Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences

�� grad Erin Macdonald makes it so

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 22:18:50 +0000

�� grad Erin Macdonald makes it so Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/15/2025 - 16:18

Bradley Worrell

The 2009 math and astrophysics double major has successfully transformed herself from a scientist to an educator to a storyteller sailing with the enterprise known as Star Trek

As she worked toward completing her bachelor’s degrees in astrophysics and mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder in the late 2000s, Erin Macdonald often enjoyed watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with her college friends. Today, she is a science advisor for the entire Star Trek franchise.

“I don’t think I could have ever conceived it, that being able to work in television and movies was a real thing that people could actually do,” Macdonald says in retrospect. “And if you told me that I would see my name in TV credits—not to mention in the Star Trek font with the Star Trek theme playing—it’s almost unbelievable.”

It’s been a remarkable journey from academia to Hollywood, Macdonald acknowledges. Still, she is quick to add that in a multiverse of possibilities, the outcome was never assured, and it did not happen at warp speed.

�� Boulder alumnus Erin Macdonald, who double majored in mathematics and astrophysics, is a science advisor for the Star Trek franchise and author of Star Trek: My First Book of Space. (Photo: Bradley Worrell)

Raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, Macdonald did not grow up watching Star Trek. However, she was deeply motivated to study science after being inspired by the protagonist astronomer Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, as well as by fictional FBI agent and medical doctor Dana Scully in the popular TV show The X-Files.

“I watched The X-Files growing up, and Dana Scully for me was just the coolest woman who ever existed. That really sparked an excitement to be a scientist,” she says. “And then when Contact came out, watching Dr. Ellie Arroway use a telescope to find aliens, and seeing her legitimately work as an astronomer was the first time I ever saw that as a career.”

Still, there were some obstacles to overcome, Macdonald says, including the fact that math did not come naturally to her.

“In high school, I had friends who were taking classes that seemed to get it. And for me, I felt like I was trudging through mud trying to understand things—but knowing that I had to get through the math,” she says. Finally, when taking a Calculus 3 course at �� Boulder, she says she experienced a breakthrough when she came to understand how math worked with physics, and then “everything just clicked.” It prompted her to immediately declare a double major in mathematics and astrophysics.

Gaining another role model

It also was in college that Macdonald was first exposed to Star Trek through a tightknit group of fellow students who were big fans of the TV shows.

“In the Venn diagram of physics majors and Star Trek fans, there is a big intersection,” she says with a laugh. “I was in my early 20s and (fictional) Voyager Captain Catherine Janeway became my new Scully. She was someone who had gone from being a science officer to a captain. At that point, I knew I wanted to get my PhD, but I didn’t necessarily want to be a researcher as a career. So, Janeway was a role model, how she was a leader and a problem-solver and a mentor. It was something I aspired to.”

After graduating from �� Boulder in May 2009, Macdonald enrolled at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where she earned her PhD in astrophysics in 2012. Normally, a master’s degree would be the next educational step after obtaining an undergraduate degree, but Macdonald credits the quality of the education she received at �� Boulder—and particularly the research opportunity and mentorship of astrophysics and planetary sciences Professor Jeremy Darling—with allowing her to immediately advance to working toward a doctorate.

After obtaining her PhD, Macdonald spent two years doing post-doctoral research at Cardiff University in Wales, United Kingdom. She later moved back to Colorado, where she worked as an adjunct professor in the community college system and as an educator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for about a year, then transitioned to work as an aerospace engineer for a contractor based in the Denver area.

“In the Venn diagram of physics majors and Star Trek fans, there is a big intersection,” says �� Boulder alumnus Erin Macdonald. (Photo: Bradley Worrell)

It was during her time working for the contractor, and while attending pop culture conventions for fun, that Macdonald hit upon the idea that she could combine her deep knowledge of astrophysics with her love of science fiction to give talks on the science of science fiction TV shows, movies and videogames at fan conventions.

“After a while in the private sector, I found I really missed teaching. I was already going to conventions, so I proposed giving talks,” she says, adding that event organizers were receptive to the idea. “For topics, a popular one is physics and Star Trek. I’d say, ‘I did my PhD in gravitational physics, so let me explain how (theoretically) warp drives work, because I actually know the science of how warp drives work.’”

To boldly go …

In 2017, Macdonald moved to the Los Angeles area, where she continued to work in the aerospace industry while also giving science/science fiction talks at fan conventions, or as she describes herself in that time: “rocket scientist by day, warp engineering expert by evening.” It was during that period that she began meeting actors and writers at fan events, which ultimately led to industry connections with executives at CBS, the producer of all things Star Trek.

Macdonald was initially hired to give talks at CBS-sponsored events, including Star Trek Cruises. That led to an introduction with the co-executive producer of Star Trek Discovery, who asked Macdonald to serve as a science advisor for the show as season 3 began production.

“I believe I did a good job on that season, so I think the executives saw value in hiring a science advisor to be available to all of their shows to maintain consistency across the franchise, to understand all of the made-up technologies that we have in Star Trek and to be able to communicate that to the writers as well,” she says. “That’s been going on since 2019, so almost five years now.”

Meanwhile, Macdonald has written four screenplays, and she has done voice acting for Star Trek Prodigy, an animated Star Trek show, during which she had the opportunity to work with Kate Mulgrew, the actress who played Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager.

“When I started working on Star Trek Prodigy, they were bringing Captain Janeway back as a teacher for young kids. I was going to help write some of her lines, and that was when I had this huge epiphany of—I’m not meant to become Captain Janeway; I’m meant to write Captain Janeway and create characters that inspire kids to become scientists,”

“When I started working on Star Trek Prodigy, they were bringing Captain Janeway back as a teacher for young kids. I was going to help write some of her lines, and that was when I had this huge epiphany of—I’m not meant to become Captain Janeway; I’m meant to write Captain Janeway and create characters that inspire kids to become scientists,” she says. “And so now, I find that storytelling lets me sort of inspire and motivate the next generation of STEM professionals, and that’s what I want to do as a career.”

Macdonald has found her voice as a storyteller in several different ways. In 2022, she published Star Trek: My First Book of Space, an illustrate children’s board book that uses Star Trek to talk about science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM), and she wrote and narrated the Audible Original “The Science of Sci-Fi” in collaboration with The Great Courses.

