Space Archives - Iran News Daily

Iran on path of development to enter space age: U.S. academic

mahla — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 21:12:45 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) –Iran has followed the path of development to enter the space age by placing the Khayyam satellite into orbit, U.S. academic and author Marsha Freeman has said.

The satellite will make huge contributions to the country’s science and technology fields as it can enhance digital communications, she stressed.

The topographic maps provided by the satellite can provide the basis for improved digital communications in the country. Iran’s Space Organization launched the Khayyam satellite with a wide range of environmental functions on August 9. Named after Persian polymath Omar Khayyam (1048 – 1131), the satellite was put into orbit by a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan.

“Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) was a Persian polymath, that is, a person who has a broad knowledge or learning, and was known globally for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and poetry. Similarly, the satellite which bears his name will make contributions to many fields of science and technology,” Freeman, who has authored hundreds of articles on space programs, told Press TV.

She noted that the topographic maps provided by the satellite can “facilitate the planned extension of Iran’s railway network and will also provide the basis for improved digital communications in the country.”

With remote-sensing applications, the satellite will send high-quality pictures four times a day for use in environmental and agricultural research and monitoring of water resources, according to Iran’s Space Organization.

The maps and data will be used for improving agricultural productivity, enhanced monitoring of Iran’s water resources, managing natural disasters, supervising development projects under construction, observing environmental hazards, monitoring mines and relevant excavations, and keeping a close watch on the country’s borders.

Iran’s Space Organization received the first telemetry data sent from the “Khayyam” satellite hours after the launch.

The satellite was launched at the velocity of 7.6 kilometers per second and was placed into an LEO orbit 500 kilometers above the earth’s surface some 480 seconds after the blast-off.

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Iran Successfully Launches Research Cargos into Space

mahla — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 07:04:57 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iran Successfully Launches Research Cargos into Space. Ministry of Defense announced the successful launch of the Simorg-3 space homemade rocket, carrying three research devices into space.

Iranian Ministry of Defense Spokesman said on Thursday that the indigenous satellite carrier of Simorq-3 successfully launched into space carrying three research devices.

“In this research space mission, for the first time, three research shipments were simultaneously launched to an altitude of 470 kilometers a speed of 7250 meters per second,” Ahmad Hosseini, the spokesperson for space affairs at the defense ministry, said.

According to the spokesman, the function of the space base components and the performance of the satellite launch stages were successful, and finally, the intended research goals of the mission were accomplished.

It is for the first time, three research devices were simultaneously launched to space at an altitude of 470 km and a speed of 7350 m/s and led to breakthroughs in the country’s space industry.

Hosseini said the launch followed several Islamic Republic’s civilian space program achievements. “We will speed up work so that we can become one of the six countries that can launch satellites into the GEO (geostationary) orbit,” he added.

“We will speed up work so that we can become one of the six countries that can launch satellites into the GEO (geostationary) orbit,” he added.

The United States has expressed concern that Iran’s satellite launches are part of an effort by the Islamic Republic to develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Iran, which has long maintained its nuclear program is entirely civilian in nature, says its satellite launches and rocket tests do not have a military component.

In 2017, Iran’s Imam Khomeini Space Center successfully launched the Simorq carrier with a mission of putting satellites into the orbit.

According to the Iranian Space Agency, the telecommunication satellites’ Nahid 1 and 2′, ‘Zoljannah,’ ‘Simorgh,’ and the remote sensing satellites’ Toloo,’ ‘Pars 1’ and ‘Zafar 2’ are being designed and produced to be placed in the LEO orbit.

‘Pars 1’, ‘Zafar 2’, and ‘Toloo’ satellites with multi-spectral imaging capability are among the remote sensing satellites that are in the launch queue.

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Satellites in the row in Iran to be sent into space

mahla — Sat, 29 May 2021 14:23:38 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Satellites in the row in Iran to be sent into space. Iran is designing a number of satellites, some of which are in the row to be launched into space, IRNA reported on Friday.

