Monthly Archives: February 2021

Welcome to the first episode of The Conversation Weekly, a new podcast from The Conversations global network.

In this episode, we find out why February 2021 is such a big month for Mars. Three different missions from three different countries the United Arab Emirates, China and the U.S. are due to arrive at the red planet within a few weeks of each other.

We talk to Jim Bell, Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, who is leading one of the camera teams for NASAs Perseverance Rover. He explains how these missions are looking for signs of ancient life and where the scientists will start their search.

Steffi Paladini, Reader in Economics and Global Security at Birmingham City University, sheds light on some of the political motivations behind Chinas ambitious Mars mission, Tianwen-1, which includes an orbiter, lander and rover. You can read more about the Chinese space race here.

And Nidhal Guessoum, Professor of Astrophysics at the American University of Sharjah explains the symbolism of the UAEs Hope mission and what its trying to achieve.

In our second story, we turn to Belarus, where protests continue more than six months after a disputed election. Flix Krawatzek, Senior Researcher at the Centre for East European and International Studies and Associate Member of Nuffield College, University of Oxford, talks through the initial findings from a recent public opinion survey in Belarus and why he sees similarities between what happened in Belarus and the protests currently rocking Russia following the detention of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Read more about the survey data here.

And we finish with some reading recommendations from Ina Skosana, health and medicine editor in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens and music by Neeta Sarl.

News clips in this episode from BBC News, CCTV, Nasa, Euronews, the Embassy of the UAE - Washington, ABC News, AFP News Agency, Al Jazeera English, DW News, France 24 and Global News.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

You can also listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps below, our RSS feed, or find out how else to listen here.

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Mars - The Conversation UK

When French musician Thomas Mars met director Sofia Coppola in person for the first time in 2000, he was wearing a wig and singing under a fake name at an American Legion hall in Los Angeles. Back in Paris a few months earlier, hed contributed vocals and lyrics to Playground Love, the signature tune from Coppolas debut film, The Virgin Suicides.

In that American Legion hall, he was guest-performing with his pals in the band Air, whod composed the score for the film. Mars performed in disguise to avoid confusion with his primary identity as frontman for his own band, Phoenix, which hed started as a child. Mars says, I wanted to avoid talking about anything else other than Phoenix when our first record came out later that year.

With or without the wig, Mars hit it off with Coppola. For her Lost in Translation, she used his plaintive Too Young as accompaniment for Bill Murrays lonely drive through Tokyo. For Marie Antoinette, Phoenix musicians played a minuet for Kirsten Dunsts queen in Mars hometown of Versailles.

From there, the relationship picked up steam. A few months after Mars and his group earned an alternative-music Grammy for their sleek 2009 synth-pop album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, he and Coppola were married.

Most recently, Mars and Phoenix bandmates Deck DArcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz supervised the soundtrack, composed the score and wrote the end-credits song for Coppolas father-daughter comedy, On the Rocks. Speaking from New York City, where he lives with Coppola and their two daughters, Mars describes a largely chitchat-free creative rapport with his director wife.

In our band, we grew up together, so we dont really talk much about music, and it feels the same way with Sofia. We listen to the same music, and our cultural influences are so similar theres very little talking about things.

Sofia Coppola and husband Thomas Mars at Cannes in 2014.

(Andreas Rentz / Getty Images)

But the music itself speaks volumes in On the Rocks, which summons a jazzy, mid-century Manhattan vibe personified by Bill Murrays Felix, a charming art dealer who gives his daughter Laura (Rashida Jones) misguided advice when she suspects her husband of having an affair. Setting the tone at the outset: I Fall in Love Too Easily, recorded by crooner-trumpeter Chet Baker in 1954. Sofia listened to a lot of Chet Baker when she wrote the script, so she came up with that song, Mars says. We just had to complete this world.

A connoisseur of Italian pop music, Mars reinforced Felixs bon vivant persona with Mina Mazzinis peppy 1959 rocker Nessuno and referenced Jack Nicholson as a larger-than-life role model by having Felix blast Schubert through the loudspeakers from the backseat of his limousine. To underscore traffic-defying jaunts through Manhattan in a vintage red Ferrari, Phoenix guitarist Brancowitz recommended In Orbit, an antic 1958 jazz instrumental by Thelonious Monk and the Clark Terry Quartet. When Laura and Felix take off in his car, we wanted to show how fun, how dangerous, how insane, how thrilling it is to be part of Felixs world. Branco suggested In Orbit, and right away it felt right, Mars says.

In Re Don Giovanni, based on Mozarts opera, serves as de facto theme song for Laura, a harried mother of two. We use Giovanni the same way as All That Jazz used Vivaldi, when Bob Fosse wakes up, takes his pills and does his morning ritual. Lauras life is very scheduled and organized, but shes not really deciding things for herself. We wanted the music to show that.

