Tag: Mars

Curiosity looks down Gediz Vallis

12:03 pm

Curiosity's looks down Gediz Vallis
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The panorama above was taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera today, December 14, 2022, looking down into Gediz Vallis, the giant slot canyon that the rover will use as its route up Mount Sharp.

The red dotted lines above and on the overview map to the right indicate approximately the planned route for Curiosity. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama above.

At present the scientists are attempting to drill into the marker band on which Curiosity sits. This marker layer is visible at many places at about the same elevation on all sides of Mount Sharp’s flanks. The white arrows indicate other examples of it in this overview map. It generally appears smooth and flat, which suggests it is made of a harder substance more resistant to erosion. That hardness was confirmed when Curiosity’s first drill attempt into it last week failed. The scientists are now trying again.

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The featureless volcanic ash plains of Mars

2:04 pm

The featureless volcanic ash plains of Mars

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a relatively featureless plain with a surface resembling stucco.

At -9 degrees south latitude, this is in the Martian dry equatorial regions. No ice or glaciers here. However, the consistent orientation of the knobs and hills suggest dunes and sand blown by prevailing winds, and that guess holds some truth. This location is deep within the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars, covering an area about as big as India, and believed to be the source of most of the red planet’s dust.

We are thus looking at thick layer of ash, its surface shaped over eons by the winds of Mars’ thin atmosphere.
» Read more

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InSight still going, but barely

10:47 pm

InSight's daily power levels as of December 12, 2022

The InSight science team issued another update today, outlining the continuing low power levels produced by the Mars lander, barely enough to keep its seismometer, and nothing else, running.

As of Dec. 12, 2022, InSight is generating an average of ~285 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .96 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

I have added these numbers to the graph at right in order to show their context over time. Since the October dust storm the levels have held steady, even as the dust in the atmosphere has cleared somewhat.

Nonetheless, InSight’s future continues to be day-to-day. Should it fail to respond to two consecutive scheduled communications sessions, the team will declare it dead, and make no effort at recovery. Though they have been expecting this to happen since the end of October, the lander continues to hang on.

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Strange terrain on the eastern floor of Gale Crater

1:10 pm

Strange terrain on the eastern floor of Gale Crater
Click for full image. For the inset, go here.

Though today’s cool image on the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, shows a small section on the floor of 96-mile-wide Gale Crater where Curiosity has been roving for the past decade, this picture looks at a different place. Curiosity landed in the northwest quadrant of the crater, and has been climbing the western slopes of Mount Sharp, which fills much of the crater’s interior. Today’s image looks at the crater’s floor on the east side of Mount Sharp.

The picture was taken on September 30, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The dark areas are likely dune seas, while the golden section near the top of the color strip is likely dust, though that is not certain. (This bright yellow is unusual for this particular color filter.) The greenish color suggests coarser materials, such as larger boulders and rocks, though this is also not certain.

The inset zooms into some unusual polygon lines that cut across the dunes and cratered terrain. Such lines suggest that once, in the far past, the ground here was wet. When it dried out (being now in the very dry equatorial regions of Mars) it formed these cracks, similar in nature to the polygon cracks one sees in drying mud on Earth. Since the data from Curiosity when it was on the crater floor also suggests a lake once existed inside the crater, these cracks add weight to that conclusion.

The overview map below places Gale Crater in the larger context of Mars.
» Read more

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Ancient lava flows down the flanks of the solar system’s largest volcano

11:52 am

Lava flows on Olympus Mons
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 2, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be very old and eroded lava on the northeast flanks of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano on Mars as well as the entire solar system. About 600 miles across, from the edge to its peak, Olympus rises about 54,000 feet, with an actual height relative to Mars’ “sea level” of just under 70,000 feet, more than twice as high as Mount Everest on Earth.

The white arrow show the downward grade. Several different flows can be seen throughout the picture, some confined to a central channel with smooth aprons of overflows on either side. Others are more broken and less coherent, and suggest that either the flows were inherently different, or are much older and have deteriorated with time.
» Read more

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What a Martian impact looks like on a sheet of slushy ice

11:00 am

Overview map

What a Martian impact looks like on a sheet of ice
Click for full image.

