos orbits a larger asteroid, called Didymos. Neither threatened us, to be clear, as this was just a proof-of-concept mission. The goal was to see whether this impact would adjust Dimorphos' trajectory around Didymos; if so, it would suggest that a spacecraft can one day be sent to an actually threatening asteroid to knock it off a potential collision course with Earth. DART worked beautifully, but it could use a little help. NEO Surveyor is more of a prophylactic measure for planetary defense. It'll be the thing that spots the asteroid we may want to smash a future DART craft into. "We do not know of any sizable object that has a significant risk of impacting Earth in the next 100 years — however, there are a lot more to be found," Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said during the hearing. "The mission will improve NASA's ability to discover and then define the sizes and the orbits of the NEOs to understand the hazard they actually pose to us," she added. "Finding those potentially hazardous asteroids remains a top priority for NASA's planetary defense program." One of the most promising aspects of NEO Surveyor is the fact that it'll be able to pinpoint NEOs by way of infrared detection. Infrared wavelengths aren't visible to human eyes and most human technology; they're usually thought of as heat signatures. Firefighters, for instance, can use infrared wavelengths to understand fire distribution in a burning building. This detection strategy should yield a higher target hit rate when compared to traditional methods, which are usually based on whether sunlight reflects off an NEO. In fact, an issue with relying purely on sunlight for NEO hunting was illustrated with the Chelyabinsk asteroid that exploded over Russia in 2013, which damaged many buildings and injured over 1,000 people. "The blast released energy equivalent to about 440 kilotons of TNT, more than 30 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, shattering windows, injuring thousands and causing millions of dollars in property damage in Russia. Because the asteroid approached from the direction of the sun, it was undetectable by ground-based telescopes and went untracked," Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas), who currently serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Space, Science and Technology, said during the hearing. Though NEO Surveyor still won't be able to detect a possibly hazardous asteroid coming straight from the direction of the sun, it'll enable observations of NEOs super-close to our star, Fox said. "It'll help us find the objects, including the dark fraction of the population, which we think is sort of roughly 35 to 40% or so of the population," Amy Mainzer, principal investigator for the NEO Surveyor mission and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said during the hearing. "It will also help us measure the sizes, because we can quickly convert the infrared fluxes into a diameter as soon as we get an orbit from the Minor Planet Center … That's such an important component to the impact energy." "We track the orbits of all 38,000 currently known NEOs, including the more than two and a half thousand potentially hazardous ones, and an impact by any one of those would be devastating," Matthew Payne, director of the Minor Planet Center, said during the hearing. Fox said that NEO Surveyor should be ready to launch by 2028, perhaps sooner, but that is of course assuming the mission gets the funding it needs. "Passback documents" — a sort of preview of the White House's 2026 budget request— suggested that the proposed cuts could lead to the closure of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. The prospect of shutting down such a key agency research facility worries scientists, and it came up during the hearing. Fox was asked, theoretically, what would happen if NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, which plays a vital role in planetary defense, were to be shut down. "If [NASA Ames] were no longer able to do the the the assessment, what we would lose is really the ability to give our sort of early expert advice to [the Federal Emergency Management Agency], which is then responsible for deciding where the perimeter is and what the response is to protect as much human life as possible," Fox said. Payne said that, at present, the Minor Planet Center hasn't been affected by the proposed cuts; Mainzer said she's uncertain how the cuts might affect NEO Surveyor's operations. She also emphasized how expensive it can be to train scientists like herself to lead such an important mission. "We really do have to have the investment and the time that it takes to learn the science, to be able to do it well," Mainzer said. Fox echoed the uncertainty, responding to nearly all questions concerning Trump's skinny budget with the answer that she needs to see the finalized budget before coming to conclusions. "We await the full president's budget so we can see the priorities in the direction on which missions may be supported or not supported," she said. "It's clear that planetary defense leverages many of our federal [science and technology] agencies. Now, whether that federal agency continues — whether that expertise continues — I think, is now in question," Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) said during the hearing. Other Trump-instigated orders, like widespread layoffs of probationary employees and deferred resignation programs, are creating a "brain drain," she added. Recent executive orders, for instance, have seen the rapid