Rashida Jones and Bill Murray drive through New York in a scene from On the Rocks.

(A24 / Apple TV+ )

For the films original score, Phoenix took inspiration from Miles Davis approach to Louis Malles 1958 movie Elevator to the Gallows. As Mars explains it, Louis Malle grabbed Miles Davis as soon as he landed in Paris and convinced him to see his movie in a theater: We will set up your gear to record, and you can play to the film. So we did the same thing. In a Paris screening room, Mars and his bandmates improvised music in the moment as action unfolded on screen. It was really fun, because you get into this strange meditative state where youre feeding off each other. We recorded several hours of music over two nights; thats how we wrote the score.

On the Rocks concludes with a buoyant new Phoenix song called Identical. Musically, the number samples a propulsive drum groove by South African band Faka. Lyrically, the track evokes a parent-child dynamic rarely featured in Top 10 hits. Mars says, A lot of pop music today is all about youth, but I tried to find a way to embrace fatherhood with Identical. Its about raising your kids and all the anxiety that goes with that. With Bill Murray and Rashida Jones, you dont need sex appeal in the song, because its all on the screen.

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Phoenix scores, writes, supervises 'On the Rocks' music - Los Angeles Times

The Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. Photo Courtesy LANL

BRADBURY SCIENCE MUSEUM NEWS

NASAs Perseverance rover will touch down on the surface of Mars the afternoon of Thursday,Feb. 18. Celebrate the landing and learn more about Los Alamos National Laboratorys role in the mission at a virtual after-party scheduled for that evening at6 p.m.!

Hosted by the Bradbury Science Museum, this hour-long virtual event will feature presentations by more than a dozen Los Alamos scientists and engineers who helped develop SuperCam, the rock-vaporizing laser that will study the Martian surface for signs of past life, and SHERLOC, the instrument that will search for organics and minerals on Mars. The rovers plutonium power source will also be discussed.

REGISTER NOW!

Brush up on your Mars knowledge and tackle trivia questions. Here are just some of the fun things youll learn on Feb. 18:

Also, test your Mars knowledge with trivia questions and ask the scientists questions in a live Q&A.

The event is free and open to the public, so be sure to join with your friends and family.

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Celebrate The Mars Perseverance Landing With The Bradbury Science Museum Feb. 18 - Los Alamos Reporter

NASA, in collaboration with three international partners, is planning to launch a robotic Mars ice mapping mission, which could help the agency identify potential science objectives for initial human missions to Mars. It could help identify abundant, accessible ice for future candidate landing sites on the Red Planet.

The agencies have agreed to establish a joint concept team to assess mission potential, as well as partnership opportunities, NASA said on Wednesday. Under the statement of intent that they have signed, NASA, the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced their intention to develop a mission plan and define their potential roles and responsibilities.

If the concept moves forward, the mission could be ready to launch as early as 2026, NASA said.

The international Mars Ice Mapper mission would detect the location, depth, spatial extent, and abundance of near-surface ice deposits, which would enable the science community to interpret a more detailed volatile history of Mars.

The radar-carrying orbiter would also help identify properties of the dust, loose rocky materialknown as regolithand rock layers that might impact the ability to access ice.

The ice-mapping mission could help the agency identify potential science objectives for initial human missions to Mars, which are expected to be designed for about 30 days of exploration on the surface.

For example, identifying and characterising accessible water ice could lead to human-tended science, such as ice coring to support the search for life. Mars Ice Mapper also could provide a map of water-ice resources for later human missions with longer surface expeditions, as well as help meet exploration engineering constraints, such as avoidance of rock and terrain hazards.

Mapping shallow water ice could also support supplemental high-value science objectives related to Martian climatology and geology, NASA said.

"This innovative partnership model for Mars Ice Mapper combines our global experience and allows for cost- sharing across the board to make this mission more feasible for all interested parties," Jim Watzin, NASA's senior advisor for agency architectures and mission alignment, said in a statement.

"Human and robotic exploration go hand in hand, with the latter helping pave the way for smarter, safer human missions farther into the solar system. Together, we can help prepare humanity for our next giant leap -- the first human mission to Mars."

As the mission concept evolves, there may be opportunities for other space agency and commercial partners to join the mission.

**

The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.

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NASA Plans to Launch Robotic Mission to Study and Map Ice on Mars | The Weather Channel - Articles from The Weather Channel | weather.com - The...

A Department of Energy (DoE) physicist has a new nuclear fusion rocket concept that uses magnetic fields to make thrust. Its a far-out idea that could carry astronauts to Mars.

