Monthly Archives: September 2021

Mars is home to the solar systems largest volcano, Olympus Mons, and volcanic activity has had a profound impact on shaping the planet into the state it is in today. Now, new evidence shows that volcanic eruptions on ancient Mars were incredibly dramatic, with thousands of super eruptions throwing huge quantities of dust and gases into the air and blocking out the sun.

Starting around 4 billion years ago, volcanic activity on Mars crescendoed into a period of around 500 million years when super eruptions spewed water vapor, carbon dioxide, and toxic sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. These eruptions spread a thick blanket of ash for thousands of miles around the volcanoes, and according to NASA, they threw out the equivalent of 400 million Olympic-size swimming pools of molten rock and gas.

There was so much of this activity that it changed the entire planets climate, according to the studys lead author Patrick Whelley, a geologist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the sun and made the atmosphere colder, Whelley said in a statement. Modelers of the martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes.

Whelley and his colleagues were investigating vast basins in the martian surface which were originally thought to be from asteroid impacts. But more recently, researchers realized that the craters could actually be the sites of ancient volcanoes which had collapsed in on themselves.

We read that paper and were interested in following up, but instead of looking for volcanoes themselves, we looked for the ash, because you cant hide that evidence, Whelley said.

They investigated an area called Arabia Terra and looked for the way volcanic minerals were distributed across the surface using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars instrument. They found these volcanic minerals even thousands of miles from the craters and used 3D topographical maps to see that the ash had been laid down in consistent layers, suggesting it was deposited around the same time. Not only that, but the layers were so thick that the ash must have been created from thousands of super eruptions.

Currently, the Arabia Terra region is the only place on Mars with evidence of these huge explosive volcanic eruptions has been found, making this a special place on the planet.

People are going to read our paper and go, How? How could Mars do that? How can such a tiny planet melt enough rock to power thousands of super eruptions in one location? co-author Jacob Richardson said. I hope these questions bring about a lot of other research.

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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Volcanoes on Mars exploded in super eruptions that blotted out the sun - Digital Trends

In about a year (Sept. 20th, 2021), the Rosalind Franklin rover will depart for Mars. As the latest mission in the ESAs and Roscosmos ExoMars program, Rosalind Franklin will join the small army of orbiters, landers, and rovers that are working to characterize the Martian atmosphere and environment. A key aspect of the rovers mission will involve drilling into the Martian soil and rock and obtaining samples from deep beneath the surface.

To prepare for drilling operations on Mars, the ESA, Italian space agency (ASI), and their commercial partners have been conducting tests with a replica aka. the Ground Test Model (GTM). Recently, the test model completed its first round of sample collection, known as the Mars Terrain Simulation (MTS). The rover drilled into hard stone and extracted samples from 1.7 meters (5.5 feet) beneath the surface in a record-breaking feat.

The MTS operations are being held at the Rover Operations Control Center (ROCC), located on the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC) premises in Turin, Italy. These dry runs are basically a dress rehearsal for the surface operations conducted by the real rover, which is being developed in parallel in preparation for launch next year.

To test how Rosalind Franklin will fare in on the Red Planet, the GTM has been drilling into a well filled with various rocks and soil layers. This takes place on a dedicated platform tilted at seven degrees to simulate the sample collection process on realistic, variable terrain. The first sample was obtained from a block of cement clay of medium solidity and was shaped like a pellet measuring about 2 cm long and 1 cm in diameter (0.787 x 0.39 inches).

Once collected, Rosalind Franklins drill retains the sample with a shutter that prevents it from falling out during retrieval. Once the drill is completely retracted, the sample is dropped into a drawer in the front of the rover, which closes and deposits the sample into a crushing station. The resulting powder is then distributed to ovens and containers inside designed to perform scientific analysis.

By drilling to a depth of 1.7 meters, the GTM established a new record for sample collection, as the deepest any mission has drilled on Mars to date is 7 cm (2.75 inches). The Rosalind Franklin rover is designed to drill deep up to 2 meters (6.5 ft) beneath the Martian surface, the purpose of which is to gain access to any well-preserved organic material that may have migrated there from 4 billion years ago and after.

