Tag: Mars

Curiosity begins a detour

12:02 pm

Panorama taken November 2, 2022 by Curiosity
Click for full image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The science team running the Curiosity rover on Mount Sharp on Mars have decided to take the rover on a detour. As shown in the overview map to the right, rather than continue climbing directly up the mountain in the canyon dubbed Gediz Vallis, they have turned the rover to the west in order to put it back on its original planned route, though traveling in the opposite direction. The goal is to get to Gediz Vallis Ridge, which the rover attempted to reach by crossing the Greenheugh Pediment back in the spring, but was forced to retreat because the ground was simply too rough for the rover’s wheels.

From their October 31st update:

We are now officially on our detour, a short round trip to image and capture geochemistry of the “Gediz Vallis ridge” up on the pediment, before coming back down to the “Marker Band valley” and rejoining the MSAR (Mount Sharp Ascent Route). This detour will allow us to access some of the area we’d planned to visit before getting turned around by the ‘gator-back’ terrain on the Greenheugh pediment. For this part of the campaign, we are prioritizing driving, getting to our destination as fast as we can, but imaging as we go and marking areas of interest for contact science as we come back down.

The panorama above, cropped and reduced to post here, shows the rover’s view uphill to get to the ridge. The blue dot marks its present position. The yellow lines mark the approximate area viewed by the panorama above.

I think the rover’s path will take it up through the saddle between the two small peaks on the left. The science team is likely hoping that once they get up over that saddle, the terrain to get to the ridge will be smoother and less treacherous than the very broken and rocky surface of the Greenheugh Pediment.

This route also appears to also get them up on the marker band more safely. That band, marked by the white arrows, is a distinct smooth layer found in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp.

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InSight status update: still alive!

9:45 pm

InSight's daily power levels through October 31, 2022

UPDATE: JPL has released a press release, outlining the steps the InSight team will take to shut the mission down. Key quote:

NASA will declare the mission over when InSight misses two consecutive communication sessions with the spacecraft orbiting Mars, part of the Mars Relay Network – but only if the cause of the missed communication is the lander itself, said network manager Roy Gladden of JPL. After that, NASA’s Deep Space Network will listen for a time, just in case.

There will be no heroic measures to re-establish contact with InSight. While a mission-saving event – a strong gust of wind, say, that cleans the panels off – isn’t out of the question, it is considered unlikely.

Original post:
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Another update on the power levels on the Mars lander InSight was released today, and is shown on the graph to the right.

As of October 31, 2022, InSight is generating an average between 280 and 290 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at 1.33 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7).

Though the dust level in the atmosphere has dropped, it still is high. Moreover, there is no sign of any clearing of dust from InSight’s solar panels. During the press conference late last week announcing the discovery of impact craters using InSight’s seismometer, the science team gave the lander no more than six weeks of life. One of those weeks has now ticked off.

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The knobby floor of a Martian crater

5:21 pm

The knobby floor of a Martian crater

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 20, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small portion of the knobby floor of a 70-mile-wide ancient and eroded unnamed crater in the southern cratered highlands of Mars.

Why knobby? Usually such terrain on Mars signifies an very ancient and well eroded region of chaos terrain, its knobs the leftover worn remains of ancient mesas cut by eons of glacier flow.

If this is so, the location as shown in the overview map below suggests if there were ever any glaciers — or any near surface ice — at this location, it had to be a very long time ago.
» Read more

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Al-Amal orbiter tracks unusual northern summer dust storm on Mars

10:04 am

Fig. 3 from Al-Amal paper
Click for full figure.

Scientists, using UAE’s Al-Amal Mars orbiter, have documented the occurrence of a rare high northern latitude summer dust storm whose origin appears linked to both a major canyon in the northern ice cap as well as the giant sand dune seas that surround that ice cap.

The EMM [instrument on Al-Amal] observed a distinct dust cloud on 10 September 2021. That was outside of the classical Martian dust storm season. The observed dust cloud is an arc-shaped dust storm, typically observed at the northern polar cap edge. This type of non-season dust storm is a well-known phenomenon, but this particular case is interesting because the dust cloud has frontal structure. A large atmospheric front is unusual in this location and season.

EMM’s unique observational coverage adds value to this observation, by providing a sequence of four camera images of the frontal dust cloud, separated by 2–3 hr. The frontal dust cloud shows very little movement over 7–8 hr, that is, it is quasi-stationary. We estimated the wind speed and direction by tracking internal motion of the dust cloud. In one case, the estimated wind is consistent with near-surface easterly winds at the polar cap edge.

