Tag: Mars

NASA extends Ingenuity’s mission through September ’22

9:31 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

NASA yesterday officially extended Ingenuity’s flight operations on Mars at least through September 2022, outlining in detail the helicopter’s hoped-for flight targets.

The map to the right shows the helicopter’s present location with the green dot, with its two possible future routes proceeding from this location indicated by dashed lines. The red dot indicates Perseverance’s present location, with its planned route from this spot indicated by the dashed lines.

Scheduled for no earlier than March 19, Ingenuity’s next flight will be a complex journey, about 1,150 feet (350 meters) in length, that includes a sharp bend in its course to avoid a large hill. After that, the team will determine whether two or three more flights will be required to complete the crossing of northwest Séítah.

Once Ingenuity crosses the rough terrain and reaches the delta, it will then be used to do more route scouting for the rover.

Upon reaching the delta, Ingenuity’s first orders will be to help determine which of two dry river channels Perseverance should take when it’s time to climb to the top of the delta. Along with routing assistance, data provided by the helicopter will help the Perseverance team assess potential science targets. Ingenuity may even be called upon to image geologic features too far afield (or outside of the rover’s traversable zone), or perhaps scout landing zones and caching sites for the Mars Sample Return program.

This ambitious plan exists because both the helicopter and its engineering team have far exceeded expectations. At the moment, there is no obvious reason why Ingenuity cannot continue to operate for years, an expectation that no one predicted.

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Mesa in the Martian northern lowlands

3:21 pm

Mesa in the dry northern lowlands
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on February 2, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows a mesa sticking up on the relatively flat and featureless northern lowland plains in Utopia Planitia, the second largest impact basin on Mars.

The full image shows three such mesas. Though pictures taken in the northern lowlands of Utopia tend to show evidence of buried ice or glaciers, the impression I get from this picture is one of dryness. If there is any ice here, it is below ground. And even that seems unlikely. The surface surrounding nearby craters does not have that squishy and slushy look that is seen in the north when an impact occurred on near surface ice. Instead, the ground looks solid.

The overview map below reinforces this impression.
» Read more

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Ingenuity completes 21st flight on Mars

3:54 pm

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

According to a tweet today from JPL, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity has successfully completed its 21st flight on Mars, traveling 1,214 feet in two minutes and nine seconds at an average speed of 12.6 feet per second.

The red dot on the map to the right shows Perseverance’s location as of today. The green dot indicates Ingenuity’s position before the 21st flight. Since neither the Perseverance nor the helicopter teams have posted any updates describing the 21st flight, it is difficult to indicate a precise location for its landing site. All we know is that the helicopter is supposed to fly to the northwest, cutting across the rougher region while the rover follows the tan dotted line around that rough region, with both targeting the delta to the northwest.

As a guess, I have placed a black dot about 1,200 feet to the northwest.

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More thumbprints on Mars!

1:22 pm

Thumbprints on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! Among the many strange and unexplained geological features that scientists have identified on Mars, the thumbprint feature is one of the most intriguing. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is a fine example, and was taken on September 10, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The thumbprints are the lighter splotches, and are generally found near curved ridges located mostly in Martian lowlands. All appear to have crater-like features in them, though these craters are not impact craters, but likely (though not confirmed) caused by some form of underground eruption, be it mud, ice, lava or something else. Though scientists do not yet really understand the process that formed the thumbprints, the data strongly suggests that they formed in connection with glacial events. From this 2003 paper [pdf]:

TT [thumbprint terrain] as well as the associated trough systems were formed by a glacial mechanism. [Elevation] data show that the trough systems consistently lie topographically above the TT; this implies that if they were they formed by the same glacier, the troughs must have formed before the glacier retreated and formed the TT.

The splash apron around the crater near the bottom of the photo supports the glacial theory, implying the presence here of underground ice.

Scientists have also theorized wind processes and cinder cones as explanations for these features.