Additionally, in 2021, McDonald created Spacetime Productions, a film development and production company devoted to giving representation to traditionally marginalized voices, including those in the LGBTQIA+ community. The company has produced two short films including Identiteaze, released on the streaming service Nebula earlier this summer.

Reflecting on her journey from scientist to educator to storyteller, Macdonald says her success is the result of recognizing good opportunities, trusting her instincts, perseverance and, most importantly, putting in the time and work to achieve her goals.

“You know, I didn’t quit my PhD and move to LA with no plan. I took those important steps in between,” she says. “And it took me until well into my 30s for me to realize what I wanted, to be a storyteller and create those Dana Scullys and Captain Janeways, as opposed to becoming one of those characters. And that’s OK. All of those steps along the way helped inform the work I do now.”

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The 2009 math and astrophysics double major has successfully transformed herself from a scientist to an educator to a storyteller sailing with the enterprise known as 'Star Trek.'

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It hits Earth like a bolt of lightning

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 22:48:36 +0000

It hits Earth like a bolt of lightning Rachel Sauer Mon, 02/10/2025 - 15:48

Lauren Blum

Lightning strikes link weather on Earth and weather in space

There are trillions of charged particles—protons and electrons, the basic building blocks of matter—whizzing around above your head at any given time. These high-energy particles, which can travel at close to the speed of light, typically remain thousands of kilometers away from Earth, trapped there by the shape of Earth’s magnetic field.

Occasionally, though, an event happens that can jostle them out of place, sending electrons raining down into Earth’s atmosphere. These high-energy particles in space make up what are known as the Van Allen radiation belts, and their discovery was one of the first of the space age. A new study from my research team has found that electromagnetic waves generated by lightning can trigger these electron showers.

A brief history lesson

At the start of the space race in the 1950s, professor James Van Allen and his research team at the University of Iowa were tasked with building an experiment to fly on the United States’ very first satellite, Explorer 1. They designed sensors to study cosmic radiation, which is caused by high-energy particles originating from the Sun, the Milky Way galaxy, or beyond.

�� Boulder scientist Lauren Blum and her research team has found that electromagnetic waves generated by lightning can trigger electron showers in Earth's atmosphere.

After Explorer 1 launched, though, they noticed that their instrument was detecting significantly higher levels of radiation than expected. Rather than measuring a distant source of radiation beyond our solar system, they appeared to be measuring a local and extremely intense source.

This measurement led to the discovery of the Van Allen radiation belts, two doughnut-shaped regions of high-energy electrons and ions encircling the planet.

Scientists believe that the inner radiation belt, peaking about 621 miles (1000 kilometers) from Earth, is composed of electrons and high-energy protons and is relatively stable over time.

The outer radiation belt, about three times farther away, is made up of high-energy electrons. This belt can be highly dynamic. Its location, density and energy content may vary significantly by the hour in response to solar activity.

The discovery of these high-radiation regions is not only an interesting story about the early days of the space race; it also serves as a reminder that many scientific discoveries have come about by happy accident.

It is a lesson for experimental scientists, myself included, to keep an open mind when analyzing and evaluating data. If the data doesn’t match our theories or expectations, those theories may need to be revisited.

Our curious observations

While I teach the history of the space race in a space policy course at the University of Colorado, Boulder, I rarely connect it to my own experience as a scientist researching Earth’s radiation belts. Or, at least, I didn’t until recently.

In a study led by Max Feinland, an undergraduate student in my research group, we stumbled upon some of our own unexpected observations of Earth’s radiation belts. Our findings have made us rethink our understanding of Earth’s inner radiation belt and the processes affecting it.

Originally, we set out to look for very rapid—sub-second—bursts of high-energy electrons entering the atmosphere from the outer radiation belt, where they are typically observed.

Lightning can generate electromagnetic waves known as lightning-generated whistlers, which can travel through the atmosphere and out into space. (Photo: iStock)

Many scientists believe that a type of electromagnetic wave known as “chorus” can knock these electrons out of position and send them toward the atmosphere. They’re called chorus waves due to their distinct chirping sound when listened to on a radio receiver.

Feinland developed an algorithm to search for these events in decades of measurements from the SAMPEX satellite. When he showed me a plot with the location of all the events he’d detected, we noticed a number of them were not where we expected. Some events mapped to the inner radiation belt rather than the outer belt.

This finding was curious for two reasons. For one, chorus waves aren’t prevalent in this region, so something else had to be shaking these electrons loose.

The other surprise was finding electrons this energetic in the inner radiation belt at all. Measurements from NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission prompted renewed interest in the inner radiation belt. Observations from the Van Allen Probes suggested that high-energy electrons are often not present in this inner radiation belt, at least not during the first few years of that mission, from 2012 to 2014.

Our observations now showed that, in fact, there are times that the inner belt contains high-energy electrons. How often this is true and under what conditions remain open questions to explore. These high-energy particles can damage spacecraft and harm humans in space, so researchers need to know when and where in space they are present to better design spacecraft.

Determining the culprit

One of the ways to disturb electrons in the inner radiation belt and kick them into Earth’s atmosphere actually begins in the atmosphere itself.

Lightning, the large electromagnetic discharges that light up the sky during thunderstorms, can actually generate electromagnetic waves known as lightning-generated whistlers.

�� Boulder researcher Lauren Blum and her colleagues discovered that a combination of weather on Earth and weather in space produces unique electron signatures. (Photo: Pixabay)

These waves can then travel through the atmosphere out into space, where they interact with electrons in the inner radiation belt—much as chorus waves interact with electrons in the outer radiation belt.

To test whether lightning was behind our inner radiation belt detections, we looked back at the electron bursts and compared them with thunderstorm data. Some lightning activity seemed correlated with our electron events, but much of it was not.

Specifically, only lightning that occurred right after so-called geomagnetic storms resulted in the bursts of electrons we detected.

Geomagnetic storms are disturbances in the near-Earth space environment often caused by large eruptions on the Sun’s surface. This solar activity, if directed toward Earth, can produce what researchers term space weather. Space weather can result in stunning auroras, but it can also disrupt satellite and power grid operations.

We discovered that a combination of weather on Earth and weather in space produces the unique electron signatures we observed in our study. The solar activity disturbs Earth’s radiation belts and populates the inner belt with very high-energy electrons, then the lightning interacts with these electrons and creates the rapid bursts that we observed.