At that time, Mars was a warmer, wetter place where surface conditions were similar to what is believed to have existed on Earth around the same time. With the success of missions like the Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance rovers which found compelling evidence for flowing water and organics on the surface scientists have been eager to get a peek at the subsurface environment to see if this is where Mars water and possibly life could have retreated to.

The long-awaited successful soil collection from a hard stone and its delivery to the laboratory inside the rover represents a major milestone for the ExoMars 2022 mission and Mars exploration in general. As ExoMars project scientist Jorge Vago described:

The reliable acquisition of deep samples is key for ExoMars main science objective: to investigate the chemical composition and possible signs of life of soil that has not been subjected to damaging ionizing radiation,

The drill was developed by the aerospace company Leonardo, which also contributed to creating the ROCC alongside the ESA, ASI, and Thales Alenia Space (the prime contractor for the ExoMars 2022 mission). Relying on an automated assembly of mechanisms, the Rosalind Franklin drill works on rotation by fitting tools and extension robs to form a drill string that allows it to drill to a depth of up to 2 m (6.5 ft).

The drill also has a two-degree of freedom positioner that allows it to deposit samples at the right angle into the rover laboratory. It can penetrate the ground at 60 rotations per minute (depending on the consistency of the soil) and dig into solid clay materials and sandy rock at a rate of 0.3 and 30 mm (0.012 to 1.18 inches) per minute, respectively.

Said ExoMars rover team leader Pietro Baglioni, The design and construction of the drill has been so complex that this first deep drilling is an extraordinary achievement for the team.

Another major challenge comes from having to simulate Martian conditions during the tests accurately. To do this, the GMT must be suspended from the ceiling on a dedicated gravity compensation device to recreate the effect of Martian gravity, which is about 38% that of Earth (0.38 g). But gravity alone does not represent all of the environmental challenges a robotic rover will have to contend with once its on the surface of Mars.

As Andrea Merlo, ExoMars Rover functional engineer from Thales Alenia Space, explained:

Drilling hard stones to a depth of two meters on a mobile wheeled platform with less than 100 watts of power is a complex task. This already gives engineers a hint on how the system could degrade on Mars.

In addition to drilling operations, the GTM has completed several other tests designed to gauge the rovers other abilities. These include the ability to move around and identify potential scientific targets while also acquiring data and images. These dry runs began in June of 2021 and have successfully demonstrated that Rosalind Franklin can follow precise trajectories and survey the surface and subsurface environment.

Once it reaches Mars, the rover will rely on its advanced suite of cameras, spectrometers, a sub-surface sounding radar, and neutron detector to search for evidence that life once existed on Mars (and perhaps still does!)

Further Reading: ESA

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ExoMars Will be Drilling 1.7 Meters to Pull its Samples From Below the Surface of Mars - Universe Today

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Space food innovators need to think about questions we take for granted on Earth: How long is a day? What air pressure is it? Will there be soil? Are there insects?

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Birthday cakes took a different form aboard the International Space Station (ISS) under Chris Hadfields command. Using alternating layers of peanut butter, honey and the maple syrup he had brought with him from Canada, the astronauts stacked tortillas 25 high. Especially versatile in space, tortillas dont crumb like bread or cake; since theyre heat-treated and packaged in an oxygen-free environment, they can last for 18 months.

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Because it was all stuck together as one big cylinder, suddenly wed created a space cake, says Hadfield. We could cut everybody a little traditional triangular slice, and have a birthday cake that was using the materials on hand to make something that actually was quite delicious and different, but still reminiscent.

If they had been celebrating on the Moon, birthday candles could have been flickering. But in microgravity, theres no convection. The only way for oxygen to resupply a lit candle would have been through random molecular motion, Hadfield explains. Starved of oxygen on the ISS, the spherical blue flames would have almost immediately extinguished.