These particular thumbprints are located, as shown in the overview map below, in the same general area as a previous cool image of thumbprints, from April 2019.
» Read more

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Monitoring one glacier flowing off a mesa in Mars’ glacier country

1:28 pm

Vicous glacial flow on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image takes us back to the mesa in Mars’ glacier country that first clued me in on the prevalence of ice in the Martian mid-latitudes. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on November 13, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows a viscous flow coming down from a hollow on that mesa’s southern wall.

The new image has likely been taken to see if anything has changed since the previous image was taken in 2014. Based on the resolution published at the MRO website, nothing seems to have changed, though with more sophisticated software higher resolution versions of the images are available that might show some changes.

In my first post about Mars’ glacier country in December 2019, this flow was one of four that I featured coming off this same 30-mile wide mesa, as shown by the first overview map below.
» Read more

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Fractured terrain on Mars

1:39 pm

Fractures on Mars
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image, which at first glance does not seem so puzzling, actually falls into my “What the heck?” category of baffling Martian geology. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 15, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled “Avernus Cavi fractures”, it shows what resembles the well-documented chaos terrain seen in many places on Mars, where erosion over eons along fault lines creates mesas with random criss-crossing canyons.

The problem is that this location is practically on the Martian equator, and chaos terrain tends to be found in the mid-latitude bands where there are many glaciers, suggesting the cyclical waxing and waning of those glaciers is what causes the erosion. Here at the Martian equator the terrain is very dry. No glaciers.

Moreover, note the higher mesa near the top center. Its flat top suggests that once this terrain was covered with an even higher layer of material, almost all of which was stripped away evenly everywhere, except where that mesa sits. As an amateur geologist I can’t think of any sequence of events that would do such a thing. I suspect professionals might have problems themselves.

Then there are the small parallel ridges. They suggest dunes, especially inside the depressions where sand and dust can get trapped. On the mesa tops however these ridges are more mysterious. Why for example are they aligned with the small ridge in some hollows, but not others? They in many ways remind me of the ridges in this earlier “What the heck?” cool image, also right on the equator.

The overview map below provides some help, though not much.
» Read more

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The layered Martian history exposed in Valles Marineris

12:28 pm

Overview map

The layers in Valles Marineris
Click for full image.

Cool image time! Like the Grand Canyon in the United States, Mars’ largest canyon, Valles Marineris, appears to have been carved out of a layered terrain, thus exposing those many layers in the walls of the canyon.

Valles Marineris, however, is much much larger than the Grand Canyon. You could fit dozens of Grand Canyons inside it and hardly fill it. Yet, its walls have the same layered look, suggesting that in Mars’ long geological history, first came many events that laid down new layers time after time, followed by a long period when the laying ceased and other events carved out the canyon to its almost 30,000 foot depth (which by the way is also about six times deeper than the Grand Canyon).

Today’s cool image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on September 5, 2021 and shows a terraced terrain on the floor of Candor Chasma, one small side canyon of Valles Marineris that is still much larger than the Grand Canyon. The black dot in the overview map above indicates its location. I roughly estimate the elevation difference between the high and low spots in the picture is about 3,000 feet, a difference that while two-thirds that of the depth of the Grand Canyon is almost unnoticeable within the depths of Valles Marineris.

This layering is probably the canyon’s most important geological feature. See these previous cool images here and here for other examples. When geologists finally arrive on Mars and can begin dating these layers in detail they will likely reveal the planet’s entire geological history, going back five to six billion years.

Most of the layers are probably volcanic flood lava laid down by repeated eruptions from the giant volcanoes to the west. In between and within however will be deposits from the Martian atmosphere, telling us its composition and thickness. All told, the layers of Valles Marineris will likely unlock almost all of the most basic secrets of Martian geology.

We merely have to go there to find out.

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Martian crater overwhelmed by glacier?

1:32 pm

Martian crater overwhelmed by glacier?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on January 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It shows what the science team labels a “modified crater.”