These results provide a nice reminder of the interconnected nature of Earth and space. They were also a welcome reminder to me of the often nonlinear process of scientific discovery.

Lauren Blum is an assistant professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lightning strikes link weather on Earth and weather in space.

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As hot as a pizza oven and dry as a desert

Anonymous — Fri, 24 May 2024 19:09:12 +0000

As hot as a pizza oven and dry as a desert Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/24/2024 - 13:09

Eryn Cangi

Venus is losing water faster than previously thought—here’s what that could mean for the early planet’s habitability.

Today, the atmosphere of our neighbor planet Venus is as hot as a pizza oven and drier than the driest desert on Earth – but it wasn’t always that way.

Billions of years ago, Venus had as much water as Earth does today. If that water was ever liquid, Venus may have once been habitable.

Over time, that water has nearly all been lost. Figuring out how, when and why Venus lost its water helps planetary scientists like me understand what makes a planet habitable — or what can make a habitable planet transform into an uninhabitable world.

Scientists have theories explaining why most of that water disappeared, but more water has disappeared than they predicted.

Eryn Cangi is a NASA FINESST Fellow in the �� Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

In a May 2024 study, my colleagues and I revealed a new water removal process that has gone unnoticed for decades, but could explain this water loss mystery.

Energy balance and early loss of water

The solar system has a habitable zone – a narrow ring around the Sun in which planets can have liquid water on their surface. Earth is in the middle, Mars is outside on the too-cold side, and Venus is outside on the too-hot side. Where a planet sits on this habitability spectrum depends on how much energy the planet gets from the Sun, as well as how much energy the planet radiates away.

The theory of how most of Venus’ water loss occurred is tied to this energy balance. On early Venus, sunlight broke up water in its atmosphere into hydrogen and oxygen. Atmospheric hydrogen heats up a planet — like having too many blankets on the bed in summer.

When the planet gets too hot, it throws off the blanket: the hydrogen escapes in a flow out to space, a process called hydrodynamic escape. This process removed one of the key ingredients for water from Venus. It’s not known exactly when this process occurred, but it was likely within the first billion years or so.

Hydrodynamic escape stopped after most hydrogen was removed, but a little bit of hydrogen was left behind. It’s like dumping out a water bottle – there will still be a few drops left at the bottom. These leftover drops can’t escape in the same way. There must be some other process still at work on Venus that continues to remove hydrogen.

Little reactions can make a big difference

Our new study reveals that an overlooked chemical reaction in Venus’ atmosphere can produce enough escaping hydrogen to close the gap between the expected and observed water loss.

Here’s how it works. In the atmosphere, gaseous HCO⁺ molecules, which are made up of one atom each of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen and have a positive charge, combine with negatively charged electrons, since opposites attract.

But when the HCO⁺ and the electrons react, the HCO⁺ breaks up into a neutral carbon monoxide molecule, CO, and a hydrogen atom, H. This process energizes the hydrogen atom, which can then exceed the planet’s escape velocity and escape to space. The whole reaction is called HCO⁺ dissociative recombination, but we like to call it DR for short.

Water is the original source of hydrogen on Venus, so DR effectively dries out the planet. DR has likely happened throughout the history of Venus, and our work shows it probably still continues into the present day. It doubles the amount of hydrogen escape previously calculated by planetary scientists, upending our understanding of present-day hydrogen escape on Venus.

Understanding Venus with data, models and Mars

To study DR on Venus we used both computer modeling and data analysis.

The modeling actually began as a Mars project. My Ph.D. research involved exploring what sort of conditions made planets habitable for life. Mars also used to have water, though less than Venus, and also lost most of it to space.

To understand martian hydrogen escape, I developed a computational model of the Mars atmosphere that simulates Mars’ atmospheric chemistry. Despite being very different planets, Mars and Venus actually have similar upper atmospheres, so my colleagues and I were able to extend the model to Venus.

A colorized photo of Venus taken Feb. 14, 1990, from a distance of almost 1.7 million miles, about 6 days after NASA's Galileo made it closest approach to the planet. (Photo: NASA/JPL)

We found that HCO⁺ dissociative recombination produces lots of escaping hydrogen in both planets’ atmospheres, which agreed with measurements taken by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN, or MAVEN, mission, a satellite orbiting Mars.

Having data collected in Venus’ atmosphere to back up the model would be valuable, but previous missions to Venus haven’t measured HCO⁺ – not because it’s not there, but because they weren’t designed to detect it. They did, however, measure the reactants that produce HCO⁺ in Venus’ atmosphere.

By analyzing measurements made by Pioneer Venus, a combination orbiter and probe mission that studied Venus from 1978-1992, and using our knowledge of chemistry, we demonstrated that HCO⁺ should be present in the atmosphere in similar amounts to our model.

Follow the water

Our work has filled in a piece of the puzzle of how water is lost from planets, which affects how habitable a planet is for life. We’ve learned that water loss happens not just in one fell swoop, but over time through a combination of methods.

Faster hydrogen loss today via DR means that less time is required overall to remove the remaining water from Venus. This means that if oceans were ever present on early Venus, they could have been present for longer than scientists thought before water loss through hydrodynamic escape and DR started. This would provide more time for possible life to arise. Our results don’t mean oceans or life were definitely present, though – answering that question will require lots more science over many years.

There is also a need for new Venus missions and observations. Future Venus missions will provide some atmospheric measurements, but they won’t focus on the upper atmosphere where most HCO⁺ dissociative recombination takes place. A future Venus upper atmosphere mission, similar to the MAVEN mission at Mars, could vastly expand everyone’s knowledge of how terrestrial planets’ atmospheres form and evolve over time.

With the technological advancements of recent decades and a flourishing new interest in Venus, now is an excellent time to turn our eyes toward Earth’s sister planet.

Eryn Cangi is a NASA FINESST Fellow in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Venus is losing water faster than previously thought—here’s what that could mean for the early planet’s habitability.

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�� Boulder astrophysicist elected to National Academy of Sciences

Anonymous — Thu, 09 May 2024 16:59:00 +0000

�� Boulder astrophysicist elected to National Academy of Sciences Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/09/2024 - 10:59

Distinguished Professor Mitch Begelman of astrophysical and planetary sciences is recognized for ‘distinguished and continuing achievements in original research’

Mitch Begelman, distinguished professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the academy has announced.

Begelman is one of 120 U.S. members and 24 international members who were recognized this year for their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.”

