Tag: Mars

Contact restored with InSight after dust storm

10:19 am

The InSight science team has regained communications with the lander on Mars following a dust storm that caused it to shut down all operations entirely.

Though the tweet from the science team says the space craft is out of safe mode, that really doesn’t appear to be the case. Safe mode is a condition where a robot ceases all science operations, hunkers down, and awaits further orders. All that has happened here is that the engineers have regained contact after communications were lost on January 7th. No science is being done.

The resumption of communications is excellent news, however. They must now access how much power the lander’s solar panels are generating to see if they can turn InSight’s main instrument, its seismometer, back on. Those panels might be badly covered with dust, preventing operations.

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Freaky badlands on Mars

1:20 pm

Freaky badlands on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated and cropped to post here, was taken on November 18, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled merely as “Danielson Crater Outcrops,” it shows us a perfect example of the strangeness and sometimes very forbidding terrain of Mars.

We are looking at the outcrop tops of many tilted layers, worn into curves semicircles with the convex side all pointing to the southwest. In the hollowed concave-side, dust and sand have accumulated and been trapped, sometimes forming small ripple dunes when there is enough space for the wind to get inside, as seen in the picture’s lower right.

Danielson Crater is 41 miles in diameter. The overview map below provides the context.
» Read more

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Ingenuity’s 19th flight delayed due to Martian weather

9:10 am

Because of the early arrival of the fall dust storm season, the Ingenuity engineering team decided to delay the helicopter’s 19th flight on January 5th, rescheduling it to no earlier than January 23rd.

In the days following the flight delay, the dust storm moved over Jezero crater, and we were able to clearly see its effects in both MEDA data and from orbit (Figure 1). Most notable was a sharp drop in air density – about a 7% deviation below what was observed pre-dust storm. This observed decrease would have put density below the lower threshold of safe flight and would have imparted undue risk to the spacecraft. We also observed the effect of dust in the amount of sunlight absorbed by Ingenuity’s solar array, which fell well below normal “clear sky” levels, a drop of about 18%.

Apparently the storm has now dissipated, allowing the new flight date.

Though this flight postponement occurred two weeks ago, today’s update appears to be the first public announcement, which has been typical of the Ingenuity team. They generally announce planned flights just before take-off, but then provide no detailed update on what happened, sometimes for weeks.

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Debris apparently cleared from Perseverance’s sample carousel

10:12 am

Mosaic showing the clearing of debris
Click here and here for original images.

Two images taken by one of Perseverance’s cameras and downloaded today appear to show that the bits of debris from the rover’s most recent core sample that had fallen into the sample storage carousel have been dislodged and are now gone.

Those images are above, placed side by side. They were taken a little over an hour apart on January 18, 2022, probably before and after the rover completed two short rotations of the carousel, as planned.

The first image on the left, taken at 12:12:47 local solar time, shows the two small pieces sitting near the bottom inside of the sample storage holder. The second image on the right, taken at 13:20:40 local solar time, shows both pieces gone. There also appears to be less small rubble on the small platform just below this point.

The science team will next take pictures of the ground below, comparing those with pictures taken before the rotations, to see if they can spot this debris and confirm it is completely clear of the rover.

If the debris is gone, as these images suggest, Perseverance will be able to drill another core sample at this location and store it as planned. Expect an announcement by tomorrow or the next day providing more details of this success.

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The plan for clearing Perseverance’s sample carousel of debris

9:22 am

Debris in core sample carousel on Perseverance
Click for full image.

The Perseverance science team yesterday outlined the first steps in their plan to remove pieces of debris that had fallen into the core sample bit storage carousel, as shown by the picture to the right, and thus prevents them from storing further core samples.

First they have taken pictures of an area of the ground below the rover to establish a baseline. Then,

With this below-chassis, preliminary imaging, in hand, the team [will return] the remaining contents of Sample Tube 261 (our latest cored-rock sample) back to its planet of origin. Although this scenario was never designed or planned for prior to launch, it turns out dumping a core from an open tube is a fairly straightforward process (at least during Earth testing). We sent commands up yesterday, and later on today the rover’s robotic arm will simply point the open end of the sample tube toward the surface of Mars and let gravity do the rest.