What I see is an old crater almost completely covered by glacial material. That material however is also very old, as there are numerous small craters on its surface, enough that it must have been here for a long time. Its cracked surface also suggests this glacier is very old.

Thus, while we might have ice here, buried by a thin layer of dust and debris to prevent it from sublimating away, it must be very old ice. The many climate cycles caused by the extreme swings in Mars’ rotational tilt, from 11 to 60 degrees, have apparently not caused this ice to ebb and flow very much.

Might it therefore not be ice, but hardened lava?

The location, as shown by the overview map below, provides some context, but only makes this mystery more puzzling.
» Read more

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ESA: ExoMars launch in ’22 “very unlikely” due to Russian invasion of the Ukraine

9:05 am

In a statement yesterday condemning Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine and responding to the Russians’ decision to suspend cooperation with Arianespace in French Guiana, the European Space Agency (ESA) also admitted, almost as an aside, that the ExoMars launch in ’22 to Mars is now “very unlikely.”

That mission is a partnership with Russia, where the Russians provide the rocket and the lander that will put Europe’s Franklin rover on the surface.

For the scientists running ExoMars, this delay only adds to their frustration, as the mission has already been delayed several times, most recently from a ’20 launch because the lander parachutes — being built by ESA — were not ready.

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Ingenuity’s 20th flight a success

7:59 pm

According to a tweet released tonight by JPL, the 20th flight of Ingenuity on Mars was a success, lasting 130 seconds and traveling about 1,283 feet.

The tweet includes a short video showing the helicopter taking off and then landing, at the same spot, which I am sure is not of this flight but from a previous test that simply went up and down. The flight just completed took off and headed mostly to the north, slightly west, and landed in a different spot entirely.

Expect more information to follow.

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Scientists: Martian topography in one region suggests the past existence of lakes and river networks, but not a large single ocean

3:53 pm

Based on a just published paper, scientists using orbital topography data and imagery have concluded that more than three billion years ago on Mars ancient rivers in the transition zone between the southern cratered highlands and the northern lowland plains fed into numerous lakes in the lowlands, not a single large ocean as some scientists posit.

From their abstract:

The northern third of Mars contains an extensive topographic basin, but there is conflicting evidence to whether it was once occupied by an ocean-sized body of water billions of years ago. At the margins of this basin are the remnants of deltas, which formed into water, but the size and nature of this water body (or water bodies) is unclear, and detailed investigations of different regions of the basin margins are necessary.

In this study, we use high-resolution image and topographic datasets from satellites orbiting Mars to investigate a series of water-formed landforms in the Memnonia Sulci region, set along the boundary of Mars’s northern basin. These landforms likely formed billions of years ago, providing evidence for ancient rivers and lakes in this region. The geologic evolution of these rivers and lakes was complicated, likely influenced by water-level fluctuations, changes in sediment availability, and impact cratering. Our topographic analysis of these rivers and lakes suggests that they terminated in a series of ancient lake basins at the boundary of Mars’s northern basin, rather than supplying a larger, ocean-sized body of water. [emphasis mine]

Overview map

The Memnonia Sulci region is in the cratered highlands just south of the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars. The region of study in it is marked by the blue dot in the overview map to the right.

The study does not preclude the possible existence of a northern ocean on Mars, but it says that at least in this region at the equator, it did not exist. Instead, the various river valleys drained into separate smaller and relatively short-lived lakes.

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Curiosity images the Martian version of a cave formation

10:00 am

An helictite on Mars?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken today by Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), a camera designed to get close high resolution images of very small features on the surface.

The Curiosity image site does not provide a scale, but MAHLI, located at the end of the rover’s robot arm, is capable of resolutions as small as 14 microns per pixel. Since a micron is one thousandth of a millimeter, and the original image was 1584 by 1184 pixels in size, that means the entire image is likely only slightly larger than 18 to 25 millimeters across, or slightly less than an inch.