Begelman's research primarily explores the frontiers of theoretical and high-energy astrophysics, focusing on the dynamics of black holes and their energy outputs. His pioneering work has significantly advanced the understanding of how black holes influence their surrounding environments and contribute to the broader structure of the universe.

In 2022, for instance, he was part of a team of researchers who observed a sudden change in the magnetic field lines in a class of black holes known as active galaxy nuclei.

�� Boulder scientist Mitch Begelman is the author of Turn Right at Orion:Travels Through the Cosmos and co-author of Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe.

Begelman said he was gratified by the recognition: “It's an especially nice honor, because it's a recognition by peers who themselves have been honored for their contributions to science. It's also an invitation to help the academy further its mission to advise the government on science policy and planning, and I look forward to playing my part in that responsibility.”

David Brain, associate professor and chair of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, said the recognition was well deserved: “He is an excellent scientist, more than worthy of recognition by the National Academy. Importantly for the APS department, he is also an excellent professor,” Brain said, adding:

“He enthusiastically teaches large undergraduate courses on black holes and astrophysics, and is very active in service to the department, including serving as department chair twice. He manages to do all of this while still regularly producing high-quality science with his students, postdocs and colleagues.”

Begelman is the author of Turn Right at Orion:Travels Through the Cosmos and co-author of Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe. He has been an author on more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Begelman holds a PhD in theoretical astrophysics from the University of Cambridge and degrees in physics from Harvard University. He joined the �� Boulder faculty in 1982 and has served as chair of his department. Begelman is also a fellow of JILA, a joint institute of �� Boulder and the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Among previous recognition that Begelman has received are the following: The �� Board of Regents bestowed the title of distinguished professor on him in 2020, and the College of Arts and Sciences named him a professor of distinction in 2018. He was listed as a Highly Cited Researcher, a measure of a researcher’s influence, in 2001.

He won the Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarly and Creative Work in 2000, and he won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998.

Begelman is the 46^th �� Boulder faculty member to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the first being selected in 1945. Other �� Boulder members include its Nobel laureates Carl Wieman, Eric Cornell, John Hall, David Wineland and Thomas Cech.

Those elected to the academy this year bring the total number of active members to 2,617 and the total number of international members to 537. International members are nonvoting members of the academy, with citizenship outside the United States.

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Distinguished Professor Mitch Begelman of astrophysical and planetary sciences is recognized for ‘distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.'

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Astronomer honored for heavenly solar-eclipse photos

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 21:38:31 +0000

Astronomer honored for heavenly solar-eclipse photos Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/07/2024 - 14:38

Bradley Worrell

The images were taken with a device that Doug Duncan invented to capture eclipses with a smartphone

Doug Duncan, an emeritus faculty member in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and the former director of the Fiske Planetarium, was recently among a select few recognized by the International Astronomical Union for their photos of the heavens.

The IAU’s Office of Astronomy for Education awarded prizes to about 30 people worldwide, including Duncan. The IAU said it selected the winners after receiving nearly 430 entries from 40 countries and territories worldwide for its third-annual astrophotography contest, which was judged by an international panel of astrophotographers and astronomy teachers.

Doug Duncan, an emeritus faculty member in the �� Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, made this award-winning solar eclipse photo with his smartphone.

“The images of the sky captured by enthusiast stargazers can leave one in awe, but they can also be important teaching tools,” the IAU notes. It adds that the organization “sought out images of the motions of the heavens: from the Sun’s path across the sky through the year to the movement of the stars in the night sky and the changing phases of Venus.”

Duncan received an honorable mention award for his photos of a solar eclipse, taken with his smartphone. Images taken with smartphones or other mobile devices was one of five IAU photo award categories.

Under normal circumstances, attempting to capture a solar eclipse with an unaided smartphone camera is a very bad idea, Duncan says, noting the sun’s rays can harm a smartphone internal workings in the same way that looking at the sun for extended periods can damage people’s retinas.

Jason Johnson made this award-winning photo of the northern lights on a �� Alumni Association Roaming Buffaloes trip organized by Doug Duncan. (Photo: Jason Johnson)

However, that was not an issue for Duncan, thanks to his use of the Solar Snap—a product he designed to safely capture photos of solar eclipses with a special eclipse-viewing lens that attaches to the smartphone’s camera lens and software that controls a camera’s zoom, focus and exposure. After about two years in research and development by Duncan, the Solar Snap is marketed by Bartlett, Tennessee-based American Paper Optics, which he says has sold about 50,000 Solar Snaps.

As for winning the astrophography award from the IAU, Duncan says, “It was a nice to be recognized. I’m particularly happy for the recognition it brings to the Solar Snap, which is the first invention I followed from the idea through completion. And people who use it are quite happy with it, so that makes me feel good.”

Duncan adds that he is just as happy that one of winning photos in the smartphones categories was taken by a participant in a �� Alumni Association Roaming Buffaloes trip that he organized last year to view the northern lights. Duncan said he was happy to give some photo tips to Jason Johnson, who won an IAU award for his photo "Northern Lights Color."

Meanwhile, Duncan is gearing up for his next Roaming Buffaloes trip, to witness a full eclipse next month in Texas, an event he is calling “Totality Over Texas.”

And after that?

“Well, I was thinking of retiring,” he says with a chuckle. “But the next total eclipse I’m focused on is in the summer of 2026 in Spain, pretty close to Barcelona and Valencia. And if an eclipse is happening in a really beautiful place, that’s when I’m very tempted to go.”

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The images were taken with a device that Doug Duncan invented to capture eclipses with a smartphone.

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Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez to give 53rd Gamow lecture

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:10:38 +0000

Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez to give 53rd Gamow lecture Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/21/2024 - 10:10

Astrophysicist who confirmed black hole at galaxy’s center to speak March 5 at �� Boulder

Andrea Ghez, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, will give the 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture March 5 at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Ghez, Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA, shared half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel of the University of California, Berkeley.

Andrea Ghez, 2020 Nobel Prize winner in physics, will give the 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture March 5 at the University of Colorado Boulder. (Photo: The Nobel Foundation)

The pair were recognized by the Nobel committee for their discovery of a “supermassive” black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Ghez, head of UCLA’s Galactic Center Group, solved the question, what exactly is “Sagittarius A*,” which was first detected as a mysterious radio signal in 1933.