The two images to the right are adapted from the paper’s figure 3. The yellow line in the top image indicates the location of the dust storm’s front (about 1,200 miles long), aligned with the canyon Chasma Boreale, marked by the black line, that cuts a 300-mile-long and 4,600-foot-deep gash into the North Pole ice cap.

The storm’s wind speeds were estimated very roughly to be about 16 feet per second, about 10 mph. In Mars’ thin atmosphere these winds would be so gentle that they would be almost imperceptible.

The storm front’s alignment with Chasma Boreale is intriguing, but the overview map below suggests another intriguing alignment.
» Read more

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NASA & ESA pick site for Perseverance to deposit its samples for pickup

9:31 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Engineers at NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have now chosen the site in Jezero Crater where Perseverance will deposit its first set of core samples for later pickup by a mission to bring them back to Earth.

The location, at the base of the delta that flows into the crater and indicated by the white cross on the map to the right, will contain all the core samples collected from the floor of the crater. This area, in the middle of the flat region the science team has dubbed Three Forks, provides a good landing place for the sample return helicopter that will fly from point to point to pick these samples up. The blue dot on the map indicates Perseverance’s present position. The green dot where the helicopter Ingenuity presently sits.

Once the rover has finished collecting samples and doing its research at the base of the delta, it will deposit those samples at this point and then move up onto the delta, where it will collect more samples that will be placed at a different spot for pickup.

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InSight detects and dates large impact on Mars

11:14 am

InSight's Christmas Eve impact
Click for full image.

Using the data from InSight’s seismometer of a 4 magnitude earthquake on Mars on December 24, 2021, scientists were able to use the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to find the meteorite impact that produced that quake, the largest detected since spacecraft have been visiting Mars. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here and unveiled at yesterday’s press conference, shows the new crater.

The meteoroid is estimated to have spanned 16 to 39 feet (5 to 12 meters) – small enough that it would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, but not in Mars’ thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as our planet’s. The impact, in a region called Amazonis Planitia, blasted a crater roughly 492 feet (150 meters) across and 70 feet (21 meters) deep. Some of the ejecta thrown by the impact flew as far as 23 miles (37 kilometers) away.

With images and seismic data documenting the event, this is believed to be one of the largest craters ever witnessed forming any place in the solar system.

This is not the first such impact identified from InSight seismic data, but it is the largest. The white streaks surrounding the crater are thought to be near-surface ice ejected at impact.

The overview map below provides further context, as well as showing us the proximity of this impact to the proposed Starship landing sites on Mars.
» Read more

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A glacier sea on Mars

6:12 pm

A glacier sea on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, should at first glance be one of my “What the heck!?” images. However, a little detective work quickly provides us some understanding of the inexplicable geology seen at this particular location on Mars.

The picture was taken on August 29, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and was labeled by the science team a “Lobate Debris Apron in Deuteronilus Mensae.” This mensae region is the western part of the 2,000-mile-long strip in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars that I label glacier country, since almost every high resolution picture taken in this strip shows extensive glacial features.

This picture is no different, showing what appears to be glaciers, but by itself it is still difficult to make sense of it. Glaciers flow downhill, like rivers. In this high resolution image the direction of flow is somewhat unclear.

As always, a wider view clarifies the picture.
» Read more

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Bedrock layers in Terby Crater on Mars

5:55 pm

Bedrock layers in Terby Crater on Mars
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Cool image to end the week! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken by on July 18, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the bedrock layers on one of two very large mesas that jut out into the floor of 108-mile-wide Terby Crater.

I want to focus your eye on the spoon-shaped mesa near the top right of the photo. Note how the layers can be seen on both sides, even though the top of the mesa seems to be concave. This is strange and complex geology, made even more fascinating in that the two mesas almost reach the center of the crater floor. Why are they here? Why were they not flattened during impact, like the rest of the crater floor? Or maybe the original crater floor is the mesa top, but if so, why did the rest of the crater interior get eroded away.

The overview map below provides some context, and helps fill in some details, even if it fails to answer any of these questions.
» Read more

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Perseverance spots Phobos

10:57 am

Phobos, as seen by Perseverance on Mars
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on January 12, 2022 by one of the high resolution cameras on the Mars rover Perseverance, and shows the Martian moon Phobos.