This feature, which closely resembles a cave helictite, is thus about a quarter inch in size. Helictites, which in caves often resemble wildly growing roots, are nonetheless made of calcite, not organic material. They grow wildly because the water is being pushed out from their center is under pressure, so that as it drips away from the formation it leaves its calcite deposits randomly, causing the formation to grow randomly.

MAHLI also took what looks to be an infrared or heat image of the formation, which appears to show that the tips of the branches are at a different temperature, I think cooler, than the rest of the formation.

While seeping water causes helictites on Earth, what formed this thing on Mars is beyond my guess. It sure looks cool however.

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Ingenuity update: Dust storm caused issues; 20th flight upcoming

9:43 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

According to the Ingenuity engineering team in an update today, the Mars helicopter is getting ready for its 20th flight, scheduled for no earlier than today, even as the team successfully dealt with dust that settled on the helicopter’s various parts prior to flight 19.

The dust storm did, however, leave the Ingenuity team with two additional challenges to deal with: a dirty navigation camera window and dust in the swashplate assemblies.

Comparing navigation camera images taken before and after the dust storm revealed that the storm deposited debris on the ground-facing navigation camera window, specifically around the periphery of the camera’s field of view. Debris on the navigation camera window is problematic because Ingenuity’s visual navigation software may confuse the debris with the actual ground features that it tries to track during flight, which can cause navigation errors. Fortunately, Ingenuity’s software provides a tool for dealing with this issue: The team can provide an updated image mask file that tells the visual navigation software to ignore certain regions of the image. The operations team made use of this feature and performed an image mask update late last month.

The dust storm also deposited dust and sand in Ingenuity’s swashplate assemblies. On Mars as well as on Earth, a helicopter’s swashplates are very important because they control the pitch (angle from horizontal) of the rotor blades, which is essential for stable and controlled flight. Ingenuity’s swashplate issue was first detected when the rotorcraft reported a failure during its first automated swashplate actuator self-test since the dust storm on Jan. 28, 2022 (Sol 335 of the Perseverance mission). Data revealed that all six swashplate servo actuators were experiencing unusual levels of unusual levels of resistance while moving the swashplates over their range of motion.

The engineers subsequently tested a procedure, planned before launch, for cleaning the swashplates, and found that it worked.

The data from that activity showed a significant improvement – a reduction in servo loading, so the team followed it up with seven back-to-back servo wiggles on Sol 341. Remarkably, by the end of that activity, Ingenuity’s servo loads appeared nearly identical to nominal loads seen prior to the dust storm.

After dealing with both dust issues, flight 19 proceeded successfully, as planned.

The overview map above shows the present location of Perseverance as the red dot, the present location of Ingenuity by the green dot, and the approximate landing site for the helicopter’s 20th flight by the black dot. The tan dotted line shows Perseverance’s planned route.

Perseverance itself has been traveling fast since Ingenuity’s last flight on February 9th, almost completely retracing its steps to return almost to its landing site.

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Dry barren ground in Martian northern lowlands?

3:38 pm

Dry barren ground in the Martian northern lowlands?
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image is intriguing because of what appears to not be there, rather than what is there. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on November 3, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

At first glance it appears to show a very dry, barren surface. At its base are many parallel grooves running from the southwest to the northeast. On top of these grooves are several more recent crater impacts, as well as several patches of higher bedrock that appears to have been hard enough to resist whatever erosion process caused the groves.

Yet, based on the overview map below, the location of this photo should not be dry and barren, but instead home to a near-surface ice sheet covering everything.
» Read more

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Curiosity’s coming travels across the rocky Greenheugh Pediment

10:31 am

Curiosity's view west on February 21, 2022 (Sol 3393)
Click for full resolution panorama. Original images can be found here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Curiosity, having successfully climbed up and out of Gordon Notch, was able to aim its navigation cameras forward yesterday and get its first views from this position across the very rocky Greenheugh Pediment to its next major goal, Gediz Vallis Ridge. The panorama above, taken by the rover’s right navigation camera, shows this view. The ridge is about 1,500 feet away, at its closest point. The rim of Gale Crater, barely visible in the haze, is about 20-30 miles away.