“I see being a scientist as really fundamentally being a puzzle-solver,” Ghez said in 2021. “Putting together the pieces, trying to find the evidence, trying to see the bigger picture.”

If you go

What: 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture

Who: Andrea Ghez, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 5

Where: Macky Auditorium, University of Colorado Boulder campus

Tickets: Free and open to the public

Learn more

She helped develop a new technology to correct the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere. Gathering data from the world’s largest telescope system, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, she and her team continue to plumb the depths of the galactic center 26,000 light years distant.

While Albert Einstein’s epochal work on relativity remains the best description of how gravity works, Ghez says it can’t account for gravity inside a black hole. Through what she calls “extreme astrophysics,” she seeks to go where the pioneering astrophysicist could not.

“Einstein’s right for now,” she said. “However, his theory is showing vulnerability. … At some point we will need to move … to a more comprehensive theory of gravity.”

A member of the National Academy of Sciences and author of a 2006 children’s book, “You Can Be a Woman Astronomer,” Ghez is widely recognized as a role model for young women.

“Seeing people who look like you, or are different from you, succeeding shows you that there’s an opportunity,” she said.

Top image: An artist's concept illustrating a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of the Sun. (Illustration: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

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Astrophysicist who confirmed black hole at galaxy’s center to speak March 5 at �� Boulder.

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The most outstanding solar-flare eruptions are not always the most influential

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:42:05 +0000

The most outstanding solar-flare eruptions are not always the most influential Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/15/2024 - 09:42

Blake Puscher

A recent �� Boulder study suggests that confined flares are more efficient at heating plasma and producing ionizing radiation than comparable eruptive flares

While many studies have compared the magnetic properties of confined and eruptive solar flares, few have considered the thermodynamic properties of confined flares and even fewer in comparison to eruptive ones.

Maria Kazachenko, an assistant professor in the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, is one of the few to have explored this subject. In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal and featured on AAS Nova, she conducted a study quantifying the thermodynamic and magnetic properties of hundreds of solar flares.

Solar flares are enormous explosions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun. They happen when energy stored in magnetic fields, usually above sunspots, is suddenly released. Some flares involve a coronal mass ejection (CME), in which a huge amount of charged particles, or plasma, is flung out.

�� Boulder researcher Maria Kazachenko found that confined solar flares, or flares with no associated coronal mass ejection, may be more efficient at accelerating particles and therefore at producing ionizing radiation as well.

Some of the study’s results confirm the findings of earlier inquiries. However, the paper also includes new information suggesting that confined flares, or flares with no associated CME, may be more efficient at accelerating particles and therefore at producing ionizing radiation as well.

What is a solar flare?

Solar flares are caused by the Sun’s magnetic fields, which are strongest in the dark areas called sunspots. When inactive, these fields look like loops. However, when the subsurface flows of the Sun begin to shear and twist the sunspots that they are tied to, the magnetic fields become twisted as well.

“You could imagine it like a rubber band that you start twisting,” Kazachenko explains. “At some point, you cut it, then … energy will get released and you will get a snap on your hand.”

Like the elastic energy of the rubber band is released when it is cut, a fraction of the magnetic energy of the Sun is released during a process called magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection can take different forms, but “one of the simplest configurations,” Kazachenko says, “is when you have two oppositely directed field lines being pushed against each other … the magnetic fields could suddenly change their configuration and release a huge amount of energy, similar to rubber bands that get cut all of a sudden.”

The free magnetic energy that is released during magnetic reconnection is stored in plasma currents. Electric currents produce magnetic fields, as seen in electromagnets, and charged particles moving within the Sun’s plasma function similarly.

Confined and eruptive flares

While some solar flares are associated with CMEs, where plasma is ejected from the solar atmosphere and into space, others are not. If a solar flare is associated with a CME, it is considered eruptive; if it doesn’t have an associated CME, it is considered confined. The difference between the two goes deeper than that, however, because the mechanisms that determine whether a flare is confined or eruptive may also decide how quickly the magnetic fields will reconnect and how much hard X-ray and gamma ray radiation it will emit.

As their name suggests, confined flares are unable to escape the Sun’s atmosphere because of constraining influences. These influences, known as strapping fields, are also magnetic. For this reason, active regions with more magnetic flux also have stronger strapping fields and are therefore less likely to be eruptive.

An Oct. 2, 2014, solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The solar flare is the bright flash of light at top and a burst of solar material erupting into space is just to the right of it. (Photo: NASA/SDO)

According to Kazachenko, this explains why the confined flares that she studied had higher temperatures and underwent reconnection more quickly than eruptive flares of the same peak X-ray flux: “In confined flares, you have reconnection happening lower because you have a very strong strapping field of the active region that doesn’t allow the structure to go up … the fields are stronger lower down, so reconnection proceeds much faster.”

While the significance of faster reconnection may not be immediately obvious, the research paper explains, “As higher reconnection rates lead to more accelerated ions and electrons, large confined flares could be more efficient at producing ionizing electromagnetic radiation than eruptive flares.”

This is not to say that more energy is released during the reconnection of a confined flare; in fact, eruptive flares have the same amount of reconnected flux as confined flares. Rather, because energy is released more quickly in confined flares, they may accelerate ions and electrons from the Sun’s plasma more efficiently.

Space weather in this solar system and beyond

When it comes to space weather, CMEs and the geomagnetic storms they can cause often get the most attention. This is for a good reason: While it is rare for CMEs to reach Earth, the consequences are dire when they do.

In the worst-case scenario, a geomagnetic storm would damage or destroy electrical transmission equipment, causing blackouts on a large scale. Additionally, such a storm would disrupt certain types of communication, damage satellite hardware, and expose astronauts and high-altitude aviators to potentially lethal radiation. While these are only predictions, evidence for them is based in part on the geomagnetic storm of 1859, which had pronounced effects, causing sparking and fires in telegraph stations.

Research like Kazachenko’s contributes to a broader understanding of how solar flares work, which may one day allow scientists to predict when they will happen more accurately and therefore avoid the worst consequences of a geomagnetic storm by giving people time to take preventative measures. However, her studies have broader implications as well.

A mid-level solar flare captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory June 22, 2015. (Photo: NASA/SDO)

“What happens on other stars?” Kazachenko asks. “Are there flares there? Are there CMEs there? From recent studies, it seems that there are thousands of flares there, but the CMEs, the coronal mass ejections, are very hard to determine.”