Not being able to blow out candles didnt detract from the celebrations, though: We had the whole world in our window.

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During his five-month assignment aboard the ISS in 2013 the second half of which he served as commander, another first (in 2001, he became the first Canadian to walk in space) Hadfield captured the worlds attention. His cover of David Bowies Space Oddity has more than 50 million views on YouTube, but people were also captivated by glimpses of his daily life in orbit.

Part of it is just trying to share what is still an extremely rare human experience, and a perspective that I think is really important. Being able to see the entire world in 90 minutes, over and over again, forever changes your perception of where the line between us and them is drawn, and the shared commonality of the human experience, says Hadfield, who was an astronaut for 21 years and has since started exploring space in fiction with The Apollo Murders (Oct. 12, 2021, Random House Canada). The perspective from space radically forever improves your understanding of the world itself.

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The ISS is entirely dependent on supplies from Earth. As Hadfield demonstrated in videos shot in his space kitchen, food preparation is limited to opening packages, squeezing tubes, rehydrating or reheating. There are no fridges, freezers, stoves, microwaves or dishwashers no aromas of food cooking, coffee brewing or plates to eat off of.

Since objects float away if untethered, astronauts tend to eat serially: one dish after the other. Building a meal with multiple ingredients aboard the ISS would be akin to food juggling; the less assembly, the better.

Space foods must be compact, firm (not crumbly), lightweight, shelf-stable, nutritious and tasty. But feeding astronauts today involves more adaptability and expense than it does invention, says Hadfield. Moving beyond the ISS to the Moon or Mars, however, will require innovation.

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In an effort to encourage the creation of food technologies or systems for long-duration space missions, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has partnered with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, which Hadfield is co-chairing with Dr. Thomas Graham, a professor in the University of Guelphs School of Environmental Sciences with 25 years of experience in space-related research.

The international competition includes $300,000 for up to 15 winning Canadian teams. This fall, as many as 10 semi-finalists will test their prototypes; and in fall 2022, up to four finalists will build a full system demonstration. Underscoring the complexity of the task, the jury is diverse: Lynn Blackwood, a food security policy analyst with the Nunatsiavut Government, Lawrence Goodridge, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph, and chef Lynn Crawford are among the 11 tasked with arriving at a short list.

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Less than 10 per cent of NASAs Food Lab menu is feasible for trips to Mars, according to the Deep Space Food Challenge. On the ISS, any of the food astronauts grow is research-oriented, not nutritional. In order to embark on longer missions to destinations like Mars, we need to be able to produce food en route, as well as sustain ourselves once we get there.

In coming up with future food technologies for space, innovators must consider questions terrestrial producers take for granted, says Hadfield: How long is a day and night? What air pressure is it? Will there be soil and if so, what type? Are there insects or not? How will seeds be germinated? Is there gravity and if so, how much and how will it affect plant life?

Producing food in space may be wrapped up in a new set of parameters, but Hadfield looks at it historically. Just as when Indigenous peoples in present-day southern Mexico domesticated corn roughly 9,000 years ago, the solutions are technical, they are scientific. Theyre genetic and biological.

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The technologies and systems must be as sustainable as possible and have the ability to produce more than they take. Its a complex problem that humans have had to solve many times over, he adds, as weve found ways to adapt to new environments over millennia.

Necessity is the mother of invention; whether addressing the effects of climate change on Earth or settling the Moon, when external circumstances change, our approaches must shift as well.

To start growing things in a new climate, in our long, long human past, that has required invention, says Hadfield. And thats where we are now for the Deep Space Food Challenge: Were going to a new environment. And so how much can you bring with you? How much can you grow in situ? And then how are you going to turn that into not just one food stuff, but a wide enough smorgasbord that it meets everybodys nutritional needs?

These innovations wont be confined to deep space, though; they should also have the potential to improve life on Earth. The distance between the two may seem difficult to fathom, but there are direct parallels.