You like nuclear. So do we. Let's nerd out over nuclear together.

The mechanism is already at play in Earths nuclear fusion reactors, as well as the solar flares of the sun. Could we really use linking and unlinking magnetic fields to make the long trip to the red planet?

The device would apply magnetic fields to cause particles of plasma, electrically charged gas also known as the fourth state of matter, to shoot out the back of a rocket and, because of the conservation of momentum, propel the craft forward, DoEs Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) said in a statement.

Think of a person sitting in a wheelie office chair holding a huge Roman candle. When you light the firework, the chair is propelled by the outpouring of directional energy.

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Physicist Fatima Ebrahimi first thought of the idea after hearing of the speeds that particles reach inside PPPLs national Spherical Torus Experiment, a tokamak reactor. During its operation, this tokamak produces magnetic bubbles called plasmoids that move at around 20 kilometers per second, which seemed to me a lot like thrust, she said in the statement. Her thruster basically works as a tokamak with one side cut out to release energy.

Fatima Ebrahimi/PPPL/arXiv

Fusion reactor experiments are popular on Earth as the next generation of nuclear energy technology, but none has created more power than it uses ... yet. Spaceflight is a popular additional use case for plasma fusion ideas because fusion technology can, hypothetically, stay pretty lightweight while generating a ton of thrust. High-temperature elements in plasma form are confined and selectively released to propel a spacecraft.

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Ebrahimis device has three key differences from other designs in the mix, PPPL says. First, it uses electromagnets to adjust the thrust, like a magnetic gas pedal that astronauts could use to increase or decrease velocity. Second, this design uses both traditional plasma and an additional material called plasmoidsthese greatly increase the thrust potential.

And finally, Ebrahimis device design is flexible to work with any gaseous element, meaning both lighter, smaller atoms of gas and bigger, heavier ones. This gives spacefaring groups the option to choose different kinds of burns for longer or shorter flights, for example.

[C]omputer simulations performed on PPPL computers [...] showed that the new plasma thruster concept can generate exhaust with velocities of hundreds of kilometers per second, 10 times faster than those of other thrusters, PPPL says. That means the thruster could shorten the longest flight times by a factor of 10, bringing many more destinations into our field of feasibility.

This would also help to address a major factor that stands between humans and longer spaceflights: the cosmic radiation that will permeate almost any spacecraft. The faster we can travel in the dangerous radiation of space, the less astronauts will be exposed. Faster travel will reduce other, less tangible human costs, like the psychological and physical toll of long stays in interplanetary space.

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The Unusual Rocket Thruster That Will Send Humans to Mars - Popular Mechanics

One small red dot, one vision, one dream and three days to go before a UAE spacecraft reaches Mars.

DON'T MISS: 27 'dark' minutes determine Mars mission success

In the run-up to the critical Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) of the Hope Probe on February 9, 2021, terminal boards at the Dubai airports are screening the countdown.

The country's iconic structures have turned red as a mark of solidarity ahead of the success of the Arab world's maiden mission to Mars.

Dubai Frame, the Museum of the Future, Etisalat Building, Abu Dhabi Municipality, Ajman Municipality and Ras Al Khaimah media office are turning crimson each night as the country counts down to the big day.

All official social media handles of UAE leaders and government departments now reflect the new profile picture, too, which is etched with the new milestone date and the slogan 'Arabs to Mars'.

Mix of confidence and concern

The mission entails a mix of confidence and concern about the chances of the probe successfully entering the Martian orbit.

The spacecraft will fire its six main thrusters for nearly 30 minutes to slow it down enough for the planets gravity to capture the spacecraft into orbit.

The manoeuvre is one of the most critical phases of the mission after its launch in July 2020.

Sarah Al Amiri, UAE Minister of State for Advanced Technology and Chairperson of the UAE Space Agency, during a webinar in February had said: This is a heavily rehearsed, designed, tested manoeuvre. We have never used our thrusters for 27 minutes continuously. Were going to burn half of our fuel.

She had voiced her feelings as comfortable and uncomfortable, worried and not worried.

Others involved in the Hope mission are staying optimistic, despite the tension surging ahead of this critical phase.

Zakarayya Hussain Al Shamshi, Deputy Project Manager, Mission Operation says, So far our calibrations show that the spacecraft is moving in the right direction. The spacecraft will slow down from the cruising speed of 121,000 km/h to something nearer to 18,000 km/h to achieve MOI.

"The problem with MOI is that the calculation that we have put is best to our own knowledge. The main issue is if you are going too fast, the spacecraft will not be captured by the Martian orbit and if its too slow then it will crash into Mars. But there is a margin there as well. If there was live commanding, one could have gone ahead and fixed anomalies but there is no scope for that here.