This maneuver will tell them exactly how much material broke off the core when some pieces of it dropped into the carousel.

Next, on January 18th, they will have the bit carousel perform two short rotations, the first short and the second longer, to shift the debris in the carousel and get more information about it. Some might drop out with this maneuver, so they are also going to take more ground pictures to see if any did.

They have not yet outlined the next steps in this removal procedure, though they have said the need for this procedure was anticipated when the rover was designed. Thus they must know what those steps will be, but are likely holding off outlining them because they might need to revise their actions depending on what they learn in the next few days.

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A cracking and collapsing glacier on Mars

12:18 pm

Fractured ice sink hole on Mars?
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on November 4, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small portion of the floor of a very ancient and eroded unnamed 40-mile-wide crater on Mars.

MRO’s science team labeled this picture simply as a “Fractured Feature.” The section I have focused on in the cropped image is clearly the fractures the scientists were interested in. What is heck caused this?

The location is at 39 degrees north latitude and is located at the very western end and in the center of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude strip I call glacier country because practically every photo exhibits evidence of glaciers. Thus, this fractured terrain is almost certainly evidence of ice that partly buried and thus protected from sublimating away.

The collapse feature indicates more, however. The circular shape of the fractures suggests that the center of this feature is sinking, with the ice on all sides slipping downward and breaking as it does so. The location however is not in the center of this crater, but near its southern interior rim. Moreover, in a wider image from MRO’s context camera this feature appears to be within what looks like a thick patch of ice filling most of the southeast quadrant of the crater. On it are other similar collapse features.

The data suggests that this ice patch is eroding, but doing so influenced by the rough terrain on which it sits. The sinks suggest the glacial ice is sublimating first over low spots, but this is hardly certain.

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Curiosity’s wheels holding up despite very mountainous and rocky terrain

12:01 pm

Wheel comparison on Curiosity after five months of rough travel
Click here and here for original images.

In the past half year the Mars rover Curiosity has moved into the mountainous foothills of Mount Sharp, crossing the roughest and rockiest terrain seen during its entire decade-long sojourn on the red planet.

Such terrain poses a serious threat to the rover’s already damaged wheels. Since early in the mission the science team had discovered that the wheels were more easily damaged by the Martian surface than had been expected when they were designed. Since then engineers have been very careful about picking the rover’s route, weaving it in and out to avoid the worst ground. They also take images of the wheels every few months to see if any additional damage has occurred.

The bottom image to the right is part of the most recent wheel survey, taken on January 11, 2022, the 3,353 sol the rover has been on Mars. The top image was taken about six and a half months earlier, in early June 2021. The numbers indicate the same tread areas in both pictures.

Based on this one comparison of part of one wheel, it appears that Curiosity’s wheels have not experienced much new damage, even though during the last half year it has climbed into the mountains and has been traveling continuously over rocks, stones, and boulders. Even now, as its sits in the stone valley beyond Gordon Notch, the ground everywhere is stark and forbidding. Yet, this wheel appears to show no new damage, suggesting that the rover’s full set of wheels are also holding up quite well considering its recent travels.

I focus on this particular wheel because it is the same wheel I have used for comparison since 2017, and thus provides a nice baseline for change. In fact, a comparison of today’s image with the one from 2017 shows that in four years there has been practically no change.

This data is quite encouraging, and bodes well for the mission, suggesting there is really nothing to stop Curiosity from climbing Mount Sharp for years to come.

Of course, this is a comparison of only one part of one of Curiosity’s six wheels. A review of the other wheels might suggest a different conclusion. I suspect however that the other wheels show the same thing. The engineers of Curiosity have done a miraculous job protecting the wheels these last four years.

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Scientists discover that mid-sized dunes near Mars’ north pole move

11:41 am

Mars' North Pole

Scientists using images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) collected over six Martian years (6.5 Earth years) have found that the mid-sized dunes dubbed mega-dunes near the north pole actually do move from year to year, unlike similar sized dunes elsewhere on the planet.

