Tag: Mars

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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