Tag: Mars

Curiosity has found that water and other interesting things permeate the soil of Mars.

8:14 pm

Curiosity has found that water and other interesting things permeate the soil of Mars.

When [a soil sample was] heated, the instrument detected the abundance of water [about 2% of the sample] plus significant quantities of carbon dioxide, oxygen and sulfur compounds, according to the researchers. Carbonate materials — compounds that form in the presence of water — were also identified. The experiment confirmed the presence of oxygen- and chlorine-containing compounds — likely chlorates or perchlorates. Originally discovered by NASA’s 2008 Phoenix Mars Lander (and likely detected by NASA’s Viking landers in 1976), perchlorates were found in the soil of high-latitude arctic regions. This indicates that perchlorates occur globally over Mars. Though highly toxic to human biology, some microbes are known to use the oxidizing chemical for energy. This finding intensified the debate over whether hypothetical microbes on Mars could metabolize perchlorates in a similar way.

Perchlorates were proposed as an explanation for the Viking results by scientists who did not believe those results suggested the presence of microbiological life. I find it interesting that now scientists are saying that the perchlorates might actually be evidence of life. Once again, the uncertainty of science rules the day!

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Despite data from orbiting probes that say there is methane in Mars’ atmosphere, Curiosity has detected none.

5:24 pm

Despite data from orbiting probes that say there is methane in Mars’ atmosphere, Curiosity has detected none.

The detection of methane by orbiting satellites in certain regions of Mars was intriguing as it suggested the possibility of Martian microbiological life. Curiosity is not in those regions, but apparently the scientists thought they’d detect evidence of it from a distance. That they did not reduces significantly the possibility of life on Mars.

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For the first time since arriving on Mars engineers have allowed Curiosity to drive itself.

9:06 am

For the first time since arriving on Mars engineers have allowed Curiosity to drive itself.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover used autonomous navigation for the first time on Tuesday (Aug. 27), driving itself onto a patch of ground that its handlers had not vetted in advance. The robot will likely employ this “autonav” capability more and more as it continues the long trek toward the base of Mars’ huge Mount Sharp, NASA officials said.

In autonav mode, Curiosity analyzes photos it takes during a drive to map out a safe route forward. The car-size rover used this ability on Tuesday to find its way across a small depression whose fine-scale features were hidden from Curiosity’s previous location.

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In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the launch of Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took its photograph.

8:58 am

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the launch of Opportunity, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took its photograph.

The image was not merely for PR. It also provides the scientists operating Opportunity some good information about the region the rover is exploring, thus helping them plan out its further adventures on the surface of Mars.

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Two researchers have concluded that sterilizing spacecraft heading to Mars is largely a waste of money.

8:22 am

Two researchers have concluded that sterilizing spacecraft heading to Mars is largely a waste of money.

As far as Mars is concerned, say Fairén and Schulze-Makuch, such efforts are probably in vain since “Earth life has most likely already been transferred to Mars.” Meteorite impacts have had 3.8 billion years to spread Earth life forms to Mars. Several Earth spacecraft have visited Mars without undergoing the sterilization procedures now in place. If organisms transferred to Mars over the eons failed to survive, modern organisms would likely face the same fate. If they did survive, say Fairén and Schulze-Makuch, “it is too late to protect Mars from terrestrial life, and we can safely relax the planetary protection policies.”

They also note that NASA’s “Office of Planetary Protection is like an interplanetary Environmental Protection Agency” and that its “‘detailed and expensive’ efforts to keep Earth microorganisms off Mars are making missions to search for life on the red planet ‘unviable.’”

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Opportunity, now moving to another target 1.5 miles away, has found evidence of drinkable water on Mars.

3:05 pm

Opportunity, now moving to another target 1.5 miles away, has found evidence that some of the water on Mars was once drinkable.

Before trekking off last month, Opportunity used a grinder to scrape away the top layer of a light-colored rock for a peek inside. The rock was so lumpy and covered with crud that it took the rover several tries to crack open its secrets. Unlike other rocks that Opportunity inspected during the past nine years, the latest told a different story: It contained clay minerals, a sign that water coursed through it, and formed in an environment that might have been suitable for microbes. Previous rock studies by Opportunity pointed to a watery past on Mars, but scientists said the water was acidic.

“This is water you can drink,” said mission chief scientist Steve Squyres of Cornell University.

More details here, noting that this water comes from an earlier time on Mars, when the planet’s environment was more benign.

