Tag: science

Another study finds evidence of active volcanism on Venus

9:52 am

Changes in volcanic vent on Venus over eight months
Click for original image.

Using archival data from the Magellan spacecraft that orbited Venus in the early 1990s scientists think they have identified an active vent that appeared to change shape based on radar images taken eight months apart.

From the abstract of their paper:

We examine volcanic areas on Venus that were imaged two or three times by Magellan and identify a ~2.2 km2 volcanic vent that changed shape in the eight months between two radar images. Additional volcanic flows downhill from the vent are visible in the second epoch images, though we cannot rule out that they were present but invisible in the first epoch due to differences in imaging geometry. We interpret these results as ongoing volcanic activity on Venus.

This result is different that other research released last month that used Magellan data to identify geological features on Venus most likely to be active. In today’s results the scientists think they have spotted an actual volcanic eruption, as shown in the two images to the right. The image is taken from Figure 2 of the paper, with the changes in the center bottom vent clearly visible.

There is much uncertainty in these results that must be mentioned. The images are not optical but radar, so the scientists had to do a lot of computer processing to get the final result. They also compared this work with computer simulations to help confirm their conclusions.

The results also leave open the question of the total amount of volcanism presently active on Venus. As the scientists note in their conclusion, “With only one changed feature, we cannot determine how common currently active volcanism is on Venus.”

Nonetheless, the research using both new and archival data in the past thirty years is increasingly telling us that there is some active volcanism on Venus, hidden beneath its thick hellish cloudy atmosphere.

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Reassessed fuel measurements give Mars Odyssey until 2025 before it runs out

9:28 am

Using more refined methods for measuring the fuel left on Mars Odyssey, the oldest orbiter circling Mars at this time, engineers have determined that it will not run out until 2025, not this year as previously thought.

Mars Odyssey has been in orbit around Mars since 2001. The fuel is used by thrusters to help maintain the spacecraft’s orientation, which is mostly done by reaction wheels, or gyroscopes. We should therefore not be surprised if by 2025 engineers figure out a way to get the reaction wheels to do the whole job, when the fuel runs out.

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Geological evidence of past glacier found in Mars’ dry equatorial regions

11:04 am

Overview map

Scientists have uncovered geological evidence of a past glacier in westernmost end of the giant Martian canyon Valles Marineris, right at the point where it transitions into the complex chaos region dubbed Noctis Labyrinthus. The white dot on the map to the right indicates the location.

The surface feature identified as a “relict glacier” is one of many light-toned deposits (LTDs) found in the region. Typically, LTDs consist mainly of light-colored sulfate salts, but this deposit also shows many of the features of a glacier, including crevasse fields and moraine bands. The glacier is estimated to be 6 kilometers long and up to 4 kilometers wide, with a surface elevation ranging from +1.3 to +1.7 kilometers. This discovery suggests that Mars’ recent history may have been more watery than previously thought, which could have implications for understanding the planet’s habitability.

“What we’ve found is not ice, but a salt deposit with the detailed morphologic features of a glacier. What we think happened here is that salt formed on top of a glacier while preserving the shape of the ice below, down to details like crevasse fields and moraine bands,” said Dr. Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute, and the lead author of the study. [emphasis mine]

You can read the paper here [pdf]. The research specifically suggests that near surface water ice in the dry equatorial regions of Mars could have been there much more recently that previously believed. It also suggests, by the rarity of this discovery, that there is likely almost no near surface ice in the equatorial regions, at present.

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Perseverance captures a movie of Ingenuity’s 47th flight on Mars

9:36 am

Ingenuity shortly after take-off on its 47th flight
Click for full movie.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

During Ingenuity’s 47th flight on Mars on March 9, 2023, one of Perseverance’s high resolution camera’s took rapid-fire images of the helicopter’s take-off and initial flight, from which the science team created a movie.

The overview map to the right provides the context for that movie at the link. The blue dot marks Perserverance’s location, with the yellow lines indicating the approximate area seen in the movie. The smaller green dot and line indicates Ingenuity’s take-off point and part of its flight seen in the movie, with the larger green dot its landing spot. From the press release:

This video shows the dust initially kicked up by the helicopter’s spinning rotors, as well as Ingenuity taking off, hovering, and beginning its 1,444-foot (440-meter) journey to the southwest.

At take-off Ingenuity was 394 feet away from Perseverance.

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Firefly wins its second NASA contract to land payloads on the Moon

8:59 am

Capitalism in space: Firefly announced today that it has won a $112 million NASA contract to use its Blue Ghost lunar lander to bring three instruments to the Moon, one into orbit and two on the ground on the far side of the Moon.

Before landing on the Moon, the company’s Blue Ghost transfer vehicle will deploy the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite into lunar orbit to provide communications for future spacecraft, robots, and human explorers. After touching down on the far side of the Moon, the Blue Ghost lunar lander will deliver and operate NASA’s S-Band User Terminal, ensuring uninterrupted communications for lunar exploration, and a research-focused payload that measures radio emissions to provide insight into the origins of the universe.

The NASA press release provides more details about the three payloads.

This is Firefly’s second NASA lunar lander contract. The first is scheduled to land in 2024 and deliver ten NASA science instruments to Mare Crisium, the large mare region in the eastern side of the Moon’s visible hemisphere. This second flight is tentatively scheduled to launch in 2026.