Tested many times

The thrusters that will be used for the orbit capture manoeuvre have been tested many times for short burns, including course corrections after launch.

The key is to start the manoeuvre on time, which is also the riskiest part here.

Apart from this, engineers are having to deal with a communication delay between mission control and the orbiter.

It takes radio signals 11 to 22 minutes to travel from Hope around Mars to the ground network on Earth hence, the need for autonomy. We rely completely on programmed manoeuvres set into the orbiter to accomplish this. Therefore, it will also be a tense blackout period for all of us, added Al Shamshi.

The spacecraft will be traveling behind Mars in an event called occultation and the ground teams will have no contact with the spacecraft for a few minutes. Therefore, the success of this phase will be a big reason for the missions success.

Although it is a highly practised and simulated, those preparations do come with some stress.

Ibrahim Abdulla Al Midfa, Flight Software Lead, opined, All commands have been tested on a model satellite on ground called a flatsat to gauge reactions. But its the first time we will be firing for almost 30 minutes to decelerate. Thats why it is risky and time is a critical factor.

"We still dont know if this amount of firing will be successful or not. But we are pretty confident about our designs and our systems. Its a braking mechanism. We have all the contingencies built into the spacecraft and have prepared for different scenarios.

What happens next

Nasas Deep Space Network radio antenna in Madrid, Spain, will get the first signals to know if the orbit insertion is successful.

Should Hope make it into the orbit, after spending 40 hours in the capture orbit, it will enter into the science orbit, where it will then spend two years studying the planets upper and lower atmosphere.

The probe will gather and send back 1,000GB of new Mars data to the Science Data Centre in the UAE via different ground stations spread around the world.

Read more:

Your guide to UAE's Hope Probe that reaches Mars in 3 days - Khaleej Times

Mars Area School District teachers are offering their reaction to the latest proposal from the school board.

In a statement, the union says that they were surprised by the offer that was posted to the districts website Thursday night.

Our newsroom spoke with Mars Middle School teacher Joe Graff who is also a spokesman for the Mars Area Education Association. He says that the union was surprised by the public proposal.

I would prefer that the negotiations remain private. I would also prefer that we continue to negotiate in good faith and that proposals get exchanged, Graff said. We tend to have a lot of meetings but not a lot of proposals exchanged. I think thats where the frustration [from our membership] has come from.

The statement also reads that the teachers union was incredibly frustrated that the school district did not offer a proposal during the negotiations meeting on February 3rd.

Graff also added that the union hasnt had a chance to review the latest proposal.

Weve been attempting to negotiate now for about 19 months, and in the last 13 months weve seen four proposals. The last of which was posted publicly, and we have not had an opportunity to review that proposal as a team, Graff said as of noon on Friday.

The latest proposal from the district is a four year offer that includes no raises for this upcoming year, but does have a $1,500 bonus. It then includes a raise of 3 percent next year, followed by 3.75 percent increases over the next two years.

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Mars Teachers Offer Reaction To Latest Proposal - ButlerRadio.com - Butler, PA - butlerradio.com

Marss north pole contains a large ice cap made up of many layers of frozen water. Like ice cores on Earth, those layers offer a tantalizing record of climate on Mars over the past several million years. The first step in decoding that climate record is to figure out how those layers form and how old each one might bea difficult task to perform from orbit.

In a new study, Wilcoski and Hayne used high-resolution surface topography data captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to attempt to chart the evolution of the ice over time. The researchers looked at the roughness of the top layer of icewhich shows a variety of regular ripples and ridges of various sizes and shapesand used the satellite imagery to validate a model that simulated interactions with the Martian polar climate and that reproduced the rough topography of the ice cap.

The model works by simulating how solar radiation can give rise to the ripples observed by the orbiter. It indicates that small bumps in the ices surface tend to become exaggerated over time as insolation ablates the Sun-facing side of the bump but not the backside, creating a series of ridges and valleys that become more pronounced over time.

Once the model was able to replicate this behavior, the researchers used it to show that the resultant ripples should be about 10 meters across and 1 meter deep. As the features age, the wavelengththe distance between each rippleincreases, and the ripples move toward the pole. This behavior held constant regardless of whether the researchers increased the atmospheric water vapor density or dialed it to zero, suggesting that the pattern forms regardless of whether the total amount of ice is increasing or decreasing.

If the new model is accurate, the surface roughness observed on the ice cap at Marss north pole should form in 1,00010,000 years, the authors say, providing a starting point for understanding the climate history of the planet. (Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JE006570, 2020)

David Shultz, Science Writer

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Decoding the Age of the Ice at Mars's North Pole - Eos