Pars Plus satellite with an imaging resolution of five meters, Pars 2 with a five-meter resolution multispectral imaging system, and Rasam satellite with four meters resolution multispectral imaging system are among the satellites that are being designed.

The telecommunication Nahid 1 satellite, Zoljanah, Nahid 2, Simorgh, Remote Sensing Tollou, Pars 1, and Zafar 2 are being designed and produced to put satellites at LEO (Low Earth Orbit).

Iran’s strategic purpose for developing the space industry is to expedite space activities including the aerospace industry, tapping the country’s scientific capacities, commercialization of space and space service.

When rockets launch satellites, they put them into orbit in space. There, gravity keeps the satellite on its required orbit – in the same way that gravity keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth.

LEO is generally defined as an orbit below an altitude of approximately 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi). Given the rapid orbital decay of objects below approximately 200 kilometers (120 mi), the commonly accepted definition for LEO is between 160 kilometers (99 mi) (with a period of about 88 minutes) and 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) (with a period of about 127 minutes) above the Earth’s surface. Because it’s so close to Earth, satellites must travel very fast so gravity won’t pull them back into the atmosphere. Satellites in LEO speed along at 17,000 miles per hour (27,359 kilometers per hour)! They can circle Earth in about 90 minutes.

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Astronomers Detect Potential Sign of Life in Venus Atmosphere

reporter 1222 — Tue, 15 Sep 2020 10:22:07 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Astronomers have detected a rare molecule in the atmosphere of Venus that could be produced by living organisms, according to a new study.

Two telescopes in Hawaii and Chile spotted in the thick Venusian clouds the chemical signature of phosphine, a noxious gas that on Earth is only associated with life, according to a study in Monday’s journal Nature Astronomy.

Several outside experts — and the study authors themselves — agreed this is tantalizing but said it is far from the first proof of life on another planet. They said it doesn’t satisfy the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” standard established by the late Carl Sagan, who speculated about the possibility of life in the clouds of Venus in 1967, AP reported.

“It’s not a smoking gun,” said study co-author David Clements, an Imperial College of London astrophysicist. “It’s not even gunshot residue on the hands of your prime suspect, but there is a distinct whiff of cordite in the air which may be suggesting something.”

As astronomers plan for searches for life on planets outside our solar system, a major method is to look for chemical signatures that can only be made by biological processes, called biosignatures. After three astronomers met in a bar in Hawaii, they decided to look that way at the closest planet to Earth: Venus. They searched for phosphine, which is three hydrogen atoms and a phosphorous atom.

On Earth, there are only two ways phosphine can be formed, study authors said. One is in an industrial process. (The gas was produced for use as chemical warfare agent in World War I.) The other way is as part of some kind of poorly understood function in animals and microbes. Some scientists consider it a waste product, others don’t.

Phosphine is found in “ooze at the bottom of ponds, the guts of some creatures like badgers and perhaps most unpleasantly associated with piles of penguin guano,” Clements said.

Study co-author Sara Seager, an MIT planetary scientist, said researchers “exhaustively went through every possibility and ruled all of them out: volcanoes, lightning strikes, small meteorites falling into the atmosphere. … Not a single process we looked at could produce phosphine in high enough quantities to explain our team’s findings.”

That leaves life.

The astronomers hypothesize a scenario for how life could exist on the inhospitable planet where temperatures on the surface are around 800 degrees (425 degrees Celsius) with no water.

“Venus is hell. Venus is kind of Earth’s evil twin,” Clements said. “Clearly something has gone wrong, very wrong, with Venus. It’s the victim of a runaway greenhouse effect.”

But that’s on the surface.

Seager said all the action may be 30 miles (50 kilometers) above ground in the thick carbon-dioxide layer cloud deck, where it’s about room temperature or slightly warmer. It contains droplets with tiny amounts of water but mostly sulfuric acid that is a billion times more acidic than what’s found on Earth.

