We have been on a hiatus with Watch this Space, but the human spirit of exploration has not. This week, NASA’s Hubble team announced how the ageing telescope was able to spot the weird origin of a mysterious “fast radio burst,” while Pittsburgh-based space tech firm Astrobiotic’s private moon lander faced a malfunction shortly after launch.
Fast radio bursts or FRBs are exactly what they sound like. They last for a few milliseconds but they can outshine entire galaxies. In the past few years, we have detected hundreds of FRBs. NASA likens them to camera flashes at a stadium event but often, we do not know the sources of these intense bursts of radiation.
FRB 20220610A was detected on June 10, 2022, and is particularly weird even for FRBs. It seems to have flashed from an unlikely place — a collection of galaxies that existed when the universe was only five billion years old. This makes it the farthest and most powerful of its kind ever detected. A majority of the previous FRBs have been found in isolated galaxies.
The images from the Hubble telescope reveal that this FRB could have come from an environment where as many as seven galaxies may be on a possible path to merging. Astronomers do not all agree on what exactly causes FRBs, but it is generally believed that FRBs involve some sort of compact object like a neutron star.
Magnetars are an extreme type of neutron star with extremely strong magnetic fields. To illustrate, if there were a magnetar located halfway between the Moon and the Earth, it would erase the magnetic strip on everyone’s credit card in the world. If an astronaut were to travel within a few hundred kilometres of a magnetar, they would be “dissolved” because every atom in their body would be disrupted.
Before we can explore magnetars and other potential causes behind fast radio bursts, we must be fully capable of exploring our cosmic background within the solar system. While space exploration in the past has been dominated by the leadership of government space agencies, its future will see many private companies embarking on commercial space ventures.
Astrobiotic’s Peregrine launched from Cape Canaveral on Monday, hoping to be the first privately-led mission to launch on the Moon, following in the footsteps of the Israeli Beresheet and the Japanese Hakuto missions. But Peregrine may have followed their footsteps too well as the mission too will fail to soft-land on the Moon due to a propellant leak that sprung shortly after the United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket’s upper stage deployed Peregrine.
“Sending a spacecraft to the Moon is not easy. I commend Astrobiotic’s hard work, resilience, and commitment as they navigate the challenges facing their mission. With any breakthrough innovation comes rewards and risks. Each lunar endeavour expands the opportunities for us to learn more and push the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a post on X.com, referring to the company’s attempt.
What Fox said closely mirrors what Laurie Leshin, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said after Japan’s Hakuto failed at the same task — “If space is hard, landing is harder.”
There are currently only four entities in human history that have succeeded in independently soft-landing a spacecraft on the Moon, and all four are countries — the United States, the Soviet Union, China, and India. To date, no mission led by a private entity has ever been able to soft land on the Moon. Forget the failures of Hakuto and Beresheet, even national space agencies did not fare all that well in the recent past.
Chandrayaan-2, India’s previous attempt at a lunar soft-landing, crash landed on the Moon a little before when it was supposed to touch down gracefully in 2019. Russia’s Luna-25 was the country’s first independent lunar mission in nearly half a century and it crash-landed on the Moon in an attempt to land near its south pole before India’s Chandrayaan-3.
Speaking about mishaps in space, Elon Musk-led SpaceX says it is ready to attempt another test launch for its Starship launch vehicle in February this year. Starship will be the biggest and most powerful rocket in history once it is complete, and it exploded during both of its previous test launches that happened last year.
But SpaceX does not see that as much of a setback with its fail-fast and iterate-faster approach. The most successful space technology firm in the world is able to function the way it does because it can afford to be more reckless and experimental with its missions, which allows it to quickly reiterate and improve its designs.
NASA will definitely not be complaining about SpaceX’s speed as many of the American space agency’s future Artemis missions to the Moon will hinge on Starship’s ability to get crucial supplies to a lunar orbit. In fact, NASA announced this week that its Artemis programme will be delayed once again, with astronauts’ return to the Moon delayed at least till 2026.
But between the massive resources of space agencies like NASA and the speed and innovation of firms like SpaceX, 2024 still promises to be a big year for space exploration.
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First uploaded on: 14-01-2024 at 12:03 IST
