Tag: science

Visible ice layers in a crater in the lower mid-latitudes of Mars?

2:27 pm

Visible ice layers in the low-mid-latitudes of Mars?
Click for original image. For the original color image, go here.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 14, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what appear to be horizontal layers in the inner wall of a small one-mile-wide and 150-foot deep unnamed crater on Mars. I have included the color version below, zoomed in to make those layers and their colors very clear.

As I have not contacted the scientists who requested this picture, I can only guess at its purpose. My guess however relates to those horizontal blue layers, reminiscent of the ice layers seen in Martian scarps at the high latitudes at about 50 to 55 degrees.

Normally it is rare to see horizontal layers like this in craters on Mars. Instead, what you usually see are downward-pointing gullies along with drainage and avalanche-type patterns, though the latter two might not be formed by either drainage or avalanches.

In this case these horizontal layers are clear and pronounced, making this crater a possibly important and somewhat unique find, based on its location.
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Image released of permanently shadowed floor of Shackleton Crater

11:01 am

Shadowcam-LRO mosaic
Click for original image.

NASA today released a mosaic combining images from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter’s high resolution camera LROC and the Shadowcam camera on South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter that shows for the first time the entire permanently shadowed floor of Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole.

That mosaic, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is to the right. I have added the black cross to mark the location of the south pole, just inside Shackleton, the large crater on the right. The inset shows the floor of the crater at higher resolution.

LROC can capture detailed images of the lunar surface but has limited ability to photograph shadowed parts of the Moon that never receive direct sunlight, known as permanently shadowed regions. ShadowCam is 200-times more light-sensitive than LROC and can operate successfully in these extremely low-light conditions, revealing features and terrain details that are not visible to LROC. ShadowCam relies on sunlight reflected off lunar geologic features or the Earth to capture images in the shadows.

Thus, in the mosaic to the right the interior of Shackleton was imaged by Shadowcam, and then placed on a mosaic of LROC pictures.

If you click on the full image at high resolution and look closely at the crater floor, it is difficult to determine if there is any ice there. There are several mounds that could be ice, but could also be accumulated dirt and debris. What is most significant however is the smooth interior walls of the crater. It appears it will very possible for a rover to drive down those walls and into Shackleton.

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High School students discover new orbital changes from asteroid impacted by DART

10:26 am

In observing Dimorphos, the small asteroid that the probe DART impacted in September 2022, researchers as well as students at a California high school have discovered unexpected orbital changes.

Recent observations have indicated the asteroid is tumbling since the impact. However:

Dimorphos also appeared to be continuously slowing down in its orbit for at least a month after the rocket impact, contrary to NASA’s predictions. California high school teacher Jonathan Swift and his students first detected these unexpected changes while observing Dimorphos with their school’s 2.3-foot (0.7 meter) telescope last fall. Several weeks after the DART impact, NASA announced that Dimorphos had slowed in its orbit around Didymos by about 33 minutes. However, when Swift and his students studied Dimorphos one month after the impact, the asteroid seemed to have slowed by an additional minute — suggesting it had been slowing continuously since the collision. “The number we got was slightly larger, a change of 34 minutes,” Swift told New Scientist. “That was inconsistent at an uncomfortable level.”

Swift presented his class’s findings at the American Astronomical Society conference in June. The DART team has since confirmed that Dimorphos did indeed continue slowing in its orbit up to a month after the impact — however, their calculations show an additional slowdown of 15 seconds, rather than a full minute. A month after the DART collision, the slowdown plateaued.

One explanation proposed for this slowdown points at the spray of rocks and boulders that surrounded Dimorphos after DART’s impact. When some of those boulders fell back onto the asteroid, they might have caused the orbital slowdown, and as the number of new impacts dropped, the slowdown stabilized.

Now that a full year has passed since the impact, it is possible to assess the full orbital changes to the asteroid. Thus, a new report is expected shortly.

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The northern interior rim of the largest volcano in the solar system

3:29 pm

Northern interior rim of Olympus Mons
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 8, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the northernmost interior rim of the caldera of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system.

This one picture provides another way to illustrate the monumental scale of much of Mars’ topography. From the top to the bottom this steep scarp descends about 5,900 feet, in a little more than two miles. Compare that to the trails that descend the Grand Canyon’s south rim, which drop about the same distance but do it in distances ranging from three to five times longer.