While it is possible that stars like the Sun regularly undergo CMEs and that scientists and researchers have simply been unable to detect most of them, current evidence suggests that confined flares play a larger role in the space weather of other solar systems than they do in this one. For this reason, the seemingly less impactful type of solar flare may determine whether exoplanets are habitable—a major interest to astronomers looking for exoplanets that are suitable for colonization.

“So, it’s a very fundamental question, both … for our equipment’s safety, but also for understanding other planets,” Kazachenko says.

Future inquiry

While Kazachenko has discovered a unique property of confined solar flares, there is still work to be done, she says. Her study suggests that confined flares reconnect magnetic fields faster and potentially accelerate charged particles more efficiently than eruptive ones, but the properties of these particles are outside its scope.

There should be a follow-up study, Kazachenko says, “where you really look at the statistical population of particles’ acceleration in both groups of flares … but that’s where I think the future lies: looking not just at one singular event in high detail, but benefiting from these amazing observations that we now have from many different satellites flying there, like the new satellite launched by NASA and the European Space Agency called Solar Orbiter.”

Top image: A solar flare captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory at 8:12 p.m. EDT Oct. 1, 2015. (Photo: NASA/SDO)

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A recent �� Boulder study suggests that confined flares are more efficient at heating plasma and producing ionizing radiation than comparable eruptive flares.

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Lunar science is entering a new active phase, with a study of solar wind and the universe’s dark ages

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 22:37:17 +0000

Lunar science is entering a new active phase, with a study of solar wind and the universe’s dark ages Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 02/05/2024 - 15:37

Jack Burns

For the first time since 1972, NASA is putting science experiments on the Moon in 2024. And thanks to new technologies and public-private partnerships, these projects will open up new realms of scientific possibility. As parts of several projects launching this year, teams of scientists, including myself, will conduct radio astronomy from the south pole and the far side of the Moon.

NASA’s commercial lunar payload services program, or CLPS, will use uncrewed landers to conduct NASA’s first science experiments from the Moon in over 50 years. The CLPS program differs from past space programs. Rather than NASA building the landers and operating the program, commercial companies will do so in a public-private partnership. NASA identified about a dozen companies to serve as vendors for landers that will go to the Moon.

CLPS will send science payloads to the Moon in conjunction with the Artemis program’s crewed missions.

The dark, far side of the Moon is the perfect place to conduct radio astronomy. AP Photo/Rick BowmerJack Burns, University of Colorado Boulder

NASA buys space on these landers for science payloads to fly to the Moon, and the companies design, build and insure the landers, as well as contract with rocket companies for the launches. Unlike in the past, NASA is one of the customers and not the sole driver.

CLPS launches

The first two CLPS payloads are scheduled to launch during the first two months of 2024. There’s the Astrobotics payload, which launched Jan. 8 before experiencing a fuel issue that cut its journey to the Moon short. Next, there’s the Intuitive Machines payload, with a launch scheduled for mid-February. NASA has also planned a few additional landings – about two or three per year – for each of the next few years.

I’m a radio astronomer and co-investigator on NASA’s ROLSES program, otherwise known as Radiowave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photoElectron Sheath. ROLSES was built by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and is led by Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy.

The ROLSES instrument will launch with Intuitive Machines in February. Between ROLSES and another mission scheduled for the lunar far side in two years, LuSEE-Night, our teams will land NASA’s first two radio telescopes on the Moon by 2026.

Radio telescopes on the Moon

The Moon – particularly the far side of the Moon – is an ideal place to do radio astronomy and study signals from extraterrestrial objects such as the Sun and the Milky Way galaxy. On Earth, the ionosphere, which contains Earth’s magnetic field, distorts and absorbs radio signals below the FM band. These signals might get scrambled or may not even make it to the surface of the Earth.

On Earth, there are also TV signals, satellite broadcasts and defense radar systems making noise. To do higher sensitivity observations, you have to go into space, away from Earth.

The Moon is what scientists call tidally locked. One side of the Moon is always facing the Earth – the “man in the Moon” side – and the other side, the far side, always faces away from the Earth. The Moon has no ionosphere, and with about 2,000 miles of rock between the Earth and the far side of the Moon, there’s no interference. It’s radio quiet.

For our first mission with ROLSES, launching in February 2024, we will collect data about environmental conditions on the Moon near its south pole. On the Moon’s surface, solar wind directly strikes the lunar surface and creates a charged gas, called a plasma. Electrons lift off the negatively charged surface to form a highly ionized gas.

This doesn’t happen on Earth because the magnetic field deflects the solar wind. But there’s no global magnetic field on the Moon. With a low frequency radio telescope like ROLSES, we’ll be able to measure that plasma for the first time, which could help scientists figure out how to keep astronauts safe on the Moon.

When astronauts walk around on the surface of the Moon, they’ll pick up different charges. It’s like walking across the carpet with your socks on – when you reach for a doorknob, a spark can come out of your finger. The same kind of discharge happens on the Moon from the charged gas, but it’s potentially more harmful to astronauts.

Solar and exoplanet radio emissions

Our team is also going to use ROLSES to look at the Sun. The Sun’s surface releases shock waves that send out highly energetic particles and low radio frequency emissions. We’ll use the radio telescopes to measure these emissions and to see bursts of low-frequency radio waves from shock waves within the solar wind.

We’re also going to examine the Earth from the surface of the Moon and use that process as a template for looking at radio emissions from exoplanets that may harbor life in other star systems.

Magnetic fields are important for life because they shield the planet’s surface from the solar/stellar wind.

In the future, our team hopes to use specialized arrays of antennas on the far side of the Moon to observe nearby stellar systems that are known to have exoplanets. If we detect the same kind of radio emissions that come from Earth, this will tell us that the planet has a magnetic field. And we can measure the strength of the magnetic field to figure out whether it’s strong enough to shield life.

Cosmology on the Moon

The Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment at Night, or LuSEE-Night, will fly in early 2026 to the far side of the Moon. LuSEE-Night marks scientists’ first attempt to do cosmology on the Moon.

LuSEE-Night is a novel collaboration between NASA and the Department of Energy. Data will be sent back to Earth using a communications satellite in lunar orbit, Lunar Pathfinder, which is funded by the European Space Agency.

Since the far side of the Moon is uniquely radio quiet, it’s the best place to do cosmological observations. During the two weeks of lunar night that happen every 14 days, there’s no emission coming from the Sun, and there’s no ionosphere.