So the rover has now sampled both sides of the momentous planetary transition from a wet, benign environment more than 4 billion years ago to a colder, drier, harsher one since then

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In celebration of its tenth year in orbit, scientists running the Mars Express mission have released global mineral maps of Mars.

8:15 am

In celebration of its tenth year in orbit, scientists running the Mars Express mission have released global mineral maps of Mars. With video.

The unique atlas comprises a series of maps showing the distribution of minerals formed in water, by volcanic activity, and by weathering to create the dust that makes Mars red. They create a global context for the dominant geological processes that sculpted the planet we see today.

Take a look at the video. It is fascinating to see where these minerals concentrate.

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Data collected by a radiation sensor inside Curiosity during its journey to Mars suggest that it will be possible to build ships with sufficient shielding to protect humans on such a voyage.

9:04 pm

Data collected by a radiation sensor inside Curiosity during its journey to Mars suggest that it will be possible to build ships with sufficient shielding to protect humans on such a voyage.

Zeitlin and his colleagues analysed the radiation recorded by a small detector on board the craft that was active during most of the 253-day cruise to Mars. Although the craft was not uniformly protected from exposure to Galactic cosmic rays and charged particles from the Sun, the MSL’s shielding on average approximated that of human space-flight missions. ….

At NASA Langley, Thibeault and her colleagues are testing new types of shielding that consist of hydrogenated materials. Hydrogen offers protection because it breaks apart heavy charged particles without creating secondary particles that add to the radiation dose, she notes. One of the materials under investigation, hydrogen-filled boron nitride nanotubes, looks particularly promising because it is robust and lightweight enough to double as both the skin of a spacecraft and its shield. Using separate materials to build and shield a craft would add too much weight to a Mars-bound mission, Thibeault notes.

Thibeault says that she is heartened by the new study because she had feared that the radiation dose might be considerably higher. The results suggest “that this is a problem we can solve”, she adds.

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The Mars rover Opportunity has now traveled farther than any other American rover, including the Apollo 17 rover on the Moon.

4:15 pm

The Mars rover Opportunity has now traveled farther than any other American rover, including the Apollo 17 rover on the Moon.

The team operating NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity received confirmation in a transmission from Mars today that the rover drove 263 feet (80 meters) on Thursday, bringing Opportunity’s total odometry since landing on Mars in January 2004 to 22.220 statute miles (35.760 kilometers). … The international record for driving distance on another world is still held by the Soviet Union’s remote-controlled Lunokhod 2 rover, which traveled 23 miles (37 kilometers) on the surface of Earth’s moon in 1973.

We have to once again remind ourselves that the roving part of Opportunity’s mission was originally only supposed to last 90 days, not 9 years.

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Astronauts today spotted an ammonia coolant leak in ISS’s left-side power truss.

10:51 pm

Astronauts today spotted an ammonia coolant leak in ISS’s left-side power truss.

They are monitoring it, but have so far not made any decision about what to do about it, if anything.

This problem is a perfect illustration of why a flight to Mars is more complicated in terms of engineering than first appears. We might at this time be able to build that interplanetary spaceship (with the emphasis on the word “might”) but could its passengers maintain it millions of miles from Earth? Right now I’d say no. We need to learn how to build an easily repaired and self-sufficient spaceship. ISS is neither. It is also not a very good platform for testing this kind of engineering.

Update: The astronauts on ISS are preparing for a possible spacewalk on Saturday to deal with the problem. More details here.

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Opportunity went into safe mode during the communications pause in April when the Sun was between Mars and the Earth.

8:29 am

Opportunity went into safe mode during the communications pause in April when the Sun was between Mars and the Earth.

Mission controllers for Opportunity, which landed on Mars in January 2004, first learned of the issue on Saturday (April 27). On that day, the rover got back in touch after a nearly three-week communication moratorium caused by an unfavorable planetary alignment called a Mars solar conjunction, in which Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the sun. The Opportunity rover apparently put itself into standby on April 22 after sensing a problem during a routine camera check, mission managers said.

It sounds like this is a recoverable problem and the rover will be back in operation momentarily. Stay tuned.

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New data from Curiosity has further confirmed that the atmosphere of Mars was once much thicker, and that the remaining atmosphere is still dynamic.

9:45 am

New data from Curiosity has further confirmed that the atmosphere of Mars was once much thicker, and that the remaining atmosphere is still dynamic.

The two most interesting bits of data is that the temperature has been steadily climbing in Gale Crater, and that the humidity has shown significant shifts, depending on the rover’s location as it has traveled through the crater.

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