Megaripples on Mars are about 1 to 2 meters tall and have 5 to 40 meter spacing, where there size falls between ripples that are about 40 centimeters tall with 1 to 5 meter spacing and dunes that can reach hundreds of meters in height with spacing of 100 to 300 meters. Whereas the megaripples migration rates are slow in comparison (average of 0.13 meters per Earth year), some of the nearby ripples were found to migrate an average equivalent of 9.6 meters (32 feet) per year over just 22 days in northern summer – unprecedented rates for Mars. These high rates of sand movement help explain the megaripple activity.

Previously it was believed that such dunes were static planetwide, left over from a time when Mars’ atmosphere was thicker and could then move them more easily. This data however suggests that the winds produced over the north pole when the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere freezes in winter and sublimates back to a gas in summer are sufficient to shift these dunes in the surrounding giant Olympia Undae dune sea.

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InSight recovering from safe mode caused by Martian dust storm

9:34 am

Engineers have been able to regain contact with the Mars lander InSight after a Martian dust storm that put it in safe mode and cut off all communications for three days.

The mission’s team reestablished contact with InSight Jan. 10, finding that its power was holding steady and, while low, was unlikely to be draining the lander’s batteries. Drained batteries are believed to have caused the end of NASA’s Opportunity rover during an epic series of dust storms that blanketed the Red Planet in 2018.

The lander remains however in safe mode. The engineers hope they can resume limited science operations in about a week. Even before this even the limitations on InSight’s power generation due to dust on its solar panels had forced the science team to only gather data from the seismometer, and even then had to suspend all data gathering periodically.

Though the lander has survived this dust storm, it is presently unclear how much dust remains on its panels and thus how much power it can generate. If it only can generate enough power to keep the lander from freezing, but not do any science, it might be time to shut it down entirely.

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A butte on Mars

11:13 am

A butte on Mars
Click for full photograph.

Cool image time! Because the Martian geology inside the enclosed stone valley beyond Maria Gordon notch is so complex and exposed, the Curiosity science team is spending a lot of time there. As noted in their January 7th update:

[W]e are marvelling at the landscape in front of us, which is very diverse, both in the rover workspace and in the walls around us. It’s a feast for our stratigraphers (those who research the succession in which rocks were deposited and deduce the geologic history of the area from this). We are all looking forward to the story they will piece together when they’ve had a bit of time to think!

The image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken by the rover’s high resolution camera on December 18th, soon after it entered this stone valley and was part of scan covering both this butte as well as a nearby cliff. I had previously featured a close-up of the top of this butte and its incredible overhang on December 20, 2021. This image however shows the whole butte, which I estimate to be about 30 to 40 feet high is about 10 feet high.

Not only does the butte illustrate well the alien nature of this stark and barren Martian terrain, so does all the terrain surrounding it. The surface everywhere is nothing but pavement stones of all sizes. Once again, there is no life, something you practically never see on Earth.

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Strange land forms on the flanks of Mars’ Arsia Mons volcano

1:24 pm

Strange landforms on the flanks of Arsia Mons
Click for original image. Click here for the context camera image.

Cool image time! The center of the photo to the right was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on September 5, 2021. For posting here I have rotated, cropped, and reduced it, as well as added to each side the lower resolution context camera image of this region.

The ground slopes downhill to the north. Make sure you click on the image to see the full resolution version. In only a few miles the terrain changes from a mound with small knobs to a smooth area with few knobs to a chaotic area where the larger ridges and knobs are the dominant feature, with hollows and canyons in between.

You should also take a look at the full context camera image. Just to the southeast of the above picture is a large depression that looks like it has been filled with lava, with its western rim covered by that flow. Scientists have taken a lot of high resolution pictures of this depression with MRO, trying to decipher its geology.
» Read more

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Debris in Perseverance core sample equipment

9:07 am

Debris in core sample carousel on Perseverance
Click for full image.

In attempting to store its sixth core sample on Mars last week, engineers discovered that Perseverance could not do so because several small pieces of the core sample had fallen into the equipment and prevented the drilling bit with the core from inserting itself completely into the sample storage carousel.

