Hello, folks, and welcome back to This Week in Space. Today, we've got a hat trick from the James Webb space telescope, including new measurements that deepen the Hubble Tension, a newborn protostar, and hydrogen in the atmosphere of a water world a hundred light years away. It's also been a busy week for UFOlogists, with no clear resolutions in sight—despite announcements from NASA that it has hired a new chief of UFO investigation. Plus, a new crew departs for the International Space Station, while a veteran astronaut sets a new all-time NASA space flight record.
OSIRIS-REx Readies for Bennu Sample Return Flyby
Over the weekend, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a final course correction ahead of the close pass it will make to Earth next Sunday. The spacecraft, returning from asteroid Bennu, will drop off samples it retrieved there before zooming on past Earth for its next mission: visiting a whole different asteroid, Apophis. For that mission, its name will change to OSIRIS-APEX (OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer).
OSIRIS-REx's sample vessel will parachute itself back to Earth, landing within the Department of Defense's Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City.
Industry Analysts Say Aerospace Sector Growing Faster Than Its Workforce
According to a recent report on job prospects, aerospace job opportunities are growing faster than new workers are entering the industry's workforce. The Space Foundation's annual Space Report says that American space industry job opportunities have increased by 18% over the past five years. At the same time, American colleges' engineering enrollment has been in decline. The aerospace workforce is aging, and the industry's conservative hiring practices aren't helping fill out its ranks.
However, my colleague Adrianna Nine points out that aerospace doesn't just mean "get a STEM degree so you can work for NASA." Like any other industry, the aerospace sector depends on its tradespeople: welders, electricians, crane operators, and other blue-collar workers. But there's also a niche for lawyers, accountants, and a surprising range of other skills. Adrianna notes that as of writing, SpaceX is hiring a barista. So, if you're looking for an industry to break into—we might be biased, but we think space is pretty cool.
This Week in UFOlogy—Still 'No Evidence' of Alien Life
Thursday, NASA published its much-anticipated report on UFOs (also known as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs). TL,DR: there's still no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life, but believe me, we are looking.
"The top takeaway from the study is that there is a lot more to learn," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson acknowledged during a press conference accompanying the release. "The NASA independent study team did not find any evidence that UAP have an extraterrestrial origin, but we don't know what these UAP are." The agency has also appointed a director of research into UAPs. This week Nelson welcomed the agency's new research chief (without revealing their name), and pledged to work with other agencies to collect more, and more useful, UFO data.
The announcements are another sign of a recent wave of legislative interest, both domestic and foreign, in UFOs. In a July Congressional hearing, former US intelligence officer and apparent whistleblower David Grusch claimed under oath that America is in possession of "intact and partially intact" extraterrestrial vehicles. Former Navy lieutenant Ryan Graves, one of the pilots who has spoken before Congress about the 2014 USS Theodore Roosevelt incidents, gave testimony on UFOs this week before the Congress of Mexico.
However, Graves distanced himself from the hearing shortly afterward. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he said he accepted the Mexican Congress' invitation in a good-faith attempt to keep up the government's research momentum concerning "unidentified anomalous phenomena" or UAP. But the Tuesday hearing featured Jaime Maussan, a self-described UFOlogist who has claimed more than once that he found the remains of an actual, authentic non-human alien creature—and been debunked every time.
"Unfortunately, yesterday's demonstration was a huge step backwards for this issue," Graves wrote in the post. "My testimony centered on sharing my experience and the UAP reports I hear from commercial and military aircrew through ASA's witness program. I will continue to raise awareness of UAP as an urgent matter of aerospace safety, national security, and science, but I am deeply disappointed by this unsubstantiated stunt."
Next ISS Crew to Launch Friday
Friday, three new crew members will travel to the International Space Station aboard a Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft. NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub will take off from Russia's Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan at 11:44 a.m. EDT on Friday (weather permitting), docking with the station's Rassvet module just over three hours later.
The trio will join two separate crews already on the station, one of which has already been in space for nearly a year. NASA flight engineer Frank Rubio (below center) and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin have been stuck in orbit together since their collective ride home was destroyed last year by an orbital debris strike. Monday, Rubio broke NASA's all-time single spaceflight record of 355 continuous days in orbit.
When he and his cosmonaut crewmates touch down later this month, Rubio will have spent 371 days in space.
Artemis Updates: Second Engine Installed on SLS Core Stage
Thursday, Germany became the 29th nation to join the Artemis Accords, a set of guiding principles for cooperation in space exploration among the nations participating in the Artemis program. Walther Pelzer, director general of the German Space Agency, signed the agreement at the German Ambassador's Residence in Washington.
