A space capsule set to plunge into Earth鈥檚 atmosphere with a piece of the Sun this Wednesday has spawned additional projects ranging from spacecraft design to the detection of dangerous asteroids.
NASA鈥檚 Genesis spacecraft has spent 27 months collecting charged particles from the solar wind since its launch in 2001. On Wednesday, it will release a 190-kilogram sample-return capsule into the atmosphere.
The capsule will slam into the upper atmosphere at 11 kilometres per second, super-heating the air around it in a V-shaped shockwave to 20,000 kelvin. Shortly afterward, parachuting more sedately toward the ground, it will be plucked from the air by helicopter over Utah, US, at about 1715 BST (1215 EDT). Read a full preview here.
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快猫短视频s hope the capsule鈥檚 contents will reveal the chemical composition of the cloud from which the Sun and planets condensed 4.5 billion years ago. But professional and amateur astronomers will be watching the man-made fireball streak into the atmosphere for a variety of reasons.
Atomic glow
The descending capsule will be the first man-made observation target of the US Air Force plane, FISTA (Flying Infrared Signature Technologies Aircraft).
At the capsule鈥檚 re-entry temperatures, air molecules break apart into their component atoms that glow at a range of wavelengths. The plane will study the spectrum of the radiation.
Dean Kontinos, an engineer at NASA鈥檚 Ames Research Center in California, says the data will help engineers refine the design of heat shields for future spacecraft. If the shields could be thinner by even a few millimetres, 鈥測ou could decrease the weight and increase the science payload鈥�, he told 快猫短视频.
And this payload could include astronauts. 鈥淭he real long-term application would be if you鈥檙e looking at human expeditions coming back at these velocities. It becomes very important to get the design right,鈥� says Steve Labbe, team member at NASA鈥檚 Engineering and Safety Center in Houston, Texas.
Collision course
Some observers have already begun following Genesis鈥檚 progress in an attempt to test current abilities to detect asteroids that could hit Earth.
Genesis will indeed be on a collision course with the planet until 22 minutes after releasing the capsule into the atmosphere, since the capsule cannot direct its own movement.
Astronomers have observed the craft since April as it periodically changed course 鈥渢o see if our software can predict a real impactor, instead of a near-miss鈥�, says Don Yeomans, manager of NASA鈥檚 Near-Earth Object Program, which studies potentially dangerous asteroids.
As of Friday, he had used seven observations from both professional and amateur astronomers to predict a 96% chance of impact since the spacecraft changed course on 29 August. 鈥淭hat will go up considerably by Tuesday, and it may be able to predict where it will hit within a few hundred kilometres,鈥� he told 快猫短视频.
Bill Gray, a software engineer in Bowdoinham, Maine, has set up several websites for astronomers to report their observations of the spacecraft as soon as they take them. 鈥淚n the case of a real object coming close to Earth, the ability to distribute the data instantly would be very useful,鈥� he says.
Two other returning capsules 鈥� from NASA鈥檚 Stardust comet mission in 2006 and Japan鈥檚 Hayabusa asteroid mission in 2007 鈥� will provide similar testing opportunities.