To understand the issue precisely, the engineers commanded Perseverance to first extract the bit from the carousel so they could get pictures of it.

The extraction took place yesterday (1/6) and data was downlinked early this morning. These most recent downlinked images confirm that inside the bit carousel there are a few pieces of pebble-sized debris. The team is confident that these are fragments of the cored rock that fell out of the sample tube at the time of Coring Bit Dropoff, and that they prevented the bit from seating completely in the bit carousel.

The photo to the right shows that material at the image’s bottom.

It appears this issue was anticipated when the rover was designed giving engineers a way to remove the debris. They plan to do so, but will proceed slowly as this will be the first time it will be attempted on Mars.

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A Martian cliff

1:30 pm

A strange Martian cliff
Click for full image.

Many features on Mars immediately make one think of the Grand Canyon and the stark dramatic geology of the American southwest. Today’s cool image on the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is a typical example. Photographed on September 7, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), it shows a dramatic cliff face that I estimate is about 3,000 feet high.

A closer look, however, almost always shows that this Martian terrain is not like the American southwest at all, but alien in its own way.

At the base of this abrupt cliff the terrain suddenly changes to a series of smooth downward fan-shaped flows. The cliff evokes rough boulders, avalanches, and chaotic erosion. The fans evoke a gentle and organized erosion of small particles like dust or sand. The two processes are completely different, and yet here the former is butted right up against the latter.

The fans also appear to flow out of hollows in the rough cliff, suggesting that somehow as the cliff erodes in chunks those chunks break into sand or dust, find the lowest points, and then flow downward like liquid.

How strange. How Martian. And how truly beautiful.

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Ice-filled crater on the Martian north polar ice cap

2:15 pm

Ice-filled crater on the Martian north pole ice cap
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on September 18, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows a very distinct impact crater on top of the layered deposits of ice mixed with dirt that form the bottom layers as well as surround the visible north pole ice cap on Mars.

I purposely cropped the high resolution image so that the crater is off center to show the dark streaks that appear to blow away from the crater to the northwest, west, and southwest. This asymmetric pattern suggests the wind direction at this location generally flows to the west, but the pattern might also be caused by lighting effects. The location is at 82 degrees north latitude, and the Sun was only 31 degrees high when the picture was taken, causing long shadows. Also, in the full image, you can see a whole strip of similarly oriented streaks, suggesting that these are slope streaks descending a slope going downhill to the northwest.

The overview map below also provides important information about this location.
» Read more

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Ingenuity’s next flight and the plans beyond

1:19 pm

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

In an update posted today written by Ingenuity pilot Martin Cacan, he outlined the engineering team’s goal for the Mars’ helicopter’s next flight, its nineteenth.

This flight, which will take place no earlier than Friday, Jan. 7, takes the scout vehicle out of the South Séítah basin, across the dividing ridge, and up onto the main plateau. The precise landing target for Flight 19 is near the landing site of Flight 8. Images taken during Flight 9 by the rotorcraft’s high-resolution Return-To-Earth (RTE) camera were used to select a safe landing zone.

…Spanning 207 feet (63 meters), this flight will last about 100 seconds at a groundspeed of 2.2 mph (1 meter per second) and altitude of 33 feet (10 meters) while taking 9 new RTE images. The final act of the flight is to turn nearly 180 degrees to flip the RTE camera to a forward-facing orientation for future flights toward the river delta. [emphasis mine]

The green line in the map to the right indicates the exact path, going about 207 feet to the northeast. The red dot marks the location of Perseverance on December 8, 2021, the last time the Perseverance science team updated their map showing the rover’s travels.

The highlighted words are the most important. Cacan also said this in his update:

The current mission goal is to reach the Jezero river delta to aid the Perseverance rover in path planning and scientific discovery.

Assuming the helicopter continues to function correctly, their next flights will apparently be aimed towards the delta. Whether that path will follow the planned route marked by the dashed yellow line, or cut straight across, is not clear. If the latter, that implies they have revised Perseverance’s planned route so that it also cuts straight across from about the point of Ingenuity’s next landing site.