federal layoffs of over 800 workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who monitor natural disasters such as hurricanes and forecast daily weather patterns. The deferred resignation program is a sort of roundabout way of laying off employees, offering them payment through a certain month if they leave of their own accord. "A very reasonable question is whether NASA should, in fact, be spending more money on asteroid monitoring and defense given the catastrophic risk to our country and civilization," Rep. George Whitesides (D-California), who used to work at NASA in a leadership position, said during the hearing. "As several members have mentioned already, our leadership in this area, like so many areas of space and Earth science, are under threat now from the proposed cuts to NASA's budget, as well as the budgets of other science agencies." "We're talking about impacts that can actually wipe out an entire region, lay waste to a country or devastate the planet. And, you know, this is something that we can do something about. Actually, this is a natural disaster that is 100% preventable if we do our homework," Payne said. Related Stories: — Reshaping our return to the moon: Trump's 2026 budget gives Artemis a major facelift — Trump's 2026 budget plan would cancel NASA's Mars Sample Return mission. Experts say that's a 'major step back' — Trump administration cancels lease for NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies lab in New York City Of note, Rep. Foushee asked both Payne and Mainzer how much NEO tracking could improve if artificial intelligence could be implemented in the workflow. Both agreed that training systems with AI would lead to more accurate and more rapid results, but when Foushee inquired how much funding would be necessary to realistically perform such AI implementation, the question was deferred to Fox. "Adequate funding is certainly a major thing," Fox said. Exactly how our planetary defense strategies may be affected hinges on the details of Trump's budget, which have not yet been released. (And Congress still has to enact a budget, which remains a proposal until that happens.) If the White House indeed cuts back on funding for these efforts, Fox said NASA may be able to rely on global partners for hazardous NEO tracking. "If we can't all unite on a large chunk hurtling towards the planet, what are we going to unite on?" Fox said.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Tiniest Mars moon Deimos spotted by Europe's asteroid-chasing spacecraft
Europe's Hera spacecraft flew by Mars this week on its way to catch up with an asteroid and tested out its cameras on the Red Planet's tiniest moon. The European Space Agency's Hera mission was launched in October 2024 to check the homework of Nasa's DART mission. In 2022, DART intentionally smashed into an asteroid named Dimorphos during a planetary defense test. According to NASA, DART's impact changed Dimorphos' orbit around its parent asteroid, Didymos, by 32 minutes. On Wednesday, during a Mars gravity assist, Hera used its trio of instruments to hone in on Mars and one of its small moons – the first object photographed by its cameras beyond Earth. The ESA said Hera took the photographs of Deimos from just 620 miles away, capturing the less-visible side of the tidally-locked moon. Deimos measures just over 7 miles across. Scientists believe Deimos could be a leftover chunk from Mars or a gravitationally captured asteroid, according to the ESA. 'Loss Of Signal:' Nasa Successfully Crashes Dart Spacecraft Into Asteroid For Planetary Defense Test "These instruments have been tried out before, during Hera's departure from Earth, but this is the first time that we have employed them on a small distant moon for which we still lack knowledge – demonstrating their excellent performance in the process," ESA's Hera mission scientist Michael Kueppers said in an ESA blog. However, Hera's target of study is much smaller than the little 7-mile moon of Mars. The binary asteroid pair is measured in feet instead of miles. The spacecraft will visit the asteroid Didymos, which is about 2,500 feet across, and its moonlit Dimorphos, which is about 500 feet across. The Mars flyby set up Hera for a follow-up maneuver in February 2026 and then a December 2026 arrival at article source: Tiniest Mars moon Deimos spotted by Europe's asteroid-chasing spacecraft
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Tiny Mars moon Deimos gets a rare close-up, thanks to Europe's Hera asteroid probe (photos)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Europe's Hera mission, on its way to the Didymos–Dimorphos double asteroid system, has performed a close flyby of Mars, receiving a crucial gravitational slingshot, testing some of its instruments, and gaining new images of Mars' little-seen moon Deimos, which could answer questions about the origin of the Red Planet's moons. The flyby took place on Wednesday (March 12), and the European Space Agency presented the images during a webcast today. The images presented show Deimos set against a backdrop of the Red Planet below it as Hera flew within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) of Mars and just 621 miles (1,000 kilometers) of Deimos. "Last night was a very short night, I think we slept about 3 hours," said Hera Project Manager Ian Carnelli, of the European Space Agency during the ESA webcast. "But as we flew by Mars this gave us more than a thousand images that are absolutely breathtaking." Mars has two moons, named Phobos and Deimos, but because Phobos is closer