My headline is a bit of a guess, but it is an educated guess for today’s cool image. The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 30, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The location, as indicated by the white dot in the overview map above, puts this impact in a relatively flat area of Deuteronilus Mensae, the westernmost chaos region of the 2,000 mile long mid-latitude strip I call glacier country.

In other words, there is likely a lot of near surface ice here, as this impact makes very plain. If you imagine dropping a pebble into a thick layer of soft ice cream, you might get a crater reminiscent of this. I use for comparison ice cream on Earth because the lighter Martian gravity probably makes Martian ice softer and more slushy.

As I have said many times before, Mars is strange, Mars is mysterious, and above all Mars is alien.

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A Martian ship’s prow

2:50 pm

A Martian ship's prow
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 31, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists call “layering” surrounding this pointed mesa, which I roughly estimate to be somewhere between 200 to 400 feet high.

As you approach the mesa you first walk on the dust-covered flat plains. Then you start up a slope of what looks like alluvial fill, material that over time has fallen from the mesa to pile up as an apron at its base. You then reach a series of terraces, each likely marking a different layering major event from sometime in the distance past. Over time, for unknown reasons, the material surrounding this material has eroded away, while the mesa and its layers somehow survived.

The overview map below helps tell us what those past layering events were, as well as the source of the large amount of dust and sand at this location.
» Read more

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Ingenuity sets altitude record on 35th flight

10:33 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

On December 3, 2022 Ingenuity completed its 35th flight, traveling about 49 feet sideways but reaching a new altitude record for the Mars helicopter of 46 feet.

The map to the right shows the helicopter’s new position by the green dot, with Perseverance’s present position shown with the blue dot. The helicopter only moved slightly to the northwest of its previous position.

The plan had been to test the helicopter’s upgraded software at this new altitude while flying fly 50 feet sideways for 52 seconds at a speed of 6.7 feet per second. The flight met these goals almost exactly, going a distance only slightly shorter, well within its margin of error. The new altitude record however is significant, as going even slight distances higher in Mars’ very thin atmosphere (1/1000th of Earth’s) is challenging, to say the least. This higher flight means Ingenuity can fly up above higher terrain, such as the delta that is Perseverance’s next goal.

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InSight’s low power levels holding steady

10:11 am

InSight's power levels as of November 29, 2022

The science team for the Mars’ lander InSight today (December 6th) released a new update (dated November 29th) of the power levels being produced by its dust-covered solar panels.

As of Nov. 29, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 290 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .95 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

I have added this new data unto the graph to the right, though I am puzzled by the date given to the update. Why post this today, when this update covers data only two days after the previous update (November 27th), and is more than a week out of date? This is especially puzzling because the numbers did not change at all.

Nonetheless, the lander is still alive, but barely. One wonders however what happened in the past week, since today’s update does not bring us up to date.

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Martian dunes, as far as the eye can see

11:21 am

Martian dunes
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 14, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the dune filled floor of an unnamed 25-mile-wide ancient and very eroded Martian crater.

These endless dunes — which extend far beyond this photo to cover the entire floor of this crater as well as an overlapping crater to the north that is only slightly smaller — reveal something fundamental about this location: The winds prevail from one direction consistently, from either the north or the south. Closer inspection would likely resolve which way, but I don’t have the knowledge or access to the data to do so.

The overview map below, provides context, and also further information about why these dunes are here.
» Read more

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Curiosity’s recent and future travels amid the Martian mountains

11:09 am

Curiosity's recent and future travels on Mars
Click for full panorama.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The panorama above, created from 31 images taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera on December 5, 2022, provides us a wonderful overview of the rover’s recent and future travels amid the lower foothills of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater.

The overview map to the right provides context. The blue dot indicates Curiosity’s present position. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area viewed by the panorama. The red dotted line indicates Curiosity’s planned route, with the white dots the route it has actually traveled. On the panorama, the pink dotted line indicates where it has been, and the red dotted line where it is going.

For scale, Kukenan is estimated to be about 1,500 feet high. Though Chenapua in front seems comparable, it is actually much smaller, only about 200 to 300 feet high, at the most. Orinoco, though lower on the mountain, is probably about 300 to 400 feet high.

To really see the magnificence of this terrain, you must click on the panorama and explore the full image. Curiosity is truly traveling amid mountains, and is the first human robot to do so on another world.