More likely Cacan was not speaking literally, and that the route Ingenuity will take to the delta will follow the planned route, around that crater to the northeast.

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Ice canyons at the Martian north pole

1:46 pm

Ice canyons at the Martian north pole
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on July 24, 2021 by the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and shows one small portion of the edge of Mars’ north pole ice cap.

The many layers in that ice cap are clearly evident, with some darker because they were probably laid down at a time when the Martian atmosphere was more filled with volcanic ash. According to the presently accepted theory, the layers show the cyclical climate patterns of Mars, caused by the large shifts in its obliquity, or the tilt of the planet along its rotational axis, ranging from 11 to 60 degrees. Presently Mars is tilted 25 degrees, similar to Earth’s 23 degrees. The two extremes cause the planet’s water ice to shift back and forth from the mid-latitudes to the poles, causing the layers.

The height of this layered cliff face is probably about 1,500 feet, though that is a very rough estimate. Notice also that this image shows an ice canyon running from the left to the right and flowing into a much larger ice canyon to the right. The top cliff is probably about a third the height of the bottom cliff.

The overview map below shows gives the context, not only in place but also in time.
» Read more

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The badlands on the floor of Valles Marineris

1:03 pm

The badlands on the floor of Valles Marineris
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The recent discovery that there might be a near surface reservoir of ice on the floor the canyon Valles Marineris, near the Martian equator, immediately brought this location to the forefront as a possible site for establishing colonies. The weather will be less harsh than higher latitudes, the low elevation means a thicker atmosphere, and the terrain will be more appealing than the boring flat northern lowlands.

The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, illustrates however the likely difficulties of landing and living on the floor of Valles Marineris. Taken on July 26, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), the photo shows just one small area of the floor of Ius Chasm, the western part of Valles Marineris and about 300 miles to the east of that water reserve.

In this one picture we can see trapped sand dunes in hollows, eroded depressions, mottled terrain resembling stucco, and innumerable cliffs and sinks and plateaus. For the first manned spacecraft to land on Mars, this is not a good first choice. Even later, when the first bases have been built, this terrain would still be forbidding for the early colonists to land in and traverse.

The overview map below shows exactly where this picture is relative to the rest of the Valles Marineris.
» Read more

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Slope streaks in frozen lava flows on Mars

12:30 pm

Slope streaks on frozen lava
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on June 5, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a ridgeline at the base of the giant volcano Pavonis Mons, with slope streaks on ridge’s north and south sides.

Slope streaks are a mysterious phenomenon unique to Mars. While they resemble an avalanche, they do not change the topography of the surface at all. They appear to occur randomly year round, fading slowly with time. Also, while most are dark, scientists have also spotted bright slope streaks as well.

Slope streaks also only appear on surfaces covered with a layer of fine dust, something that is obviously the case in the cool image to the right. There is so much dust on the surface here that bedrock only appears at the top of the ridge, peeking out in only a few places.

The location of this image, as shown in the overview map below, adds some additional details.
» Read more

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The barren rocky terrain in the mountains of Gale Crater

9:52 am

Curiosity's view looking south towards Mt Sharp, Sol 3333, December 21, 2021
Click for full resolution image. Original photos can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! Curiosity yesterday used its navigation cameras to take a panorama of the view inside Maria Gordon Notch. The mosaic above, created from five images taken by the right navigation camera, shows the view looking south and uphill towards Mount Sharp. The heights of the nearest four hills are likely ranging from 30 to 100 feet.

The red dotted line indicates the planned route out of Gordon Notch and up onto the Greenheugh Pediment. If you click on the panorama to look at the full resolution version, you will see that the exit route looks extemely rough, possibly too rough for Curiosity to handle. How the science team handles this issue will be fascinating to watch in the coming weeks.

The map to the right gives us an overview. The white line is Curiosity’s actual travels. The red dotted line marks the planned route. The yellow lines indicate the area covered by the panorama above.

The most striking feature of this Martian terrain is its stark barrenness. All one can see in all directions are rocks and inanimate geology. There is no life, none at all. On Earth it is practically impossible to find any mountainous spot as barren as this, even in the most extreme and hostile environments.