As noted in an update today by Claire Newman, one of the members of the science team,

This provides a measurement, using visible light, of the amount of dust in the nighttime atmosphere, which can be compared to similar measurements made by looking at the sun during the daytime, and to nighttime measurements of dust abundance made in the infrared by MEDA [another Perseverance instrument].

There have been three attempts to land on Phobos, all by the Russians, all of which failed. At present a Japanese mission to Phobos, dubbed Mars Moons eXploration or MMX, is scheduled to launch in 2024. This is a planned sample return mission, and will also include a rover.

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An icy hollow on Mars

2:07 pm

A icy hollow on Mars
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on August 20, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a somewhat typical example of the many ice scarps that scientists have identified in MRO pictures.

Though this is not a hard fast rule, most of the ice scarps so far found tend to have the steep cliff on the pole-facing side, with the scarp very slowly retreating towards the equator. In today’s example, the scarp where an ice layer in the cliff wall has been identified is indicated by the white arrow, though three sides of the hollow, on the east, north, and west sides, could all also have exposed ice.

Nor is that the only likely ice at this location at 56 degrees south latitude. The stippled plain surrounding the hollow clearly looks like an eroded ice layer, likely covered with a thin protective coat of dust to protect if from quickly sublimating away. The dark streaks across this surface are likely dust devil tracks.

As documented by the global map below, Mars is like Antarctica, a desert with water ice everywhere.
» Read more

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Deadly climate change on Mars!

9:12 am

Junk science! A new computer simulation by scientists now proposes that there was microscopic life on Mars billions of years ago, but its existence served to destroy the climate and kill all life!

The press appears to be eating this story up, with enthusiasm. From the New Atlas story above:

Humans might not be the first lifeforms in the solar system to face the threat of their own activity changing the climate of their home planet. A new model suggests that ancient Mars was once habitable enough to support methane-producing microbes, and they may have wiped themselves out by causing irreparable damage to the Red Planet’s atmosphere. [emphasis mine]

A Space.com story is written better, but it still jumps on the bandwagon:
» Read more

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InSight’s power levels rise very slightly

9:55 pm

InSight's power level through October 8, 2022

In a status report issued today, the science team for the InSight lander on Mars noted a slight increase in the amount of power produced daily by its solar panels. The graph to the right indicates that increase.

On October 8, 2022, InSight was generating an average of 300 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol – an increase after a sharp decline last week from 430 watt-hours per sol to a low of 275 watt-hours per sol.

It appears that the atmosphere has begun to clear from the very large dust storm that occurred more than two thousand miles away. Despite that distance, the storm apparently reduced the available light above InSight significantly, and could take months to clear.

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Icebergs of Martian lava

1:52 pm

Icebergs of Martian lava
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 24, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The scientists label this “platy-ridged lava” but to my eye this more resembles lava ice bergs trapped within a now frozen lava stream flowing I think from the northeast to the southwest.

My guess that the flow follows that direction is based on two bits of data. First, the shape of the lava ice flows suggests vaguely a flow to the southwest. The wiggling black ridges inside the streams suggest that these flows occurred in two parts, a stronger wide flow that narrowed as the lava on the edges hardened. When the edges solidified the interior flow scraped against it, forming the wiggling ridges.

Second, the location of this image, as shown on the overview map below, strongly suggests the lava streams flowed to the southwest.
» Read more

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InSight shut down temporarily because of lack of power

10:14 am

InSight's power levels over recent time

Because a dust storm has caused a further decline in the power being generated by InSight’s solar panels, the science team has decided to put the lander into safe mode for the next two weeks in the hope that the air will then clear, allowing its power levels to rise.

The graph to the right shows that drop. From the press release:

By Monday, Oct. 3, the storm had grown large enough and was lofting so much dust that the thickness of the dusty haze in the Martian atmosphere had increased by nearly 40% around InSight. With less sunlight reaching the lander’s panels, its energy fell from 425 watt-hours per Martian day, or sol, to just 275 watt-hours per sol.

InSight’s seismometer has been operating for about 24 hours every other Martian day. But the drop in solar power does not leave enough energy to completely charge the batteries every sol. At the current rate of discharge, the lander would be able to operate only for several weeks. So to conserve energy, the mission will turn off InSight’s seismometer for the next two weeks.

The real problem however is the dust covering the solar panels. If that dust gets thicker due to this storm, the lander will not recover when they power it up in two weeks. It will still generate electricity at this low number, making future operations likely impossible.