to Mars, it has been previously imaged by other spacecraft. "For Deimos, we don't have as many images as Phobos, so all opportunities to see Deimos are high value," said Hera's Principal Investigator, Patrick Michel of the University Côte d'Azur in Nice, France. What was also different about this flyby was that the side of Deimos that was imaged. Deimos is tidally locked to Mars, meaning that like Earth's moon, it continually shows the same face to the Red Planet. Most previous images of the small, 7.7-mile-wide (12.4 kilometers) Deimos have shown Mars-facing side. Before now, only the United Arab Emirates' Hope mission, which arrived at Mars in 2021, had seen the side of Deimos that faces out into space. Julia de León, of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, who leads Hera's Hyperscout-H multispectral imager, which observes light from celestial objects through 25 filters extending from visible wavelengths into the near-infrared, says these images can reveal the chemical composition of the moon. "It's the first images of this face [of Deimos] obtained at these wavelengths," said de León. With Hyperscout-H, it means that "we can retrieve information about the potential minerals on the surface of Deimos." Understanding the composition and make-up of Deimos is important, because we don't understand the origins of either of Mars' moons. Both Phobos and Deimos look like asteroids, being lumpy, cratered and small. Therefore, one hypothesis is that they are captured carbon-rich, or C-type, asteroids. However, captured bodies usually end up in eccentric, inclined and often retrograde orbits, whereas Phobos and Deimos orbit Mars in the red planet's equatorial plane and in prograde fashion. So an alternative hypothesis is that they formed out of debris that ended up in orbit around Mars following a huge impact on the Martian surface. Then there's a more recent, third possibility, which is that they could be the remains of a larger asteroid that was torn apart. Identifying the materials from which Phobos and Deimos are made will offer clues as to how they formed. For example, the presence of basalt would imply their materials came from the surface of Mars, where there has been extensive volcanism in the past. Another instrument on Hera that could reveal clues about Deimos' birth is its Thermal Infrared Imager. Developed for the mission by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), its purpose is the mapping of temperatures on the surfaces of celestial bodies such as Mars, Deimos, or Didymos and Dimorphos. "The purpose of these temperature measurements is to find out the compaction state of the material; is it really fluffy, fine-grained stuff, or is it dense, coarse material?" said JAXA's Seiji Sujita, of the University of Tokyo, during the webcast. "When we analyze the data in the coming days and weeks, we will probably be able to tell the difference between the grain sizes, and that's probably going to tell us something about the origin of Deimos." Of course, Mars is not the end goal of Hera. Its primary mission is to visit the binary asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos, the latter of which was struck in 2022 by NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft, which collided with Dimorphos and altered the smaller asteroid's orbit around Didymos in an experiment to test whether we could nudge aside an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Hera is heading there to study the crater made by the DART impact, and to learn more about the properties of both asteroids. Having launched in October 2024 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Hera is intended to reach Didymos and Dimorphos by the end of 2026. To get there faster and using as little propellant as possible, Hera has flown to Mars for a gravitational slingshot. "Mars was at exactly the right spot for us to get to Didymos and save propellant," said Carnelli. "So we literally used the gravity of Mars to pull us and then throw us deeper into space by harvesting a bit of the planet's energy." But to fly past Mars in such a way that Hera got to see Deimos too required some gentle persuasion of ESA's Flight Dynamics team. "I really appreciate the team because the main objective of this fly-by was to put Hera on the correct trajectory with Didymos in 2026, but we asked if they could make a flyby of Deimos and they accepted, but it was a challenge because they had to change Hera's trajectory to do so." RELATED STORIES: — Hera probe snaps its 1st images of Earth and moon on way to asteroid crash site — SpaceX rocket launches Europe's Hera planetary defense probe to visit asteroid smacked by NASA — Hera asteroid probe 'waves goodbye' at Earth and moon from 2.3 million miles away (image) The next step, besides analyzing the data collected from Mars and Deimos, is preparing for rendezvous with Didymos and Dimorphos. This is the job of Hera's operations team, who will initiate the 'asteroid proximity operation' "That's going to be a real challenge — just imagine flying through an environment that's so dynamic," said Carnelli. Hera will enter into the double asteroid system and orbit Didymos, but it has to deal with not only Didymos's gravity but also neighbouring Dimorphos, which has an average distance from Didymos of just 3,780 feet (1,152 meters), and the constant motion of Dimorphos around Didymos. "I dream of flying between the two asteroids and being very close [to them] and doing things we never imagined before," said Carnelli. "We're really writing a page of space history here."