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Martian glaciers below 30 degrees latitude

12:10 pm

A Martian glacier below 30 degrees north latitude
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). While it shows what looks like a somewhat typical Martian glacial flow pushing through a gap between hills, this glacial flow is not typical. It sits at just under 30 degrees north latitude, closer to the equator than almost any glacial feature on Mars. Moreover, the younger impact crater on top suggests this glacier has been here for some time. Though the impact is younger than the crater, it is not that young, as the dark streaks normally seen in the first years after impact are gone.

Thus, this glacier suggests that not only can near surface Martian ice exist closer than 30 degrees latitude from the equator, it can survive there for a considerable amount of time.

Nor is this glacial flow, so close to the equator, unusual for this region of Mars.
» Read more

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Expanded craters in Martian ice

12:44 pm

Expanded craters in Martian ice
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 18, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It includes a wide variety of geology related to sublimating ice, including expansion cracks as well as several different examples of what scientists call “expanded craters,” impacts that occurred in near surface ice and have been reshaped by the ice’s melting and sublimation at impact and then later. It also shows some obvious glacial fill in the two distorted craters at the center right.

A 2017 dissertation [pdf] by Donna Viola of the University of Arizona outlines nicely what we know of Martian expanded craters. As she notes in her conclusion:
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Scientists: Viking-1 might have landed on a field of Martian tsunami debris

10:26 am

The geological history of the Viking-1 Mars landing site

As outlined in their new paper [pdf], a team of scientists now hypothesize that the features that surrounded Viking-1 when it landed on Mars in 1976 were caused by two past Martian tsunamis. Each tsunamis occurred due to an impact in the theorized ocean that is believed to have existed in this part of Mars’ northern lowland plains several billion years ago.

The graphic to the right, figure 8 from the paper, shows the hypothesized sequence of events. From the caption:

(a) Pohl crater forms within a shallow marine environment, (b) triggering tsunami water and debris flow fronts. (c) The wave fronts extensively inundate the highland lowland boundary plains, including a section ~ 900 km southwest of the impact site. (d) The ocean regresses to ~ − 4100 m, accompanied by regional glacier dissection, which erode the rims of Pohl and other craters. (e) The younger tsunami overflows Pohl and parts of the older tsunami. Glaciation continues, and mud volcanoes later source and emerge from the younger tsunami deposit. (f) ~ 3.4 billion years later, the Viking 1 Lander touches down on the edge of the older tsunami deposit.

The overview map below provides the larger context.
» Read more

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InSight continues to just hold on

5:20 pm

InSight's power levels as of November 27, 2022

The InSight science team today posted another update on the daily power levels the Mars lander’s dust-covered solar panels are producing. The graph to the right includes these new numbers.

As of Nov. 27, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 285 and 295 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .95 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

The atmosphere is definitely clearing from the dust storm that occurred in October. It also appears that not much of this dust is settling on InSight’s solar panels, since the daily power level has not dropped significantly.

Nonetheless, at these very low power levels, InSight’s future remains day-to-day. Unless it finally gets lucky and a dust devil blows the solar panels clear so more power can be generated, the mission will end should two scheduled communications sessions in a row fail to make contact.

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Traveling in the mountains of Mars

11:54 am

Traveling in the mountains of Mars
Click for full resolution. Original images can be found here and here.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created by two photos taken by the Mars rover Curiosity’s right navigation camera on November 30, 2022. It looks to the south, into Gediz Vallis, the slot canyon that has been the rover’s major goal since it landed in Gale Crater a decade ago.

The blue dot on the overview map to the right marks Curiosity’s present position, now on its way east after making a short detour to the west towards Gediz Vallis Ridge. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area shown by this panorama. The red dotted line in both images marks the rover’s planned future route. The white arrows indicate what scientists have labeled the marker band, a distinct smooth layer seen at about the same elevation in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp. According to the most recent update from the science team, the rover’s next drive will place it on that marker band, the second time it has been there.

From here the rover will continue south, climbing up into Gediz Vallis.

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ESA’s commitment to launch Franklin rover to Mars by ’28 will require U.S. participation

9:28 am

The Europeans Space Agency’s decision to spend $725 million over the next six years to launch its Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars by 2028 will not only require the United Kingdom to develop a Mars lander, it will require U.S. participation that has not yet been secured, including the donation of a launch vehicle.