We hope to study an unexplored part of the early universe called the dark ages. The dark ages refer to before and just after the formation of the very first stars and galaxies in the universe, which is beyond what the James Webb Space Telescope can study.

During the dark ages, the universe was less than 100 million years old – today the universe is 13.7 billion years old. The universe was full of hydrogen during the dark ages. That hydrogen radiates through the universe at low radio frequencies, and when new stars turn on, they ionize the hydrogen, producing a radio signature in the spectrum. Our team hopes to measure that signal and learn about how the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe formed.

There’s also a lot of potential new physics that we can study in this last unexplored cosmological epoch in the universe. We will investigate the nature of dark matter and early dark energy and test our fundamental models of physics and cosmology in an unexplored age.

That process is going to start in 2026 with the LuSEE-Night mission, which is both a fundamental physics experiment and a cosmology experiment.

Jack Burns, Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Grad pondered death by black hole and found a life’s work

Anonymous — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 20:40:54 +0000

Grad pondered death by black hole and found a life’s work Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/18/2023 - 13:40

Rachel Sauer

College of Arts and Sciences outstanding graduate Abby Hartley embraces the complementary relationship between science and art

Some children gaze up in wonder at the boundless night sky and the universe of stars scattered in it—counting them, wishing on them, seeing shapes in them and weaving fantastical stories.

But not Abby Hartley. Abby gazed up and pondered death by black hole.

What if they (Abby uses they/them pronouns) fell into one of the massive and mysterious objects? What is the math underlying spaghettification? (Don’t ask.) (Actually, do ask: It’s the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects—including people—falling into black holes.) Would they be grateful for the deeper understanding of time dilation—or the phenomenon of time passing at different rates for different observers—as they were drawn farther and farther into the black hole?

Abby Hartley, the College of Arts and Sciences fall 2023 outstanding graduate, first became interested in astrophysics by pondering death by black hole.

So, Abby pursued an astronomy and astrophysics education at the University of Colorado Boulder to get answers. Named the College of Arts and Sciences outstanding graduate for the fall 2023 semester, they are graduating this week with their honors thesis, “The First Quiescent Galaxies in TNG300," already published in an academic journal.

“Abby is a brilliant, hard-working, organized and frighteningly mature young scientist,” notes Erica Nelson, a �� Boulder assistant professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences and Abby’s research mentor and thesis advisor. “They are already operating at the level of a senior graduate student. I have no doubt that Abby will be a leader in the field.”

Which is a profoundly meaningful recognition of their hard work and expression of confidence in all that they have yet to achieve, but here’s what Abby considers a crowning accomplishment from the previous three and a half years: When Abby published their first research paper—yes, first, meaning there’s more than one—their mom proofread it before publication and their dad printed it out after. And like the proud parents they are, they stuck it on the refrigerator.

“My dad even highlighted some parts,” Abby recalls with a laugh. “He said, ‘I don’t totally understand all of it, but it’s so cool.’ Just knowing that I’ve always had that support from my family and friends has been so important. It’s a big part of why I’ve been able to accomplish what I have so far.”

Wanting to know more math

Speaking of Abby’s dad, he gets a decent amount of the credit for Abby’s first steps into science. An avid fan of science himself, he shared his passion for it by passing along the books he’d read to his adolescent child. Abby was the kid in middle school clutching a copy of The Elegant Universe and wishing they knew more math.

It wasn’t all science, though. Abby also cultivated a deep love for writing and art, nurtured by a voracious appetite for science fiction, and found as much fulfillment in pens and drawing paper as they found in the depths of differential geometry and tensor calculus.

For a long time, though, Abby thought it had to be one or the other—that declaring a major in astrophysics meant relegating art to the thing they did at home if they had time.

There was no particular moment when Abby realized that art and science can exist in symbiosis—as hand in glove rather than as two parallel but untouching tracks—but studying relativity helped.

“Initially, the rules of math and physics can seem pretty rigid,” Abby says. “But when you get to relativity, things bend a little bit more. Things are a little more fluid, and that’s been really exciting to me.”

So, while studying extragalactic astronomy as a member of Erica Nelson’s research group, Abby also tapped back into their love for art, designing an astrophysics art outreach project mentored by Zachory Berta-Thompson, a professor of astrophysics. As part of their project, Abby created digital illustrations highlighting the accomplishments of women and minorities in astrophysics; several are currently featured on the digital screens in common spaces in the Duane Physics building.

Abby Hartley's art highlighting the accomplishments of women and minorities in astrophysics includes Aomawa Shields, a University of California Irvine professor and one of Abby's heroes.

“Too many times, I’ve found myself to be the only non-male audience member in a seminar or presenter at a student talk series,” Abby says. “This inequity can be disheartening, but it has never dulled my passion for science. My goal as an astrophysicist is to help humanity unravel the mathematical mysteries of the cosmos, and to show other young scientists from historically underrepresented groups that they, too, belong in this field.

“We are all multifaceted human beings, and we shouldn’t feel pressured to stifle one passion to pursue a career in another. I was a scientist when I gave talks about my research into the first galaxies to stop forming stars in a cosmological simulation, but I was also a scientist when I painted a space-themed mural on the wall of a cat cafe.”

Abby contacted some of the scientists they featured in their art, including Jessica Mink and Aomawa Shields, and heard back from them, “so I got to talk with some of my personal heroes in astrophysics, which has been pretty amazing,” Abby says.

Pursue creative outlets

For their thesis research, Abby—whose educational path has focused on theoretical astrophysics—considered their scientific progression that began with black holes, extended to extragalactic astronomy and landed in quiescent galaxies, or galaxies that stop forming stars.

“They have dust, so in theory they should be perpetually creating stars,” Abby says. “Why aren’t they?

Using simulations from the IlustrisTNG project, a suite of cosmological galaxy-formation simulations, Abby and their research colleagues predicted that the first quiescent galaxies located by the James Webb Space Telescope will host massive black holes.

Abby Hartley defended their thesis on Halloween and, to emphasize the fact that science is fun, dressed as Howl Pendragon for the occasion.

During their research, Abby contacted noted astrophysicist Lars Hernquist at Harvard University, who became a study co-author and invited them to present their paper at Harvard. Another of Abby’s favorite memories of their studies is practicing their presentation at 2 a.m. with their mom, after going to a Beyonce concert several hours earlier, then flying to Massachusetts later that morning to present at Harvard.