The phosphine could be coming from some kind of microbes, probably single-cell ones, inside those sulfuric acid droplets, living their entire lives in the 10-mile-deep (16-kilometer-deep) clouds, Seager and Clements said. When the droplets fall, the potential life probably dries out and could then get picked up in another drop and reanimate, they said.

Life is definitely a possibility, but more proof is needed, several outside scientists said.

Cornell University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger said the idea of this being the signature of biology at work is exciting, but she said we don’t know enough about Venus to say life is the only explanation for the phosphine.

“I’m not skeptical, I’m hesitant,” said Justin Filiberto, a planetary geochemist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston who specializes in Venus and Mars and isn’t part of the study team.

Filiberto said the levels of phosphine found might be explained away by volcanoes. He said recent studies that were not taken into account in this latest research suggest that Venus may have far more active volcanoes than originally thought. But Clements said that explanation would make sense only if Venus were at least 200 times as volcanically active as Earth.

David Grinspoon, a Washington-based astrobiologist at the Planetary Science Institute who wrote a 1997 book suggesting Venus could harbor life, said the finding “almost seems too good to be true.”

“I’m excited, but I’m also cautious,” Grinspoon said. “We found an encouraging sign that demands we follow up.”

NASA hasn’t sent anything to Venus since 1989, though Russia, Europe and Japan have dispatched probes. The U.S. space agency is considering two possible Venus missions. One of them, called DAVINCI+, would go into the Venusian atmosphere as early as 2026.

Clements said his head tells him “it’s probably a 10% chance that it’s life,” but his heart “obviously wants it to be much bigger because it would be so exciting.”

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Bacteria Growing More Deadly in Space

reporter 1222 — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 13:01:32 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Research from space flight missions shows bacteria become more deadly and resilient when exposed to microgravity (when only tiny gravitational forces are present).

China has launched its Tianwen-1 mission to Mars. A rocket holding an orbiter, lander, and rover took flight from the country’s Hainan province earlier this week, with hopes to deploy the rover on Mars’s surface by early next year.

Similarly, the launch of the Emirates Mars Mission last Sunday marked the Arab world’s foray into interplanetary space travel. And on July 30, we expect to see NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover finally take off from Florida, ScienceAlert reported.

For many nations and their people, space is becoming the ultimate frontier. But although we’re gaining the ability to travel smarter and faster into space, much remains unknown about its effects on biological substances, including us.

While the possibilities of space exploration seem endless, so are its dangers. And one particular danger comes from the smallest life forms on Earth: bacteria.

Bacteria live within us and all around us. So whether we like it or not, these microscopic organisms tag along wherever we go – including into space. Just as space’s unique environment has an impact on us, so too does it impact bacteria.

We don’t yet know the gravity of the problem

All life on Earth evolved with gravity as an ever-present force. Thus, Earth’s life has not adapted to spend time in space. When gravity is removed or greatly reduced, processes influenced by gravity behave differently as well.

In space, where there is minimal gravity, sedimentation (when solids in a liquid settle to the bottom), convection (the transfer of heat energy), and buoyancy (the force that makes certain objects float) are minimized.

Similarly, forces such as liquid surface tension and capillary forces (when a liquid flows to fill a narrow space) become more intense.

It’s not yet fully understood how such changes impact lifeforms.

How bacteria become more deadly in space

Worryingly, research from space flight missions has shown bacteria become more deadly and resilient when exposed to microgravity (when only tiny gravitational forces are present).

In space, bacteria seem to become more resistant to antibiotics and more lethal. They also stay this way for a short time after returning to Earth, compared with bacteria that never left Earth.

Adding to that, bacteria also seem to mutate quicker in space. However, these mutations are predominately for the bacteria to adapt to the new environment – not to become super deadly.

More research is needed to examine whether such adaptations do, in fact, allow the bacteria to cause more disease.

Bacterial teamwork is bad news for space stations

Research has shown space microgravity promotes biofilm formation of bacteria.

Biofilms are densely-packed cell colonies that produce a matrix of polymeric substances allowing bacteria to stick to each other, and to stationary surfaces.