The overview map to the right indicates the area covered in this panorama by the yellow lines. The red dotted line indicates Curiosity’s planned future route.

Curiosity’s first view of the pediment was made in March 2020, from a point on its northern border, just beyond the top edge of the map. The panorama taken then showed what appeared to be a very treacherous and rough surface, possibly too rough for Curiosity to traverse.

According to the science team’s most recent update from before the holiday weekend, the plan had been to spend February 19-20 studying the ground, then drive a short distance yesterday to get a better view ahead.

This will give us a good vantage point to look into the valley ahead and try to scope out our future route. … We chose to drive about 10m total, in order to get the rover oriented at a good heading and parked in a good spot. We expect a similarly beautiful view from our post-drive imaging.

That view is the panorama above. Though still very rough, the ground ahead appears far more traversable than the surface seen in 2020.

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Deformed Martian craters

2:04 pm

Deformed Martian craters
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 3, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The focus of the image for the MRO science team were the wedding cake layers inside the largest crater. These layers suggest glacial ice, with the layers suggesting multiple cycles of glacial ebb and flow. Since the crater is at 43 degrees north latitude, and sits in the chaos region dubbed Protonilus Mensae, smack dab in the center of what I call Mars’ glacier country, this conclusion makes perfect sense.

To my eye, however, the most interesting feature of this photo are the many distorted craters. The overview map below shows the picture’s location, as well as several nearby very large impact craters which might have caused many secondary impacts, including the many craters at this location.
» Read more

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Cracking ice on Mars?

12:43 pm

Cracking ice on Mars?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on December 7, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the MRO science team dubs “erosion of scalloped terrain” in the northern lowland plains of Mars.

The cracks invoke the polygon cracks one sees in mud as it dries. The circular feature suggests a buried crater whose shape is merely suggested because the cracks are conforming to the underground topography.

Are we looking at dried mud? Maybe, but more likely we are seeing a sheet of ice now sublimating away and cracking as it does so. If you look at the full photo you will see the cracked material also appears to drape itself over several nearby low ridges, something that seems more likely from ice than mud.

The overview map below also suggests this is a buried layer of ice.
» Read more

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Curiosity looks out across the mountains

12:20 pm

Curiosity panorama, Sol 3387, February 15, 2022
Click for high resolution. Original images found here and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The mosaic above, created from two photos taken by Curiosity’s left navigation camera and downloaded from the rover today, looks to the southeast across the small rocky valley the rover has been traversing for the past two months towards Mount Sharp.

The rover had entered this valley through the nearest gap on the left, then traveled uphill from the left to the right until it had passed behind the nearest dark ridge on the right. It then retreated and turned left, starting uphill through Gordon Notch, as shown in the overview map to the right.

On the overview, the white line marks Curiosity’s past travels, with red dotted line indicating its planned future route. The yellow lines indicate the approximate view in the panorama above.

For scale, Navarro Mountain is about 450 feet tall. The actual peak of Mount Sharp is blocked by the white front range to the left. The rover is presently still 12,600 feet below that peak, which sits to the southeast about 35 miles away.

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A floating Martian rock

9:21 am

Mosiac of top of butte
For original images, click here and here.

A floating Martian rock
Click for original photo.

Cool image time! As Curiosity begins the slow and careful journey up through the rocky Gordon Notch onto the even rockier Greenheugh Pedimont layer above, the science team is using its cameras to take pictures of the buttes that form the northern and southern walls of that notch.

The mosiac above and the photo to the right, both cropped and reduced to post here, is one beautiful example. Taken by Curiosity’s high resolution camera on February 11th, both images show the consequences on geology of Mars’ low gravity, one third that of Earth’s. The top image shows the entire top of the butte, with the picture to the right focusing on one boulder that almost seems to be floating in the air. Look close and you can see daylight under the rock’s entire left half.