As I’ve said before, Mars is strange, Mars is wonderful, and above all, Mars is alien.

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Curiosity: Through the notch and looking back

11:46 am

Looking back at the entrance to Gordon Notch
Click for full image.

The Mars rover Curiosity has now climbed up into Maria Gordon Notch. The image to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by the rover’s left navigation camera and looks back at the entrance to the notch, with the floor and rim of Gale Crater beyond. The crater floor is about 1,700 feet below and the rim is about 30 miles away.

The red dotted line indicates the path Curiosity took after entering the notch, traveling about 80 feet to the southeast. The rover will continue south inside the notch for another 800 feet or so and then turn west, climbing out of the notch and up onto the Greenheugh Pediment and continuing west until it gets to the base of Gediz Vallis Ridge, a ridge that had been in prominent view about a year ago when the rover was north of it but lower down the mountain. (See the panorama in this February 2021 post.)

Below is another picture from a day earlier, this time taken by the rover’s high resolution mast camera. I think it looks up at the top of the western cliff, but now looks at that cliff after having gone past it slightly.
» Read more

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Ingenuity successfully completes its 18th flight

1:26 pm

According to a JPL Twitter post today, on December 15th Ingenuity successfully completed its 18th flight, flying 754 feet for just over two minutes.

The plan had been to continue north to cross the rough Seitah region as the helicopter heads back to the spot where Perseverance initially dropped it. Though at this moment no specific information about the flight’s direction or landing place have been revealed, its success suggests it went exactly as planned.

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Perseverance scientists: First volcanics then water in Jezero Crater

9:45 am

On December 15th the Perseverance science team presented a summary of the rover’s first nine months exploring the floor of Jezero Crater, finding evidence first of volcanic lava activity followed by several periods where water covered the these same rocks.

“These rocks that we originally thought might be sedimentary rocks, these are in fact igneous [volcanic] rocks,” said Kelsey Moore at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). “And even more excitingly, they’re not just igneous rocks – there’s more history to the story.”

The analysis of the rocks’ compositions revealed minerals that are generally produced by interactions between water and rock, as well as traces of two different salts that were probably left behind as salty water flowed through the cracks and pores in the volcanic rock.

The variety of minerals indicates that these rocks were probably underwater at least twice. “Two different types of liquid with two different types of chemistries points towards two different episodes of liquid water interaction,” said Eva Scheller, also at Caltech.

It seems strange that the scientists were surprised that Jezero Crater has a history of volcanic activity. Most craters when formed have what is called impact melt in their crater interior. The impact not only carves out the crater, the heat of impact melts the rock. Possibly the scientists expected such impact melt to be well buried and not accessible to Perseverance.

Regardless, this data will be used as the baseline for documenting the geological history of this region on Mars as Perseverance continues its journey across the floor of the crater, up onto the delta, and then out of the crater into the uplands beyond.

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Cracking glaciers on Mars

11:47 am

Cracking glaciers on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was released today as the picture of the day for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Located in the 2,000 long northern mid-latitude strip that I dub Mars’ glacier country, it shows many of the numerous glacial features that are routinely found in images taken in this region. According to Dan Berman, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona, who wrote the caption,

This observation shows a lobe-shaped debris apron emanating from a massif (shown in the upper left of the image) in the Protonilus Mensae region in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars. These aprons are composed of nearly pure water ice with a layer of debris on the surface protecting the ice from sublimation (going directly from a solid to gaseous state). This image shows different terrain types on the apron that indicate the presence and flow of ice, from smoother polygonal terrain closer to the massif, to rougher, patterned ground commonly called “brain terrain.” Also visible on the apron are a series of linear pits.

Protonilus Mensae is the central mensae region in that mid-latitude strip of glaciers.The overview map below shows the location of this photo in that region. Also below is a close-up of the linear pits and cracked terrain surrounding that oblong mound, as indicated by the white rectangle.
» Read more

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Scientists discover underground reservoir of hydrogen, likely ice, near Martian equator

8:58 am

Detection of underground hydrogen in Valles Marineris
Click for full image.

