Space news weekly recap: Martian microbes, black hole ‘burp’, and more

Read about all that and more in our weekly space news recap.

Underground Martian microbes

Microbes that consume hydrogen and produce methane may have flourished just under the surface of Mars ages ago. Even though Mars may have had the conditions to harbour life once upon a time, researchers believe that these life forms would have altered the atmosphere of the planet so much that they triggered a Martian Ice Age that killed them. The researchers came to this conclusion by using climate and terrain models of Mars’ crust around 4 billion years ago when it is believed that the planet had a lot of water and was more habitable than it is today.

In sharp contrast, microbes on Earth may have helped our planet maintain temperate conditions and could have also given it the nitrogen-dominated atmosphere. According to AP, the new research presents a bleak view of life in the cosmos—that even simple lifeforms like microbes could cause their own end if they exist.

The black hole was ejecting material at close to half the speed of light. (Image credit Harvard and Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics)

Black hole shreds star and burps it out years later

A black hole about 650 million light-years away was observed ripping apart a star in 2018. This tidal disruption event (TDE) was just about what you can expect from the crushing gravity of a black hole. But three years later, the same black hole lit up again and spat out stellar matter, without swallowing anything else in the period in between.

“This caught us completely by surprise — no one has ever seen anything like this before,” said Yvette Cendes, a research associate at the Harvard and Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics in a press statement, while referring to the black hole. Cendes is a lead author of a research article published in The Astrophysical Journal.

NASA’s InSight Mars lander took this image, its “final selfie,” on April 24, 2022. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

InSight Mars lander stuck in dust storm

NASA’s InSight lander, which was already on its last legs, suffered a significant drop in solar power after it got stuck in a continent-sized dust storm that is swirling over Mars. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter first spotted the storm on September 21 this year.

One the plus side, the lander’s primary mission has already been completed and it is currently conducting “bonus science.” NASA’s InSight team estimates that the mission will come to an end sometime between October this year and January 2023.

Artist’s illustration of NASA’s CAPTONE spacecraft. (Image credit: NASA Ames Research Centre/ Twitter)

NASA stops capstone from spinning out of control

Following a trajectory connection manoeuvre on September 8, NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft began spinning so fast that the onboard “reaction wheel” could not control or stop it. CAPSTONE team members later successfully completed an operation that stopped it from spinning.

The purpose of the CAPSTONE is to test a unique elliptical lunar orbit. The orbit, called a near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) is very elongated and its location is at a precise balance point in the gravities of the Earth and the Moon. The mission is aimed at reducing risks for future spaceflight by validating new technologies and verifying this orbit.

The ASO-S observatory was launched on a Long March-2D carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China, Oct. 9, 2022. (Image credit: Wang Jiangbo/Xinhua)

Chinese solar observatory

China launched its Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), nicknamed Kuafu-1, on October 9, according to Chinese state-run media outlet Xinhua. Since then, the observatory has entered its planned orbit.

According to the journal Nature, the observatory has three instruments on board that will help scientists understand how the Sun’s magnetic field causes coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and other eruptions.

NASA has announced that the DART spacecraft was successful in its objective. Here is what is next for humanity’s first planetary defence test. (Image credit: NOIRLab)

NASA’s DART success

The American space agency confirmed that its DART spacecraft successfully managed to change the motion of the asteroid Dimoprhos by crashing into it. The mission was the first demonstration of the “kinetic impactor” method of asteroid mitigation.

Before the crash, Dimorphos took about 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit the larger asteroid Didymos. DART’s impact shortened this orbit by 32 minutes, with it now taking 11 hours and 23 minutes to orbit the larger asteroid.

The sixth Epsilon solid-fuel rocket lifts off from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)’s Uchinoura Space Center in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Kagoshima, Japan October 12, 2022, in this photo taken by Kyodo. (Kyodo via REUTERS)

Japan’s rocket fails

Japan’s rocket carrying eight satellites failed just after liftoff on Wednesday and it had to be aborted by a self-destruction command, according to AP. The Epsilon-6 rocket had to be aborted because it was not in the right position to orbit around the Earth.

It was the first time that a JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) rocket failed since the space agency’s H2A rocket failed in 2003. It was also the first time that an Epsilon rocket carried commercially developed payloads.

NASA Artemis 1: The mission will launch from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Centre. This image of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft was taken on September 26, 2022. (Image credit; NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Artemis 1 set for November 15 launch

NASA plans to launch the Artemis 1 mission during a launch window that starts at 12.07 AM EST (9.37 AM IST) on November 14. If the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket launches successfully, the Orion spacecraft will go around the Moon and come back to the Earth in what will be the first in a series of missions designed to send humans back to Earth’s lone natural satellite.

Two previous launch attempts had to be abandoned after NASA faced many issues during the countdown. The first attempt had to be scrubbed because of an issue with one of the four RS-25 engines that are part of SLS’s core stage. The second launch attempt had to be scrubbed because of a hydrogen leak that popped up when the agency was fuelling the rocket.

The unique rings captured by the Webb telescope originated from a rare pair of stars about 5,000 light years away. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JPL-Caltech)

Webb captures curious concentric rings

The latest image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a set of concentric dust rings that were emitted by a pair of stars that are over 5,000 light years away from our planet. The pair of stars is named Wolf-Rayet 140.

When these two stars come together, their stellar winds—streams of gas and dust— meet and compress the gas, creating dust in the process. The orbit of the stars brings them together about once every eight years. This means that the concentric rings mark the passage of time, just like growth rings on trees.

☀️⤴️🛰 #SolarOrbiter is making a close approach of the Sun NOW!

This sequence shows the approach using data from 20 Sept-10 Oct 👇

📹https://t.co/GhTJXIT5j9 #WeAreAllSolarOrbiters #ExploreFarther pic.twitter.com/4iuknjKDet

— ESA’s Solar Orbiter (@ESASolarOrbiter) October 12, 2022

ESA’s images of the Sun

Ahead of its close approach to the Sun, the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter took a sequence of images of the Sun, depicting it in all its glory, popping and crackling with explosions.

The images were taken using the orbiter’s Extreme ultraviolet Imager (EUI) at a wavelength of 17 nanometres. The colours in the images were added artificially because the original wavelength of the light is invisible to the human eye.

This will be the second flight of the GSLV Mk III — after it joined the ISRO fleet having completed two development flights — since it carried India’s second lunar mission Chandrayaan-2.
(File/ISRO)

GSLV MkIII to make commercial foray

The GSLV MkIII, ISRO’s heaviest rocket, is set to launch a constellation of 36 satellites for OneWeb communication. The launch is scheduled to happen at 7AM IST on October 23 from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

The October 23 launch will mark the second flight of the GSLV Mk II rocket. It was last launched to carry Chandrayaan-2 into orbit on July 22, 2019. This launch will also make it only the second ISRO rocket to be used to deploy commercial payloads.

Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti disembarks a plane upon her arrival at the Cologne-Bonn airport following her mission and so-called “Direct Return” from the International Space Station (ISS), at the European Astronaut Center (EAC), near Cologne, Germany, October 15, 2022. (Image credit: REUTERS/Benjamin Westhoff)

SpaceX capsule splashdown

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule named Freedom parachuted safely into the sea carrying three American NASA astronauts and an Italian astronaut from the European Space Agency. This was the fourth long-duration astronaut team launched by the private space company, according to Reuters.

The Freedom capsule’s stay in orbit began on April 27 this year after it was used to launch a crew that consists of NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins, and Bob Hines as well as ESA’s Samantha Cristoforetti, who was the commander of the mission.