I think this butte is the north wall of Gordon Notch, but am not sure. Either way, the photos once again demonstrate that it is very dangerous to assign our Earth-based assumptions to Martian geology. There may be similarities, but the differences must not be ignored, or else our conclusions about what we see will be wrong.

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Global image of Mars from UAE’s Al-Amal orbiter

10:23 am

Mars as seen by Al-Amal in January 2022
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The United Arab Emirates (UAE) today released several new images taken by its Al-Amal Mars orbiter, showing the changing atmospheric conditions on Mars between September ’21 and January ’22.

The photo to the right, cropped and annotated by me, is the January image, showing the dust storm conditions that presently exist in the equatorial regions of Mars. The lighter puffy cloud-like features in the center of the image are a 1,500 mile wide dust storm centered on the equator. The white dot indicates the approximate spot where Perseverance sits in Jezero Crater, within that storm.

The previous Al-Amal image from September (available at the link) shows the whole Martian hemisphere with generally clear skies.

Below is a recent photo taken by Perseverance illustrating these dusty conditions.
» Read more

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Mars: Glaciers on top of glaciers on top of glaciers

1:16 pm

Overview map
Mars’ glacier country.

glaciers on top of glaciers on top of glaciers
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on December 12, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small patch of layered glacial features flowing in all directions. The overview map above marks its location by the red dot, at 40 degrees north latitude in the region dubbed Deuteronilus Mensae, on the western end of the 2,000 long strip from 30 to 60 degrees north latitude that I dub Mars’s glacier country because practically every image in this region shows glacial features.

What makes the glacial features in this picture so remarkable is their number, their somewhat chaotic nature, and the evidence of many layers, suggesting a cyclical process of ebb and flow over the eons.

Below I zoom into one section of this photo, showing that section at full resolution.
» Read more

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Ingenuity completes 19th flight

9:19 am

Perserverance and Ingenuity as of February 8, 2022
Click for interactive map.

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity yesterday successfully completed its 19th flight on the Martian surface, traveling for 99 seconds about 200 feet to the northeast, landing close to the landing site of its 8th flight back in June 2021.

The map to the right shows the helicopter’s overall travels in tan, with the 19th flight path in green. The white line marks Perseverance’s travels, with the red dot indicating its present location. The dashed yellow line indicates the rover’s planned route. To achieve that the rover team is retracing its steps along the path it had previously traveled, with Ingenuity flying in front, along that path.

The flight had been delayed more than a month while waiting for a dust storm to settle as well as making sure Perseverance was in a good position to maintain communications throughout the flight. With Perseverance finally on the move to the east and the dust storm subsiding, the Ingenuity flight was finally possible.

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Random Martian ridges on a lava plain

1:02 pm

Random ridges on Martian lava plain
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on December 30, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This was a terrain sample image, taken not as part of any specific research project but to fill a gap in the camera’s schedule and thus keep its temperature maintained properly. When the MRO team needs to take such pictures, they try to pick locations that might be interesting and previously unphotographed, but often the location is neither.

In this case this terrain sample captured a flat lava plain interspersed with sinuous ridges going in all directions. On top of this is a scattering of smaller impact craters, which obviously occurred after the lava had flowed and solidified.

What caused the ridges?
» Read more

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Lockheed Martin wins NASA contract to build Mars rocket

9:11 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday awarded Lockheed Martin a $194 million contract to build the Mars rocket that will lift Perseverance’s samples into orbit for return to Earth.

Set to become the first rocket fired off another planet, the MAV [Mars Ascent Vehicle] is a crucial part of a campaign to retrieve samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover and deliver them to Earth for advanced study. NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander, another important part of the campaign, would carry the MAV to Mars’ surface, landing near or in Jezero Crater to gather the samples cached by Perseverance. The samples would be returned to the lander, which would serve as the launch platform for the MAV. With the sample container secured, the MAV would then launch.