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Unprecedented images of mysterious Mars moon captured by space probe
A space probe flying past Mars captured images of the red planet's small, mysterious moon. The space probe, named Hera, was launched on Oct. 7, 2024, and is on a mission to gather close-up data about the Dimorphos asteroid, the European Space Agency said in a news release. The asteroid was the first to have its orbit altered by human action, when it was impacted by NASA's DART spacecraft in 2022. The goal of Hera is to learn more about asteroid deflection so the technique can be refined and used again. While on a flyby of Mars, Hera was able to use three of its imaging instruments to capture images of Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons, the ESA said. Deimos is about 15,000 miles from Mars. Scientists have previously speculated that it may actually be a piece of asteroid, not a moon. Hera got as close as 1,000 kilometers, or about 620 miles, to Deimos. It used its various instruments to capture the images, characterize the mineral makeup on the moon and chart surface temperatures. These features combined will help scientists learn more about the lunar body, the ESA said. "These instruments have been tried out before, during Hera's departure from Earth, but this is the first time that we have employed them on a small distant moon for which we still lack knowledge – demonstrating their excellent performance in the process," ESA Hera mission scientist Michael Kueppers said in the news release. The ESA's Mars Express, which has been orbiting the red planet for over 20 years, also contributed observations of the moon. Results from the encounter should help guide operational planning for a mission set to explore Martian moons in 2026, the ESA said. That mission, in conjunction with NASA and French and German space agencies, will collect detailed measurements of Mars' two moons and land on Phobos, the larger lunar body, to collect a sample that can be returned to Earth for analysis. Hera also used the flyby of Mars to adjust its trajectory through deep space. That maneuver shortened Hera's travel time to Dimorphos, the ESA said. Hera will also collect information about Didymos, the asteroid that Dimorphos orbits around. Hera is expected to reach the Didymos in December 2026, the ESA said. "This has been the Hera team's first exciting experience of exploration, but not our last," said Hera mission manager Ian Carnelli in the news release. "In 21 months the spacecraft will reach our target asteroids, and start our crash site investigation of the only object in our Solar System to have had its orbit measurably altered by human action." Trump reacts to European Union slapping tariffs on U.S. goods Kentucky bourbon maker says Trump tariffs immediately impacted his business Latest on missing American college student in the Dominican Republic
CBS News
13-03-2025
- Science
- CBS News
Mysterious Mars moon captured in unprecedented images by space probe
A space probe flying past Mars captured images of the red planet's small, mysterious moon. The space probe, named Hera, was launched on Oct. 7, 2024, and is on a mission to gather close-up data about the Dimorphos asteroid, the European Space Agency said in a news release. The asteroid was the first to have its orbit altered by human action, when it was impacted by NASA's DART spacecraft in 2022. The goal of Hera is to learn more about asteroid deflection so the technique can be refined and used again. While on a flyby of Mars, Hera was able to use three of its imaging instruments to capture images of Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons, the ESA said. Deimos is about 15,000 miles from Mars. Scientists have previously speculated that it may actually be a piece of asteroid, not a moon. Hera got as close as 1,000 kilometers, or about 620 miles, to Deimos. It used its various instruments to capture the images, characterize the mineral makeup on the moon and chart surface temperatures. These features combined will help scientists learn more about the lunar body, the ESA said. "These instruments have been tried out before, during Hera's departure from Earth, but this is the first time that we have employed them on a small distant moon for which we still lack knowledge – demonstrating their excellent performance in the process," ESA Hera mission scientist Michael Kueppers said in the news release. The ESA's Mars Express, which has been orbiting the red planet for over 20 years, also contributed observations of the moon. Results from the encounter should help guide operational planning for a mission set to explore Martian moons in 2026, the ESA said. That mission, in conjunction with NASA and French and German space agencies, will collect detailed measurements of Mars' two moons and land on Phobos, the larger lunar body, to collect a sample that can be returned to Earth for analysis. Hera also used the flyby of Mars to adjust its trajectory through deep space. That maneuver shortened Hera's travel time to Dimorphos, the ESA said. Hera will also collect information about Didymos, the asteroid that Dimorphos orbits around. Hera is expected to reach the Didymos in December 2026, the ESA said. "This has been the Hera team's first exciting experience of exploration, but not our last," said Hera mission manager Ian Carnelli in the news release. "In 21 months the spacecraft will reach our target asteroids, and start our crash site investigation of the only object in our Solar System to have had its orbit measurably altered by human action."