Biofilms increase bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics, promote their survival, and improve their ability to cause infection. We have seen biofilms grow and attach to equipment on space stations, causing it to biodegrade.

For example, biofilms have affected the Mir space station’s navigation window, air conditioning, oxygen electrolysis block, water recycling unit, and thermal control system. The prolonged exposure of such equipment to biofilms can lead to malfunction, which can have devastating effects.

Another effect of microgravity on bacteria involves their structural distortion. Certain bacteria have shown reductions in cell size and increases in cell numbers when grown in microgravity.

In the case of the former, bacterial cells with the smaller surface areas have fewer molecule-cell interactions, and this reduces the effectiveness of antibiotics against them.

Moreover, the absence of effects produced by gravity, such as sedimentation and buoyancy, could alter the way bacteria take in nutrients or drugs intended to attack them. This could result in the increased drug resistance and infectiousness of bacteria in space.

All of this has serious implications, especially when it comes to long-haul space flights where gravity would not be present. Experiencing a bacterial infection that cannot be treated in these circumstances would be catastrophic.

The benefits of performing research in space

On the other hand, the effects of space also result in a unique environment that can be positive for life on Earth.

For example, molecular crystals in space’s microgravity grow much larger and more symmetrically than on Earth. Having more uniform crystals allows the formulation of more effective drugs and treatments to combat various diseases including cancers and Parkinson’s disease.

Also, the crystallization of molecules helps determine their precise structures. Many molecules that cannot be crystallized on Earth can be in space.

So, the structure of such molecules could be determined with the help of space research. This, too, would aid the development of higher-quality drugs.

Optical fiber cables can also be made to a much better standard in space, due to the optimal formation of crystals. This greatly increases data transmission capacity, making networking and telecommunications faster.

As humans spend more time in space, an environment riddled with known and unknown dangers, further research will help us thoroughly examine the risks – and the potential benefits – of space’s unique environment.

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‘Ring of Fire’ Seen on Venus

reporter 1222 — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 12:58:42 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – ETH researchers used computer simulations to classify the current activity of corona structures on the surface of Venus. To their surprise, they found a previously undiscovered ring of fire on our neighboring planet.

Years ago, planetary researchers discovered unusual circular structures on the surface of Venus when observing high-resolution images from NASA’s Magellan mission. Such structures are known as coronae (from the Latin meaning “crowns”; singular: corona). A few years ago, a team of ETH researchers led by Taras Gerya, Professor of Geophysics at the Department of Earth Sciences, used computer models to investigate how these structures may have formed.

Most researchers assume that these odd circular surface features are formed by mantle plumes from deep within the planet.

A mantle plume is an upwelling of hot, molten rock that is transported by convection currents from the lower mantle to the crust in a column that widens in a mushroom-shape at the top. The heat it carries melts the surface of the crust in a circular form. Continuous material rising from greater depths widens the plume head and expands the ring structure on the surface to form a corona. The solid crust surrounding the mantle plume may crack and ultimately sink below the edge of the corona, triggering local tectonic processes.

Computer simulations of structural variations of coronae

However, the topography of coronae is by no means homogeneous or easy to describe. “These structures exist in a large variety of shapes and dimensions on the Venusian surface,” says Anna Gülcher, a doctoral student in Gerya’s research group.

Following up on this observation, Gülcher used a larger set of improved 3D simulations to re-examine the coronae as she sought to establish a link between the variation in surface topography and the processes at work beneath. Her study was recently published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The new simulations show that a corona’s topography depends on the thickness and strength of the crust where the mantle plume strikes it and, above all, that their topographies are directly related to how active the column of magma beneath the surface is.

It is important to note, however, that the position and dynamics of Earth’s ring of fire are the result of plate tectonics, she explains. On Venus, the cause is vertical hotspot volcanism—a phenomenon that occurs in only a few places on Earth, such as below the Hawaiian Islands.