The Artemis program, meanwhile, continues apace—which is to say, late and painfully over budget. On Monday, Sept. 11, technicians installed another of the four RS-25 engines that will power the SLS for Artemis II. The engine, installed in position two on the SLS' core stage, is serial number E2059. Both E2059 and the engine in first position, E2047, have previously flown on the space shuttle. E2047, for its part, has logged the most flight time of the entire set with 15 shuttle flights—including STS-98, which delivered the Destiny Laboratory Module to the ISS back in 2001.
JWST Confirms Hubble Constant Measurements, Frustrating Scientists
Recent readings from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have confirmed the Hubble telescope's measurement of the cosmological constant, solving nothing and frustrating many.
Hubble astronomers calculated the rate at which the universe is expanding based on measurements of so-called Cepheid variables, supergiant stars that flash as steadily as a metronome. These measurements led to a particular value for the cosmological constant, which is a fancy name for a term that kept showing up in Einstein's equations like a plug nickel. However, other indicators (such as the ESA's Planck satellite) give different values for that rate, and therefore suggest a different cosmological constant. This has led to a scientific impasse known as the "Hubble Tension."
Tuesday, NASA announced that Webb astronomers have confirmed Hubble's measurements of Cepheid variables, clarifying the cosmic distance ladder we use to gauge how far celestial objects are from Earth. But the new data from Webb further entrenches the Hubble tension. So far, possible explanations for the discrepancy include dark matter—or some other new, exotic particle yet to be discovered. Either way, it's back to the notebooks.
Webb Finds Potential Hycean Exoplanet
The JWST's NIRSpec instrument also discovered some intriguing molecules in the atmosphere of an exoplanet named K2-18 b, which falls within the constellation Leo and exists some 120 light-years from Earth. Data from Webb suggest that K2-18 b could be a Hycean exoplanet—a "water world" with a global ocean and an atmosphere rich in hydrogen. Hycean worlds are an increasingly popular research target because their environments are thought to be the right kind to sustain the conditions for life.
However, the Webb data also showed traces of a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). On Earth, DMS is only produced by living things; most of the DMS in Earth's atmosphere comes from marine phytoplankton, single-celled plants that populate the surface of the open ocean.
“Our findings underscore the importance of considering diverse habitable environments in the search for life elsewhere,” explained Nikku Madhusudhan, lead author of a paper discussing the results. “Traditionally, the search for life on exoplanets has focused primarily on smaller rocky planets, but the larger Hycean worlds are significantly more conducive to atmospheric observations.” The team's next step: validating the results with Webb's middle-infrared spectrograph, MIRI.
JWST Snaps Supersonic Outflow From Newborn Star
We saved the best for last: this week, the JWST released an image of the supersonic outflow of gas and plasma coming from the poles of a star so young it hasn't reached its "adult" size yet.
The jets are streaming from the poles of protostar Herbig-Haro 211, flung into interstellar space by the violent forces of the new star's birth. Turbulence in the plumes of gas and plasma excites the molecules within, heating them up until they glow. Over time, the inner jets wiggle back and forth with mirror symmetry on either side of the protostar itself—which agrees with other observations suggesting that HH 211 could be an unresolved binary star. Different colors signal different molecules, such as molecular hydrogen, silicon oxide, and carbon monoxide.
Skywatchers Corner
If you want to see something rare, new, and special in the night sky, this is a great opportunity. Newfound (and pea-green!) comet C/2023 P1 Nishimura will reach perigee this week. After this, it will head in to make a close pass between the Sun and the orbit of Mercury. If it isn't destroyed by its impression of Icarus, the comet will disappear into the outer solar system, fading from the night sky for another 400 years or so.
To catch it this time around, look toward the east-southeast about an hour before dawn, and find the constellation of Leo. This week, the comet is traveling down the Lion's tail, very near the horizon. At first, astronomers were hopeful that the rapidly brightening comet would become visible to the naked eye, but it will be so low in the brightening sky that if you're trying to find it, you may want to use your favorite skywatching app.
And if you're headed out to do some skywatching, folks at northerly latitudes may want to keep an eye out for the aurora. There's a coronal mass ejection on its way from the Sun, and it will hit Earth with a glancing blow on Sunday.
By the way: A month from now, on Oct. 14, folks all over the continental US will be able to see an annular "ring of fire" solar eclipse. Even those outside the path of annularity (which sweeps across the American southwest) will get to see a partial eclipse. Still, if skies are cloudy where you are or time doesn't permit, NASA will be streaming different telescope views from across the country starting at 10:30 a.m. Central.
See you next week!