Once it reaches Mars orbit, the container would be captured by an ESA (European Space Agency) Earth Return Orbiter spacecraft outfitted with NASA’s Capture, Containment, and Return System payload. The spacecraft would bring the samples to Earth safely and securely in the early- to mid-2030s.

According to this project’s webpage, the European Space Agency (ESA) is building that they call a “fetch rover” which will be deployed from the rover to get the samples and bring them back to the MAV.

There are a lot of uncertainties in this scenario. It has been decades since Lockheed Martin built rockets. ESA has not yet built an operational Mars rover. It is also unclear who will build NASA’s lander and capture/return payload. Thus, do not expect this mission to launch “as early as ’26,” as the press release says. I predict it will launch at least five, maybe ever ten years, later.

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InSight resumes limited science operations

10:26 pm

InSight on February 5th resumed science operations, reactivating its seismometer to record Martian quakes.

As I suspected in my previous InSight update, the lander’s life is still coming to an end.

The mission, though, has been grappling with a gradual decline in the spacecraft’s power because of dust accumulating on its solar arrays. Unlike the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, whose arrays were regularly cleaned by atmospheric activity, dust has continued to accumulate on InSight’s arrays. At a meeting of MEPAG in June 2021, Banerdt projected that power levels would drop below that needed to keep the spacecraft alive in the spring of 2022.

That date has been pushed out slightly, but he said the long-term outlook for the lander still does not look promising. “Our current projections indicate that the energy will drop below that required to operate the payload in the May/June time frame and probably below survivability some time near the end of the year,” he said.

They might still squeeze a month or two more from the lander, but unless they are very lucky and a dust devil blows across it, the end is coming.

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Alien and barren Mars

12:48 pm

Curiosity's view looking to northeast, sol 3376 (February 4, 2022)
Click for full resolution. Click here, here, and here for original images.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created from three photos downloaded today from Curiosity’s right navigation camera. It looks to the northeast of the rover, out across Gale Crater. The crater floor is about 1,750 feet lower.

This is dust season on Mars, which explains the thick haze in the crater. About 25 miles away the crater rim can be faintly seen through the dust haze as a mountain chain. If you look at the full resolution panorama you can see several buttes on the crater floor barely visible through that haze.

The map to the right gives the context. Curiosity’s present location is indicated by the yellow dot, with the yellow lines indicating the area covered by the panorama. The red dotted line indicates the rover’s future planned route.

For the last few weeks Curiosity has been working nestled to the base of a small butte the science team has dubbed “The Prow”, studying its numerous thin layers. I featured the Prow in this January 11th post, though at the time I overestimated its size, which is only about ten feet high. The butte is especially fascinating in that its top layers overhang outward in an unbelievable manner.

The rover is now about to move on, though where must still be decided by the science team. Based on their most recent update it appears they are not ready to leave this barren rocky hollow surrounded with many-layered buttes, and will take the rover to another.

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Hot spot in northern Martian crater?

12:18 pm

Hot spot in northern Martian crater?
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 22, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows an unnamed four-mile-wide crater in the high northern lowland plains of Mars, at 60 degrees north latitude.

At 60 degrees latitude, it is likely that the crater’s interior is filled with buried glacial ice. A close look at the crater’s interior rim shows that whatever material fills the crater does not quite reach the rim. Furthermore, there are areas in the interior where it appears some slight sublimation has occurred. These features suggest the interior material is buried ice, but do not prove it.

What makes this crater intriguing however is the irregular depression at its center. When craters have a feature at the center, it usually is a central peak, caused at impact. The impact makes the ground act like a pond of water when you drop a pebble into it, with circular ripples (the crater rim) spreading outward and an uplift in the center (the central peak). In the case of a crater, the pond quickly freezes, locking those ripples and uplift in place.