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A Martian crater, ice, and dust devil tracks

3:20 pm

A Martian crater, ice, and dust devil tracks
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 2, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It is once again a terrain sample image, taken not for any specific research but to fill a gap in the schedule so as to maintain the camera’s proper temperature.

What this picture shows is that even though Mars has a thin atmosphere that produces dust devils, the propagation of dust devils is not uniform across the red planet’s surface. In this picture there are a lot of devil tracks, going in many different directions. Yet few of the many cool images I post from MRO show this number of tracks. In many cases the ground might not be agreeable to leaving tracks, but that cannot be the entire explanation.
» Read more

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Potential Artemis-3 landing site on the Moon

10:54 am

The landing zone for the Artemis-3 mission to the Moon

Overview map

The panorama above was released today by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team, and shows one of the candidate landing sites (arrow) where Starship could land as part of the Artemis-3 mission to the Moon.

The map of the south pole to the right, created from LRO images and annotated by me, gives the context. The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by the panorama. The terrain here is rugged, to put it mildly. As the science team notes,

Imagine the view from the summit; it rises more than 5000 meters (16,400 feet) above its base. Off in the distance, you could see a 3500 meter (11,480 feet) tall cliff. One could argue that the sheer grandeur of this region makes it a prime candidate. But then again, a landing here might be too exciting?

That 11,480-foot-high cliff is the crater wall to the right of the arrow. Make sure you go to the link to view the original image. This will be a spectacular place to visit. Whether the astronauts however will be able to find out anything about ice in the shadowed crater floor thousands of feet below them remains questionable.

Artemis-3 is presently scheduled for 2025 but no one should be surprised if it is delayed.

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Splats on Mars!

5:03 pm

Splats on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 3, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a number of crater splats of varying sizes. If you look at the full image, you will find several even bigger splats to the north of the one in the picture to the right. You will also see many more similar-sized crater splats to the south.

I cannot provide any confident explanation about what caused these splats, other than to assume that most here are secondary impacts from ejecta thrown out by a larger impact somewhere nearby. I also assume all these small impacts occurred at the same time because they all appear to have hit the ground when it had the same thick liquid consistency, a condition that was probably temporary. Note for example how many of the other craters in the full image do not have this same splattered look.
» Read more

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Hubble looks at a nearby dwarf galaxy

9:38 am

A nearby dwarf galaxy
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a continuing project to capture high resolution images of every nearby galaxy, which in this particular case the caption describes as follows:

UGCA 307 hangs against an irregular backdrop of distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The small galaxy consists of a diffuse band of stars containing red bubbles of gas that mark regions of recent star formation, and lies roughly 26 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Corvus. Appearing as just a small patch of stars, UGCA 307 is a diminutive dwarf galaxy without a defined structure — resembling nothing more than a hazy patch of passing cloud.

The red regions of star formation are significant, as they indicate that even in a tiny galaxy like this it is possible for there to be enough gas and dust to coalesce into new stars.

Astronomers living on a world inside this galaxy have an advantage over astronomers on Earth. There is no large galaxy like the Milky Way blocking their view of the cosmos in one direction. They can see it all, even in directions looking through UGCA 307.

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Curiosity looks ahead: Which way to go?

10:23 pm

Curiosity's view on March 11, 2023
Click for high resolution version. For original images, go here and here.

Overview map

How about a bonus weekend cool image! The panorama above, created from two pictures taken on March 11, 2023 by the right navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity, gives us a wonderful view of the alien Martian terrain that the rover is presently within. It also shows us the dilemma mission planners have in planning the rover’s future travels.

The red dotted line on both the panorama and the overview map to the right indicates the planned route. The yellow lines on the map indicates the approximate area viewed by the panorama. The blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, where it is presently in the middle of a drilling campaign in the marker layer where it sits.

The plan had been to travel to the east of what I like to call the the hill of pillows (in the middle of the panorama). Yet, it appears from this navigation image that the terrain might be less difficult to the west. Both routes will get the rover to its goal in Gediz Vallis.

I have no idea what the mission planners will decide to do. I am just a tourist going along for the ride, and sharing the journey with my readers. This is the first time any human spacecraft has ever traveled through such mountainous terrain on any planet.

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Ingenuity completes 47th flight, scouting ahead of Perseverance

11:55 am

Ingenuity sitting ahead of Perseverance, on the delta
Click for original image.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Though the science team has not, as of this posting, added the flight to Ingenuity’s flight log, according to the interactive map showing the positions of both Ingenuity and Perseverance on Mars, the helicopter completed its 47th flight yesterday as planned.

An annotated version of that map is to the right. The larger green dot marks Ingenuity’s new position. The smaller green dot marks its position when the panorama above was taken on February 27, 2023, capturing the helicopter in the distance (as indicated by the arrow). The yellow lines indicate the approximate area covered by that panorama. The blue dot marks Perseverance’s present position.

The flight’s planned distance was to go 1,410 feet to the southwest and “image science targets along the way.” As the helicopter also flew above Perseverance’s planned route, as indicated by the red dotted line, it also provided the rover team information about the ground Perseverance will travel along the way. Since the terrain here is generally not very rough, the information is not critical for route-picking. It might however spot some geological feature that bears a closer look that would not have been noticed by the rover alone.

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