In other words, this cliff wall is steep. Finding a route for a trail either up or down would be difficult at best.
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Ingenuity completes 59th flight, a hop setting a new altitude record

11:11 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.
On September 16, 2023 the Ingenuity engineering team successfully flew the Mars helicopter for its 59th flight, a vertical hop lasting two minutes and twenty-three seconds that set a new altitude record of 66 feet in the air.

This flight matched the flight plan precisely. Six pictures from the flight were downloaded today, showing the helicopter as it hovered at this top altitude while tilting itself to the ground. To see this tilting, go here and set the date to Sol 915. Click on the first picture and then use the right and left arrow keys to scroll from picture to picture, essentially creating a short animation that shows the change in the helicopter’s shadow on the ground.

On the overview map above, the green dot marks Ingenuity’s location during this flight, with the blue dot marking Perseverance’s present location. It is possible that by tilting, the helicopter was able to take a color picture from the air of the rover to the south, but this is unconfirmed. It could have also tilted to get a view of the ground ahead.

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Update on Curiosity’s journey in Mount Sharp, including its future route

9:52 am

Curiosity's future planned route
Click for original image.

The Curiosity science team yesterday released a new 360 panorama taken on August 19, 2023 by the rover’s high resolution camera, as part of an effort to document an important geological location finally reached after two previous attempts failed.

Three billion years ago, amid one of the last wet periods on Mars, powerful debris flows carried mud and boulders down the side of a hulking mountain. The debris spread into a fan that was later eroded by wind into a towering ridge [dubbed Gediz Vallis Ridge], preserving an intriguing record of the Red Planet’s watery past.

Now, after three attempts, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has reached the ridge, capturing the formation in a 360-degree panoramic mosaic. Previous forays were stymied by knife-edged “gator-back” rocks and too-steep slopes. Following one of the most difficult climbs the mission has ever faced, Curiosity arrived Aug. 14 at an area where it could study the long-sought ridge with its 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm.

That panorama can be viewed here. The rover spent eleven days at this geological location, and has since moved on.

Because that panorama covers some of the same ground I have previously posted from the rover’s navigation cameras, I have instead posted above the graphic from the press release, with additional annotations, because that graphic provides new information about Curiosity’s future travels.

The white line marks Curiosity’s past travels as well as the planned route as previously released by the science team. The red line marks the additional route that the rover will follow beyond, weaving its way up Mount Sharp.

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OSIRIS-REx makes last course correction before releasing asteroid sample return capsule

8:54 am

OSIRIS-REx’s engineers on September 17, 2023 successfully completed the last course correction necessary before releasing the sample return capsule carrying about nine ounces of material from the asteroid Bennu, set to land in Utah on September 24th.

The spacecraft briefly fired its thrusters Sunday to change its velocity by 7 inches per minute (3 millimeters per second) relative to Earth. This final correction maneuver moved the sample capsule’s predicted landing location east by nearly 8 miles, or 12.5 kilometers, to the center of its predetermined landing zone inside a 36-mile by 8.5-mile (58-kilometer by 14-kilometer) area on the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range.

Details on that landing can be found here. The capsule will be coming in at speeds comparable to that of an Apollo capsule, returning from the Moon, and will use the same maneuvers and parachutes to slow its speed to only eleven miles per hour at landing. Four helicopters will than rush to recover the capsule as quickly as possible to reduce the chance the sample will be contaminated by the Earth’s environment.

OSIRIS-Rex (renamed OSIRIS-Apophis Explorer or OSIRIS-APEX) will meanwhile fire its engines and head towards the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis, with a rendezvous scheduled in 2029.

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Two galaxies merging

11:32 am

Merging galaxies
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey project to photograph the entire Arp catalog of 338 “peculiar galaxies,” put together by astronomer Halton Arp in 1966. From the caption:

The larger galaxy (in the left of this image) is an extremely energetic galaxy type known as a Seyfert galaxy, which house active galactic nuclei at their cores. Seyfert galaxies are notable because despite the immense brightness of the active core, radiation from the entire galaxy can be observed. This is evident in this image, where the spiraling whorls of the whole galaxy are readily visible. The smaller companion is connected to the larger by a tenuous-seeming ‘bridge’, composed of dust and gas. The colliding galactic duo lie about 465 million light-years from Earth.

Note that if you ignore the blue whorls of the left galaxy, the two bright cores of these merging galaxies are about the same size. As it is unclear how long this merger has been on-going, it is possible that the galaxy on the right, in circling the left galaxy, drew out those whorls and that tenuous bridge. Other scenarios are also possible, however, such as the galaxy on the left stripping and scattering the arms of the galaxy on the right.