Why a central depression then?
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When looking at Mars’ images you must never jump to conclusions

1:16 pm

Hardened sand in a crater
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In the past four years I have posted hundreds of cool images taken by the orbiters circling Mars. From those images I have been able to slowly gather and pass on to my readers some of the solid knowledge that scientists are gaining now about the Red Planet.

The image to the right illustrates best why one must never make any quick assumptions about the features you see in these photos. Taken on November 28, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows a small crater that appears partly filled with material. On its walls can be seen many slope streaks, a still unexplained feature unique to Mars that is not caused by rock or debris avalanches.

As for the material inside the crater, based on the majority of Martian images showing similar craters, the first assumption one might make is that this material is some form of eroding glacial material.

That first assumption however would simply be wrong. Glacial material found in Martian craters is routinely found in the mid-latitude bands between 30 and 60 degrees. This crater is sits almost exactly on the equator of Mars, where scientists have found no evidence of any glacial material or near-surface ice. In the equatorial regions the surface of Mars is essentially dry.

So what is that patch of material? As always, location is all.
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Glaciers in the Phlegra Mountains on Mars

1:42 pm

Glaciers in the Phlegra mountains
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, is just one of the many hundreds taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) as well as Europe’s Mars Express orbiter showing the thick icy glacial flows that surround practically every mountain or hill in the Phlegra mountains of Mars.

This picture was taken on November 3, 2021, and shows the eroding foot of an eroding glacial flow coming down from a small hill in a southeastern part of these mountains dubbed Phlegra Dorsa. The downward grade is to the north.

At 30 degrees north latitude it is not surprising these glacial flows are eroding, as they are at the southernmost limit of the mid-latitudes bands where such glaciers are found. Closer to the equator scientists have yet to find much evidence of ice.

The repeating arcs at the foot of this glacier suggest that it pushed downward in cycles, with each later cycle traveling a shorter distance. This supposition makes sense, considering scientists think the ebb and flow of these Martian glaciers has been determined by the cyclical changes in the planet’s rotational tilt.

The overview map below not only gives the context, it shows this location relative to the candidate landing sites for SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft.
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Scientists: Liquid surface water might have existed on Mars as recently as 2.3 billion years ago

10:00 am

Map showing locations of salt deposits
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Using orbital data from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), scientists have found salt deposits on Mars where nearby crater counts suggest that the salt water that once held these deposits could have evaporated away as recently as 2.3 billion years ago.

Using [MRO’s] cameras to create digital elevation maps, Leask and Ehlmann found that many of the salts were in depressions – once home to shallow ponds – on gently sloping volcanic plains. The scientists also found winding, dry channels nearby – former streams that once fed surface runoff (from the occasional melting of ice or permafrost) into these ponds. Crater counting and evidence of salts on top of volcanic terrain allowed them to date the deposits.

Past data has suggested that if liquid surface water had existed on Mars, it was gone by three billion years ago.

You can read the scientists’ research paper here.. The maps to the right, figure two from the paper, shows the locations of discovered salt deposits, almost all of which are in the Martian southern cratered highlands of Mars.

Is there uncertainty in these results? My regular readers know that the answer is of course yes. The biggest problem for these Mars researchers is that, despite the surface evidence that liquid water should have once flowed on the surface of Mars, no scientist has yet come up with a satisfactory model of Mars’ past climate that would have made that possible. The planet was either too cold or had too thin an atmosphere, based on other data. And getting it warmer or with a thicker atmosphere involves inventing any number of scenarios that are all questionable, based on what is presently known.

There is also the increasing evidence that glaciers of ice, not water, might have carved those winding, dry channels. If so, many of the assumptions that liquid water existed might simply be wrong, or incomplete. The scientists who wrote this report recognize this importance of ice on Mars, and note in their abstract that

…we think that the water source came from surface runoff, rather than deep groundwater welling up to the surface. The small amounts of water required are most likely from occasional melting of ice.

As always, more data is needed, with the most useful data that will clarify these conclusions being that gathered by future colonists on the surface of Mars itself.

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