Exactly why the mantle plumes on Venus are arranged in such a belt, and what this means for deep interior processes on Venus, is an important question to address in future studies, Gülcher says. This may be done with large-scale computer simulations.

Huge computing capacity required

In their models, the researchers simulate only the very top few hundred kilometers of the mantle plume. In reality, however, the plume conduits could be over 1,000 kilometers long: “Simulating the total length the plumes could reach is out of the question because of the huge computing capacity it would require,” Gülcher says. The current simulations, performed using the Euler cluster at ETH, are already eight times larger than previous ones.

The planetary scientists hope that their findings will also provide fresh insights into how mantle plumes function below the surface of the Earth. They are likely to be what causes hotspot volcanism, as seen in the Hawaiian Islands. Mantle plumes may have been a trigger for plate tectonics observed on Earth as well, as Gerya’s research group was also able to simulate. As mentioned at the time, Venus could serve as a model for the processes that may have taken place in Earth’s early history.

Active plumes from a ring of fire around Venus

This salient observation enabled Gülcher and her colleagues to classify over a hundred of large coronae on Venus into two main groups: those that have formed above an active plume that is currently rising and carrying molten material, and those above a plume that has cooled and become inactive. “Every corona structure has a specific signature that indicates what is going on beneath it,” Gülcher says.

On a map of Venus, she plotted all the coronae according to how their activity was classified. To her surprise, most of the coronae overlying active mantle plumes form a belt in Venus’ southern hemisphere. Only a handful of active plumes are located outside this band. “We called this band the ‘Ring of Fire’ on Venus in reference to the ‘Ring of Fire’ on Earth,” Gülcher says. She assumes that the belt coincides with a zone that expels high levels of rising plume material.

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NASA resumes historic SpaceX launch

reporter 1222 — Sun, 31 May 2020 05:41:25 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – SpaceX, the private rocket company of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, launched two Americans into orbit from Florida on Saturday in a landmark mission marking the first spaceflight of NASA astronauts from US soil in nine years.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:22 p.m. EDT, launching Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on a 19-hour ride aboard the company’s newly designed Crew Dragon capsule bound for the International Space Station, Reuters reported.

Just before liftoff, Hurley said, “SpaceX, we’re going for launch. Let’s light this candle,” paraphrasing the famous comment uttered on the launch pad in 1961 by Alan Shepard, the first American flown into space.

Minutes after launch, the first-stage booster rocket of the Falcon 9 separated from the upper second-stage rocket and flew itself back to Earth to descend safely onto a landing platform floating in the Atlantic.

High above the Earth, the Crew Dragon jettisoned moments later from the second-stage rocket, sending the capsule on its way to the space station.

The exhilarating spectacle of the rocket soaring flawlessly into the heavens came as a welcome triumph for a nation gripped by racially-charged civil unrest as well as ongoing fear and economic upheaval from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Falcon 9 took off from the same launch pad used by NASA’s final space shuttle flight, piloted by Hurley, in 2011. Since then, NASA astronauts have had to hitch rides into orbit aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.

“It’s incredible, the power, the technology,” said US President Donald Trump, who was at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida for the launch. “That was a beautiful sight to see.”

The mission’s first launch attempt on Wednesday was called off with less than 17 minutes remaining on the countdown clock. Weather again threatened Saturday’s launch but cleared in time to proceed with the mission.

NASA chief Jim Bridenstine has said resuming launches of American astronauts on American-made rockets from US soil is the space agency’s top priority.

“I’m breathing a sigh of relief, but I will also tell you I’m not gonna celebrate until Bob and Doug are home safely,” Bridenstine said.

For Musk, the launch represents another milestone for the reusable rockets his company pioneered to make spaceflight less costly and more frequent. And it marks the first time commercially developed space vehicles — owned and operated by a private entity rather than NASA — have carried Americans into orbit.

The last time NASA launched astronauts into space aboard a brand new vehicle was 40 years ago at the start of the space shuttle program.

Musk, the South African-born high-tech entrepreneur who made his fortune in Silicon Valley, is also chief executive of the electric carmaker and battery manufacturer Tesla Inc. He founded Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, in 2002.