In what could be a very significant discovery, scientists using Europe’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) have discovered a surprisingly large underground reservoir of hydrogen, likely ice, near Martian equator and inside the solar system’s largest known canyon, Valles Marineris.

The map to the right, reduced to post here, provides all the important data. From its caption:

The coloured scale at the bottom of the frame shows the amount of ‘water-equivalent hydrogen’ (WEH) by weight (wt%). As reflected on these scales, the purple contours in the centre of this figure show the most water-rich region. In the area marked with a ‘C’, up to 40% of the near-surface material appears to be composed of water (by weight). The area marked ‘C’ is about the size of the Netherlands and overlaps with the deep valleys of Candor Chaos, part of the canyon system considered promising in our hunt for water on Mars.

What the caption does not note is the latitude of this hydrogen, about 3 to 10 degrees south latitude. Assuming the hydrogen represents underground ice, this would be the first detection on Mars below 30 degrees latitude, and the very first in the equatorial regions. Data from orbit has suggested that Mars has a lot of water ice, found near the surface more and more as you move into higher latitudes above 30 degrees and making Mars much like Antarctica. Almost no ice however had until now been detected below 30 degrees latitude. As the European Space Agency’s press release noted,
» Read more

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Visible clean water ice on Mars

11:57 am

Crater with ice scarp
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is today’s picture of the day for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Taken on September 13, 2021, it shows an exposed scarp on the southern inner wall of a small 800-foot-wide crater.

What makes that scarp intriguing is its blue color. As noted by Shane Byrne of the Lunar and Planetary Lab University of Arizona, who wrote the caption:

This north-facing cliff appears to expose icy material that’s similar to other pole-facing scarps showing buried ice elsewhere on the planet. These cliffs give us a cut-away view of the buried ice in that location and can help answer questions about what the Martian climate was like when this ice formed.

The crater itself sits inside a much larger crater, as shown in the wider picture below.
» Read more

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Curiosity looks back at its entire journey

10:03 am

Curiosity looking back across Gale Crater
Click for high resolution mosaic. Original images here, here, here, and here.

Wide overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The mosaic above was created from four photos taken by Curiosity’s left navigation camera on December 12, 2021, just after the rover had moved into Maria Gordon Notch. The view is to the north, looking back at the rover’s journey climbing up the floor of Gale Crater into the foothills of Mount Sharp. The rim of Gale Crater can be seen about 25 to 30 miles away.

The cliff in shadow on the left is about 40 feet high. The cliff in sunlight on the right is between 30 to 60 feet high, depending on where you measure.

The overview map to the right shows Curiosity’s entire journey, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate area covered by the mosaic above. All told the rover has climbed about 1,700 feet since it landed. While much of the rover’s route is blocked from our view by the cliffs on left, the nearest sand dune sea in the center of the mosaic is the one that the rover circled around from January 2021 to June 2021.
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Curiosity takes a close look at a Martian cliff

11:15 am

A cliff of Mars
Click for full resolution. Original images here and here.

Curiosity has now moved up and into Maria Gordon Notch, a gap in the mountains of Gale Crater that is about forty feet wide, with a 40-foot-high cliff on its western side and a 30 to 60 foot cliff on its eastern side.

The mosaic above, created from two navigation camera images, looks up at the top half of that western cliff. Note the many many layers, each one of which records some climate or volcanic event in Mars’ geological history. The Mars we see today took a long time and many events to become what it is. Such layers however have not been seen everywhere by Curiosity. Compare for example this layered cliff with the massive outcrop dubbed Siccar Point and looked at closely by the rover in October. In that outcrop the layers were either non-existent, or merged together during some subsequent geological process.

Note also the pond of sand/dust at the center-bottom, nestled in a hollow but sitting almost vertical. That the dust can maintain itself at such an angle illustrates Mars’ lighter gravity, about 39% of Earth’s, which in turn allows for a much steeper angle of repose. That lighter gravity also allows for some sections of rock to stick out more precariously than possible on Earth.