The mission’s launch this year was canceled when Russia invaded the Ukraine, thus ending all of its scientific partnerships with Europe.

The mission, now slated for launch in 2028, will primarily replace the Russian components with European ones, with several exceptions. “We have expectations that the U.S. will also contribute to this, with a launcher, a braking engine and the RHUs, the radioisotope heating units,” he said. “But the majority of the future ExoMars mission is European.”

The launch rocket will be the most expensive U.S. contribution, and to get NASA to pay for the launch will require something in return from ESA, most likely guaranteed research use of the Franklin rover by American planetary scientists. Such a deal is similar to what Europe has gotten with both Hubble and Webb, where ESA contributes something and its scientists get a percentage of guaranteed observation time.

With a rover such an arrangement is more complicated, however, which is probably why the deal is not yet settled.

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A Martian knife mesa with terraces

1:32 pm

A Martian knife mesa with terraces
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 21, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “layered mound.” It also shows a plethora of geological mysteries, all of which relate to the as yet not quite understood geological history of Mars.

First, note the different colors north and south of the ridgeline. According to the science team’s understanding of what these colors mean [pdf], the orange-red to the north suggests dust, while the bluish-green to the south suggests coarser materials, such as rocks and sand. Though frost and ice are generally bluer, such things are generally found on the pole-facing slopes where there is less sunlight. Thus the bluish-green material to the south is unlikely to be ice or frost, though this is not impossible, as the picture was taken in the winter and the latitude is 35 degrees north.

Why however is there such a dichotomy of rocks, sand, and dust between the north and south slopes? And if frost and ice, why is it more prominent to the south, when it should instead be more prominent to the north?

Other mysteries: Is the circular depression on the ridgetop an impact crater or a caldera? If the latter, this suggests the mound is some kind of volcano, likely mud, though lava is not excluded. If so, however, why is there no caldera on top of the ridge to the south?

The location, as shown in the overview map below, reveals other puzzles.
» Read more

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Monitoring the tiger stripes on Martian dunes

1:48 pm

Dunes with tiger stripes
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image takes us back to a previous cool image, from December 2020. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on August 22, 2022 as part of a regular monitoring program of these worm-shaped and tiger-striped dunes in 42-mile-wide Kunowsky Crater, located in the northern lowland plains of Mars at the high mid-latitude of 57 degrees north.

The tiger stripes appear to be the northern hemisphere’s version of what are called “spiders” in the south, where each spring the mantle of dry ice that settles on the surface in winter begins to sublimate away, from the bottom up. The trapped gas eventually escapes at the mantle’s weak points where it cracks.

When the gas escapes it spews dust onto the surface, creating the dark patches. In the southern hemisphere, the ground is generally stable, and the gas travels and escapes along the same routes each year, creating relatively permanent spider-like tributary patterns. In the north the ground is less stable, so the dark streaks form more randomly from year to year.

This monitoring campaign, first begun in 2008, is looking to see how these seasonal changes might change these northern dunes. The white rectangle in the image shows an area shown in close-up below, comparing 2020 with 2022 to see what changes might have occurred.
» Read more

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Perseverance data so far finds no evidence of lake in Jezero Crater

10:40 am

The uncertainty of science: Though scientists had assumed the presence of an ancient delta that once flowed into Jezero Crater meant a lake once filled the crater, Perseverance data from its first year of roving has so far found no evidence that a lake every existed.

[A] summary of the first year of data from the rover, published in three different papers being released today, suggests that Perseverance has yet to stumble across any evidence of a watery paradise. Instead, all indications are that water exposure in the areas it explored was limited, and the waters were likely to be near freezing. While this doesn’t rule out that it will find lake deposits later, the environment might not have been as welcoming for life as “a lake in a crater” might have suggested.

Jezero Crater, like Gale Crater where Curiosity is roving, is located in the Martian dry equatorial regions. Though the data from Gale suggests a lake had once existed there, the data also suggests strongly that any water there acted more like water in cold climates like Iceland, existing mostly as glacial ice.

The jury is still out, but these results from Perseverance once again point to ice and glaciers as a possible explanation for many of the geological features on Mars that we on Earth automatically assume were caused by liquid water.

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