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India’s Aditya-L1 solar telescope initiates some science observations

9:18 am

According to India’s space agency ISRO, its Aditya-L1 solar telescope has begun science observations with one instrument, even as it continues its journey to its final position at L1, one million miles from the Earth.

The activation of STEPS occurred on September 10, 2023, at a distance exceeding 50,000 km from Earth. This distance equates to more than eight times the Earth’s radius, placing it significantly beyond the Earth’s radiation belt region. Following the successful completion of essential health checks for the instrument, the data collection process continued until the spacecraft had travelled beyond the 50,000 km mark from Earth.

All units of STEPS are currently operating within normal parameters. A graphical representation illustrates the measurements, showcasing fluctuations in the energetic particle environment within Earth’s magnetosphere, which were collected by one of the instrument’s units.

It is expected Aditya-L1 will reach L1 in January, where it will begin round-the-clock observations of the Sun, in parallel with NASA’s Soho telescope, which has been at L1 since the 1990s.

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A triangular Martian hill

12:35 pm

A triangular Martian hill
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on May 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels an “unusual shaped hill” that is estimated to be about 20 to 40 feet high.

What makes it unusual? First, it sticks up out of the endless northern lowland plains for no obvious reason, though its shape suggests the existence of bedrock topography that is now buried by the dust and debris that coats the surface of those plains.

Second, the hill itself suggests that it formed after it was covered with debris. Note the crater near its northeast cliff. It appears that the cliff chopped off part of the crater, suggesting that the hill was once level with the surrounding terrain. Some later underground pressure pushed it upward, with its angled sides determined by existing faults.

Why those forces tilted the hill upward as it did, with only its eastern fringes raised, is a question a wide view might answer.
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New analysis of Chandrayaan-1’s lunar orbital data might explain its detection of widespread surface hydrogen on the Moon

9:52 am

The Earth's magnetic field, shaped by the solar wind
The Earth’s magnetic field, shaped by the solar wind

One of the significant finds coming from India’s first lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, was the detection of hydrogen in many places across the entire lunar surface, in places where it seemed impossible for hydrogen to be there, even if it was locked in a molecule like water.

Researchers in Hawaii now think they have found an explanation by linking that data to the Earth’s long magnetotail, formed by the solar wind pushing against the Earth’s magnetic field. The graphic to the right illustrates that process. The scientists focused on the kind of weathering processes that occurred both when the Moon was inside that tail, and when it was not.

Li and co-authors analyzed the remote sensing data that were collected by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument onboard India’s Chandrayaan 1 mission between 2008 and 2009. Specifically, they assessed the changes in water formation as the Moon traversed through Earth’s magnetotail, which includes the plasma sheet.

“To my surprise, the remote sensing observations showed that the water formation in Earth’s magnetotail is almost identical to the time when the Moon was outside of the Earth’s magnetotail,” said Li. “This indicates that, in the magnetotail, there may be additional formation processes or new sources of water not directly associated with the implantation of solar wind protons. In particular, radiation by high energy electrons exhibits similar effects as the solar wind protons.”

In other words, the evidence suggests that the hydrogen signal seen by Chandrayaan-1 might have been a very temporary implacement of that hydrogen by the solar wind, which ceases during the Moon’s periodic passages through the magnetotail. The Moon’s harsh environment then causes that hydrogen to vanish, only to reappear when it is once again exposed to the solar wind.

None of this is confirmed, so some skepticism is required. If true, however, it would provide further evidence that the hydrogen signal seen at the lunar poles that scientists hope is evidence of ice in the permanently shadowed craters might be nothing of the sort, and we shall find little ice there.

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Polygons and scallops in the high mid-latitudes of the Martian lowland plains

12:46 pm

Polygons and scallops in the high mid-latitudes of Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! Only yesterday I posted an image of polygons in the dry equatorial regions of Mars, where little evidence of near-surface ice is found and are thought to be the remnants from a long-dried lakebed.

Today we take a look at some polygons in the mid-latitudes of the icy northern lowland plains, where near-surface ice appears ubiquitous and as it sublimates away with the changing seasons causes all kinds of strange formations, including polygons.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a good example, centered on a 0.6-mile-wide bright crater that appears to be filled with glacial ice. The image was taken on June 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and is located at 44 degrees north latitude on the western edge of Utopia Basin. As noted by the MRO science team in 2006 for a different MRO picture with similar features:
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