As Curiosity moves through the notch in the next few days, more such cool pictures will become available, and I shall post them.

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Strange eroded glacial flows in unnamed crater on Mars

12:20 pm

Eroded glacial flows in unnamed crater on Mars
Click for full resolution image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on November 1, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a series of strange glacial-like flows coming off the western slopes of the central peak of a 40-mile-wide unnamed crater, located smack dab in what I call Mars’ glacier country, that 2,000 long mid-latitude strip where almost every image shows evidence of glaciers.

The cropped section to the right doesn’t really do these strange flows justice. Make sure you click on the image to see the full resolution version. There are numerous separate flows coming off that central peak. Each appears to show that as time passed, each flow traveled a shorter distance down the mountain, leaving a moraine behind at higher and higher points.

The overview map below provides the context.
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Where Ingenuity and Perseverance presently sit in Jezero Crater

9:15 am

Perseverance and Ingenuity, December 8, 2021
Click for interactive map.

The map to the right, annotated to post here, shows the present location of the rover Perseverance (the red dot) in relation to the 17th flight of the helicopter Ingenuity (indicated by the green line and dot) that successfully occurred on December 5, 2021.

Perseverance has been very very very very slowly retreating south, following the same route it took to move into the rough sand dune region the scientists have dubbed Seitah. Based on their long term plans, the rover will retrace its path (the white dotted line) to its landing site, and then continue along the yellow dashed line to eventually reach the base of the delta, dubbed Three Forks, that in the distant past poured through a gap in the rim of Jezero Crater.

The helicopter meanwhile is also retracing its flights, heading north to the spot where Perseverance first placed it on the ground. Because of the seasonally thinner atmosphere, the helicopter’s flights during that return journey must be shorter, which is why the 17th flight only traveled halfway across Seitah. In crossing it the first time it had done so in one flight. Now it will take two.

During that 17th flight it appears that the topography between the rover and the helicopter’s landing site caused a loss of communications as the helicopter was landing.

The Ingenuity team believes the 13-foot (4-meter) height difference between the Perseverance rover and the top of Bras [an outcrop] contributed to the loss of communications when the helicopter descended toward the surface at the end of its flight.

That loss of communications apparently caused no problems, but it will likely mean that Ingenuity will do no more flights until Perseverance can get closer and better positioned.

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Curiosity moves into a mountain gap

10:51 am

Maria Gordon Notch
Click for full resolution version. Original images here and here.

Curiosity's location, December 6, 2021
Click for interactive map.

For the last three weeks the Curiosity science team has had the rover poking about at the base of the 40 foot cliff on the right of the panorama above. At that location many rocks and boulders had fallen from the top of the cliff, which gave them an opportunity to study the geology of the plateau above, even though it was literally beyond reach.

Beginning yesterday that work ended, and the science team finally made the commitment to move forward, into the gap above where the rover will turn right, climb up onto that plateau through a notch they have dubbed Maria Gordon Notch. The map to the right shows this coming route with the red dotted line.

Once in that notch Curiosity will truly be in the mountains of Gale Crater, even if those mountains are only the foothills to Mount Sharp.

It is interesting to contrast the roughness of the terrain that Curiosity is now routinely traveling, with the relatively benign ground that Perseverance is traversing on the floor of Jezero Crater. While Curiosity is pushing forward into steeper and rougher terrain, the Perseverance team is retreating from the somewhat mild sand dune ground of South Seitah, even though that ground is far less challenging than anything faced by Curiosity. You can see this retreat at the interactive map here. Zoom in and place your cursor over each waypoint. Rather than push forward, the Perseverance team seems willing to have the rover retreat and retrace its route around Seitah, even though to retrace those steps will likely take a few weeks, during which they will cover no new ground and will likely learn little new.

Why the Perseverance team seems so timid is puzzling. It could be they are still working out the kinks of their operation. It could be that they want to take no risks at all this early in their mission. And it could also be that the team culture at Perseverance is simply less daring than that of the Curiosity team.

Only time will answer this question. I suspect as the Perseverance mission unfolds its scientists will become more bold. We just need to give them time.

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