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Thick flow exiting dramatic canyon on Mars

1:22 pm

Thick flow into Mamers Valles on Mars
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on July 24, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “viscous flow” that has apparently carved the wide curving canyon as it slowly flows into open country to the south.

I would estimate the height of that canyon wall to be around 3,000 feet, though this is a very rough guess. I also image a trail switchbacking up the nose of that canyon wall would make for a truly stupendous hiking experience.

The flow filling the canyon floor appears very glacial, which is not surprising as this canyon is at 37 degrees north latitude, in the mid-latitude band where many glacial features are found. The overview map below provides some more detailed context.
» Read more

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Martian crater and mesa sculpted by ancient flow

1:14 pm

Martian crater and mesa sculpted by ancient flow
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on June 15, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a crater whose ejecta has been sculpted to the east into a teardrop-shaped mesa by some ancient flow, coming from the west.

The crater itself is located in one of several outflow canyons draining out from the volcanic Tharsis Bulge into the northern lowland plain of Chryse Planitia, the biggest of which is Valles Marineris. This particular canyon is one of the smaller and is dubbed Ravi Vallis.

The overview map below illustrates why many scientists think the flow that shaped this mesa came from a catastrophic flood of liquid water, billions of years ago.
» Read more

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Another “What the heck?” formation on Mars

2:32 pm

Another
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what the scientists label “unique terrain.”

I have increased the contrast to bring out the details. It appears that we have a flat plain of criss-crossing ridges that in large areas have somehow gotten flattened across their top. Imagine someone laying plaster on a wall and using a scraper tool to smooth the surface, but only partially. In this case on Mars, our imaginary worker only smoothed the surface a little, and only in some areas. To try to come up with a geological process however to explain this seems daunting.

And what created the criss-crossing ridges? The overview map provides only a little help in answering these questions.
» Read more

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Tiny cobbles on Mars

9:16 am

Tiny cobbles on Mars

Our second cool image takes us from grand galaxies, one of the universe’s largest coherent objects, to tiny cobbles on Mars. The picture to the right, taken by one of Perseverance’s close-up cameras on September 29, 2022, covers an area less than an inch across, making the largest rounded pebbles in this image only a few millimeters in size.

The rover presently sits on the floor of Jezero Crater, at the base of the delta that flowed into that crater eons ago. The data suggests that delta was created by flowing water entering a lake that filled the crater.

Did flowing water create these cobbles? These pebbles all have the look of the rounded cobble one finds either in river beds, or in glacial moraines. In both cases, the flow of the water or ice rolls the rocks along until they become rounded.

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India’s Mars orbiter mission ends after eight years

6:17 pm

After eight years in orbit around Mars, India’s Mars orbiter mission, Mangalyaan, has run out of fuel for controlling its orientation, ending its mission.

The Rs 450 crore Mars Orbiter Mission was launched onboard PSLV-C25 on November five, 2013, and the MOM spacecraft was successfully inserted into Martian orbit on September 24, 2014 in its first attempt. “Right now, there is no fuel left. The satellite battery has drained,” sources in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) told PTI. “The link has been lost”.

There was, however, no official word from the country’s national space agency, headquartered here.

During its mission it produced more than a thousand images, though the mission’s primary objective was technological, proving that India itself could design, build, launch, and manage a planetary mission to another world. For India, Mangalyaan was thus an unqualified success.

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Fabric debris spotted on Ingenuity during 33rd flight

10:19 am

Tattered fabric debris on Ingenuity's leg during flight
Click to see full movie of flight.

In reviewing the images from Ingenuity’s 33rd flight on September 24, 2022, engineers have spotted what looks like a tattered piece of fabric fluttering on the end of one of the helicopter’s legs, and then disappearing.

The image to the right, cropped, enhanced, and labeled to post here, comes from an animation created from all images taken during the flight.

A small piece of foreign object debris (FOD) was seen in footage from the Mars helicopter’s navigation camera (Navcam) for a portion of its 33rd flight. This FOD was not visible in Navcam footage from the previous flight (32). The FOD is seen in Flight 33 Navcam imagery from the earliest frames to approximately halfway through the video, when it fell from the leg and drifted back to the Mars surface.

The engineers do not yet know what this was, but it apparently caused no harm to the helicopter. It also is likely not from either Ingenuity or Perseverance, as both are functioning perfectly. Most likely it is a piece of the parachute used during landing and then ejected.

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