Because science should be fun, Abby says, and because they defended their thesis on Halloween, they dressed as Howl Pendragon from Howl’s Moving Castle to do so and invited their thesis committee members to come in costume as well (one member came in a Starfleet uniform from Star Trek).

“I think that’s probably one of the most important things I’ve learned, that science is challenging and exciting and fun,” Abby says.

Last week, Abby submitted 11 graduate school applications and hopes to begin graduate studies next fall, which the ultimate goal of becoming a university professor and researcher. In the meantime, they will continue working with Nelson as a full-time researcher studying brand-new James Webb Space Telescope data. The one bummer is, due to scheduling conflicts, needing to give up a beloved job as a part-time barista and shelter worker at Purrfect Pause cat café in Boulder. That’s where they painted the space-themed mural, which features their cat, Oreo.

So, if Abby could offer advice to anyone considering a leap into science, they would “encourage other students to pursue their creative outlets alongside their technical research, so that no one feels like they have to leave a part of themselves behind to do scientific work.”

Abby Hartley creates digital art highlighting the accomplishments of women and minorities in astrophysics

College of Arts and Sciences outstanding graduate Abby Hartley embraces the complementary relationship between science and art.

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Searching shadowed lunar landscapes for water

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 22:55:13 +0000

Searching shadowed lunar landscapes for water Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/15/2023 - 15:55

Paul Hayne

Scientists suspect there’s ice hiding on the Moon, and a host of missions from the U.S. and beyond are searching for it

Building a space station on the Moon might seem like something out of a science fiction movie, but each new lunar mission is bringing that idea closer to reality. Scientists are homing in on potential lunar ice reservoirs in permanently shadowed regions, or PSRs. These are key to setting up any sort of sustainable lunar infrastructure.

In late August 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the lunar surface in the south polar region, which scientists suspect may harbor ice. This landing marked a significant milestone not only for India but for the scientific community at large.

For planetary scientists like me, measurements from instruments onboard Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander and its small, six-wheeled rover Pragyan provide a tantalizing up-close glimpse of the parts of the Moon most likely to contain ice. Earlier observations have shown ice is present in some permanently shadowed regions, but estimates vary widely regarding the amount, form and distribution of these ice deposits.

Paul Hayne is an assistant professor in the �� Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

Polar ice deposits

My team at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has a goal of understanding where water on the Moon came from. Comets or asteroids crashing into the Moon are options, as are volcanic activity and solar wind.

Each of these events leaves behind a distinctive chemical fingerprint, so if we can see those fingerprints, we might be able to trace them to the source of water. For example, sulfur is expected in higher amounts in lunar ice deposits if volcanic activity rather than comets created the ice.

Like water, sulfur is a “volatile” element on the Moon, because on the lunar surface it’s not very stable. It’s easily vaporized and lost to space. Given its temperamental nature, sulfur is expected to accumulate only in the colder parts of the Moon.

While the Vikram lander didn’t land in a permanently shadowed region, it measured the temperature at a high southern latitude of 69.37°S and was able to identify sulfur in soil grains on the lunar surface. The sulfur measurement is intriguing because sulfur may point toward the source of the Moon’s water.

So, scientists can use temperature as a way of finding where volatiles like these may end up. Temperature measurements from Chandrayaan-3 could allow scientists to test models of volatile stability and figure out how recently the sulfur may have accumulated at the landing site.

Tools for discovery

Vikram and Pragyan are the newest in a series of spacecraft that have helped scientists study water on the Moon. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched in 2009 and has spent the past several years observing the Moon from orbit. I’m a co-investigator on LRO, and I use its data to study the distribution, form and abundance of water on the lunar poles.

Both India’s Chandrayaan-1 orbiter and LRO have allowed my colleagues and me to use ultraviolet and near-infrared observations to identify ice in the permanently shadowed regions by measuring the chemical fingerprints of water. We’ve definitively detected water ice in some of these regions inside the coldest shadows at the lunar poles, but we’re still not sure why the ice isn’t more widespread.

Some dark craters on the Moon (shown in blue) never get light and researchers think these areas could contain ice. (Photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

On Mercury, by contrast, the permanently shadowed regions are practically overflowing with ice. For several years, scientists have recognized the need to get down on the surface and make more detailed measurements of lunar volatiles. With its sulfur detections, the Vikram lander has now taken the first tentative steps as part of a larger exploration program.

Future lunar missions

NASA has its sights set on the lunar south pole. Leading up to the Artemis III mission to deploy astronauts to investigate ice on the surface, the Commercial Lunar Payloads Services program will send multiple landers and rovers to search for ice starting later in 2023.

While uncertainty surrounds the timeline of Artemis launches, the first crewed mission, Artemis II, is on track for a late 2024 or early 2025 launch, with a looping trajectory passing behind the Moon’s far side and back to Earth.

The Lunar Compact Infrared Imaging System, of which I’m the principal investigator, is an infrared camera that will take temperature measurements and study the surface composition of the Moon.

Dubbed L-CIRiS, this camera recently underwent its final review before delivery to NASA, and the completed flight instrument will be prepared to launch on a commercial lander in late 2026.

Prior to L-CIRiS, the VIPER rover mission is planned to launch in late 2024 to the lunar south polar region, where it will carry instruments to search for ice in micro-cold traps. These tiny shadows, some no larger than a penny, are hypothesized to contain a significant amount of water and are more accessible than the larger PSRs.

One long-term goal of L-CIRiS and NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program is to find a suitable place for a long-term, sustainable lunar station. Astronauts could stay at this station, potentially similar to the one at McMurdo station in Antarctica, but it would need to be somewhat self-sufficient to be economically viable. Water is extremely expensive to ship to the Moon, hence locating the station near ice reservoirs is a must.

During the Artemis III mission, NASA astronauts will use the information gathered by the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program and other missions, including Chandrayaan-3, to assess the best locations to collect samples. Chandrayaan-3 and L-CIRiS’s measurements of temperature and composition are like those that will be needed for Artemis to succeed. Cooperation among space agencies young and old is thus becoming a key feature of a long-term, sustainable human presence on the Moon.

Paul Hayne is an assistant professor in the �� Boulder Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Scientists suspect there’s ice hiding on the Moon, and a host of missions from the U.S. and beyond are searching for it.

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