Hurley, 53, and Behnken, 49, NASA employees under contract to fly with SpaceX, are expected to remain at the space station for several weeks, assisting a short-handed crew aboard the orbital laboratory.

Boeing Co, producing its own launch system in competition with SpaceX, is expected to fly its CST-100 Starliner vehicle with astronauts aboard for the first time next year. NASA has awarded nearly $8 billion combined to SpaceX and Boeing for the development of their rival rockets.

Trump also hailed the launch as a major advance toward the goal of eventually sending humans to Mars.

He was joined at the viewing by Musk, as well as Vice President Mike Pence, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, and Senator Rick Scott.

Earlier on Saturday, the crew bid goodbye to their families. Prior to climbing into a specially designed Tesla automobile for the ride to the launch site, Behnken told his young son, “Be good for mom. Make her life easy.”

During the drive, Behnken and Hurley passed former astronaut Garrett Reisman who held a sign saying, “Take me with you.”

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‘Super Earths’ Could be Livable

reporter 1222 — Tue, 05 May 2020 08:38:57 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A new discovery is leading scientists to believe that life can exist in a hydrogen atmosphere, on so-called “super Earths”, dramatically increasing the number of planets where aliens could live.

Arguing that mankind stands on “a great threshold in the human history of space exploration”, the lead author of the new study claims that signs of extraterrestrial life could be discovered in the next 15 years, Sputnik reported.

According to the newspaper, a new study published in Nature Astronomy shows that two kinds of single-celled microorganisms, Escherichia coli and yeast, “that normally do not inhabit H2-dominated environments”, can actually “survive and grow in a 100 percent H2 atmosphere”.

As study lead Sara Seager, a planetary scientist at MIT in Cambridge, explained, this discovery essentially means that the so-called rocky “Super Earths” may harbor life after all.

“Life could thrive in a much broader variety of environments than is usually considered”, she said. “Rocky exoplanets more massive than Earth can retain a significant amount of hydrogen in their atmosphere. Hydrogen atmospheres are likely to be more extended than Earth-like ones – making them easier to detect. But it is still unclear if oxygen is an absolute requirement. We should expand the types of planets we consider worth searching.”

Seager also remarked that we will likely find signs of extraterrestrial life in the next 15 years, and that “we stand on a great threshold in the human history of space exploration.”

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Venus Atmosphere Rotating Faster than Planet Itself

reporter 1222 — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 08:09:53 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A Venusian day, which is one full rotation of the planet, takes 243 Earth days, but researchers found out that the Venus atmosphere rotates 60 times faster than the planet itself.

New research led by the Takeshi Horinouchi of Hokkaido University has revealed that the super-rotation of Venus’ atmosphere is maintained near the equator by atmospheric tidal waves that have formed due to solar cooling on the planet’s nightside and heating on its dayside. However, the atmospheric turbulence and other various waves have a more strong effect, Techtimes reported.

This increases with altitude and takes only four earth days to rotate around the entire planet onto the top of the cloud cover.

Because of this super-rotation, the fast-moving atmosphere is forced to transport heat from Venus’ dayside to nightside which reduces the temperature differences between both hemispheres.

Horinouchi has said that “Since the super-rotation was discovered in the 1960s, however, the mechanism behind its forming and maintenance has been a long-standing mystery.”

A new kind of approach has been developed

Horinouchi and his colleagues from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science developed a precise method to try and track clouds and from there deduce wind velocities from the collected images. These are provided by the infrared and ultraviolet cameras on the Akatsuki spacecraft which began to orbit Venus in December 2015.

Horinouchi explained that “The group first noticed that atmospheric temperature differences between low and high latitudes are as small as it cannot be explained without a circulation across latitudes. Since such circulation should alter the wind distribution and weaken the super-rotation peak, it also implies there is another mechanism that reinforces and maintains the observed wind distribution.”

