In Case You Missed It: A Weekly Summary of Top Content from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center
Week of June 19 - June 23, 2023.
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Milky Way’s Central Black Hole Woke Up 200 Years Ago, NASA’s IXPE Finds
Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is far less luminous than other black holes at the centers of galaxies we can observe, which means our galaxy’s central black hole has not been actively gobbling up material around it. Yet new evidence from NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) telescope suggests the ancient sleeping giant woke recently – about 200 years ago – to devour gas and other cosmic detritus within its reach. Sagittarius A* is more than 25,000 light years from Earth – our nearest supermassive black hole, with an estimated mass millions of times that of our Sun. Often abbreviated by researchers to Sgr A* (pronounced "Sagittarius A star"), it sits in the constellation of Sagittarius at the very heart of the Milky Way.
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NASA Nears Completion of Key RS-25 Certification Test Series
NASA completed its penultimate hot fire June 15 in a key test series to certify production of new RS-25 engines for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket that will help power future Artemis missions to the Moon and continue the agency’s efforts to explore the secrets of the universe for the benefit of all. More than 500 NASA Stennis, NASA Shared Services Center, and NASA contractor employees and family members viewed the hot fire on the Fred Haise Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, which marked the 11th in the 12-test series. The final test of the series is scheduled June 22 and will set the stage for SLS engines lead contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne to manufacture new RS-25 engines for future deep space missions, beginning with Artemis V. During the June 15 test, operators powered the RS-25 engine for more than eight minutes (500 seconds). The test duration is the same amount of time needed to help launch the SLS rocket and send astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft into orbit. Operators also tested the engine up to 113% power, exceeding the 111% level needed during launch and providing a margin of operational safety.
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Idaho Students get Hands-On with NASA Technology
University of Idaho students learned real-world engineering skills during the 2022-2023 school year while advancing two NASA technologies – a tailless aircraft design using wing twists to maneuver, and a process to assemble thin-film solar panels using robotics and 3D printing. One group of students designed, built, and flight-tested a drone using the Prandtl-D, Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Lower Drag, developed at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Looking like a boomerang, the Prandtl design mimics bird flight, using twists in its wingtips for maneuvering. A second group of students worked with technology called PAPA, Print-Assisted Photovoltaic Assembly, or developed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The students designed and demonstrated an automated assembly process for turning thin-film solar cells into larger photovoltaic arrays using two robotic arms working in tandem.
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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Will Have New Home in Houston
If everything goes according to plan, OSIRIS-REx’s sample return capsule will separate from the spacecraft, enter the Earth’s atmosphere and parachute safely to Earth for recovery at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range, located about 70 miles west of Salt Lake City. “The OSIRIS-REx curation team is excitedly preparing for the Bennu samples,” said Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx lead sample curator at Johnson. The rocks and dust, called regolith, were collected from Bennu’s surface in 2020. Bennu is likely to be a well preserved, 4.5 billion year old remanent of the early solar system, so the samples should provide insight into the role that similar asteroids played in the formation of planets and the delivery of organic material and water to Earth that may have ultimately led to life. Data collected from the OSIRIS-REx mission will also help scientists better understand asteroids that could impact Earth and inform future asteroid deflection efforts.
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NASA’s Juno Mission Captures Lightning On Jupiter
In this view of a vortex near Jupiter’s north pole, NASA’s Juno mission observed the glow from a bolt of lightning. On Earth, lightning bolts originate from water clouds, and happen most frequently near the equator, while on Jupiter lightning likely also occurs in clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, and can be seen most often near the poles. In the coming months, Juno’s orbits will repeatedly take it close to Jupiter as the spacecraft passes over the giant planet’s night side, which will provide even more opportunities for Juno’s suite of science instruments to catch lightning in the act. Juno captured this view as Juno completed its 31st close flyby of Jupiter on Dec. 30, 2020. In 2022, Citizen scientist Kevin M. Gill processed the image from raw data from the JunoCam instrument aboard the spacecraft. At the time the raw image was taken, Juno was about 19,900 miles (32,000 kilometers) above Jupiter’s cloud tops, at a latitude of about 78 degrees as it approached the planet.
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