Further analysis also revealed that the maintenance is actually being sustained by the thermal tide, which then provides acceleration when it comes to low altitudes.

Other earlier studies have shown that atmospheric turbulence and waves may also provide acceleration. However, the current research states that they work oppositely to decelerate the rotation at a very low altitude.

“Their findings uncovered the factors that maintain the super-rotation while suggesting a dual circulation system that effectively transports heat across the globe: the meridional circulation that slowly transports heat towards the poles and the super-rotation that rapidly transports heat towards the planet’s nightside,” SciTech Daily has said.

“Our study could help better understand atmospheric systems on tidally-locked exo-planets whose one side always facing the central stars, which is similar to Venus having a very long solar day,” Horinouchi added.

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Water Found in Jupiter Atmosphere

reporter 1222 — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 13:36:31 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – When NASA’s Galileo mission visited Jupiter in the 1990s and began its descent, the spacecraft’s data was expected to solve a puzzle for scientists. They wanted to know how much water was present in the atmosphere of Jupiter.

But just as things were getting good, the probe stopped transmitting 57 minutes and 75 miles into its descent, crushed by the pressure of Jupiter’s atmosphere. Intriguingly, Galileo detected that the amount of water in the atmosphere increased as it dove down. However, scientists were disappointed when the data reflected ten times less water than anticipated.

Enter NASA’s Juno mission, which launched in 2011 and began conducting scientific flybys of the planet in 2016. Scientists have used data from the first eight flybys to determine the amount of water in Jupiter’s atmosphere at the equator, according to a new study.

“The Juno mission was in part motivated by the need to determine the water abundance at multiple locations across the planet,” the authors wrote in the study, which published recently in the journal Nature Astronomy.

To be clear, water doesn’t necessarily mean liquid water, but its components of hydrogen and oxygen. Understanding the amount of water on Jupiter can provide more information about the gas giant’s past. The largest planet in our solar system was also likely the first to form after the sun. The theory of planet formation suggests that Jupiter received the bulk of the gas and dust leftover from our star.

Scientists want to know how much water was included in this process. And Jupiter reflects processes that include water and moisture, like its weather patterns and even its lightning, as witnessed by the Voyager probe in 1979.

Based on thermodynamic calculations, scientists believe that there are three distinct cloud layers in Jupiter’s thick atmosphere. They include ammonia ice clouds, ammonium hydrosulfide ice clouds and clouds made up of water-based droplets and ice, according to the study.

The 1995 Galileo probe data was dropped into a “hotspot” in the boundary between the equator and the north equatorial belt. Data collected during Juno’s flybys showed that water makes up 0.25% of molecules in Jupiter’s atmosphere at its equator.

Juno is also equipped with the Microwave Radiometer. Rather than descending through Jupiter’s atmosphere, Juno uses this instrument to study it from above through six antennae gathering temperature data at various depths, according to NASA. It relies on microwave technology to detect water absorption at different wavelengths.

Juno was also able to surpass the depth of Galileo’s descent, gathering data farther down in the atmosphere at 93 miles.

“We found the water in the equator to be greater than what the Galileo probe measured,” said Cheng Li, a Juno scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Because the equatorial region is very unique at Jupiter, we need to compare these results with how much water is in other regions.”

The study authors warn that these findings may not be indicative of water abundance across Jupiter.

If it is globally reflective, it may suggest that the planetary building blocks that formed Jupiter were unlikely to have been water-rich clathrate hydrates, or crystalline water-based solids like ice.

“Just when we think we have things figured out, Jupiter reminds us how much we still have to learn,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “Juno’s surprise discovery that the atmosphere was not well-mixed even well below the cloud tops is a puzzle that we are still trying to figure out. No one would have guessed that water might be so variable across the planet.”

In the future, the team hopes to learn how the water content may vary across regions and how the poles, dotted with cyclones, could reflect more insight.

“Every science flyby is an event of discovery,” said Bolton. “With Jupiter, there is always something new. Juno has taught us an important lesson: We need to get up close and personal to a planet to test our theories.”

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