The terrestrial benefits (of space exploration) are huge, says Graham, who specializes in controlled-environment agriculture (e.g., greenhouses, hydroponics, vertical farms). Doing it better there, under the really tight requirements of space, allows us to improve things here for the betterment of us all. It will make our food systems more secure.

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Since 1976, NASA has recorded more than 2,000 spinoff technologies, including the recent development of a ventilator for coronavirus patients. As many as 811 million people in the world lived with food insecurity in 2020 according to the FAO; innovations for space could be applied to hard-hit areas at home, including food deserts, remote and Northern communities.

Right now, at least terrestrially, vertical farms are making money on things like leafy greens, microgreens, baby greens. Thats fairly well established, says Graham. But if this sort of method of production is ever going to truly realize its potential, we need to get into things that have higher energy content, things that can provide fibre and proteins and lipids.

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Grahams group at the U of Gs Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility is examining ways to expand the scope, investigating crops like beans. And as part of his three-year postdoctoral term at NASA, he and a team at the Kennedy Space Center developed the first spaceflight-compatible tree fruit with the USDA.

Tree fruits with their continual cycles of flowering, fruit production and dormancy dont work in space or vertical farms, Graham explains. But their engineered plum tree, which is more vine-like (similar to a tomato), flowers quickly and constantly.

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As an added bonus, it turns out that prunes (dried plums) are very good terrestrially for mitigating bone loss, he says. Due to radiation in microgravity, bone loss in space is a significant issue; the prunes produced from this crop could also be used as a countermeasure to help mitigate the stresses on the body in space.

That has been picked up by some of the big vertical farm players that have fairly extensive R & D programs. So theyre looking at that now for terrestrial applications, he adds. Its all intertwined when youre talking about food. It doesnt matter where you do it; the questions are the same.

Graham is also part of a project aiming to grow edible plants on the Moon by 2024. As a very first baby step, their goal is to have three plants barley, radish and an as-yet-undetermined third withstand a lunar night. At roughly minus 200 degrees Celsius and lasting for two weeks, surviving it is challenging. In 2019, China successfully sprouted a cotton plant on the Moon an agricultural first but when the lunar night fell, it perished.

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In deep space, plants would provide a source of food, adds Graham, but they would also deliver other requirements for life support all in a regenerative fashion. A plant grows and makes seeds, which can be used to start another plant and the cycle continues.

Growing plants in space provides the oxygen we need to breathe, scrubs the carbon dioxide we exhale, and helps purify the water. And then theres the psychological benefit of sharing space with other living organisms: Humans didnt evolve in a tin can, so its always nice to have some greenery with you.

Menu diversity is part of the Deep Space Food Challenge as well; people take comfort in eating, especially in high stress environments. Having continual access to fresh food being able to pluck a few leaves of basil from a tray and add them to a dish, for example would go a long way towards adding enjoyment.

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Eating your supper out of a toothpaste tube is no way to live, says Graham, laughing. So if you can improve someones mental well-being when theyre on a rocket ship or on some very inhospitable planet where if you step outside unprotected, you die, theres certain merit to that. And again, that still translates to Earth. If you can provide people with good, nutritious food, you reduce health-care costs.

Space is the ultimate in closed-loop (or circular) production, he adds: All space waste needs to be processed in the backend of the system as we should probably be doing on Earth, too. In effect, there is no waste in space; only resources.

Controlled-environment agriculture is not poised to replace field production on Earth, Graham highlights, but it is a complementary way to provide fresh, local food. If you close the loops by tying in renewable energy, its an efficient, sustainable and weather-proof production system, which helps improve food security. As an added benefit, it can be done anywhere, all year long.

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There are still technical aspects to figure out, he says, but thats where things like this challenge help. Lets put this big old carrot out there that were all going to go for. And as the technology develops, and is improved through these challenges, we all benefit.

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Hadfield grew up on a grain farm in southern Ontario, where he learned firsthand how important technology is for the efficiency of food production. Its also where he watched the Apollo missions and Moon landings in the late 1960s and early 70s. NASA could have waited to show the world, as the Soviets did, he recalls. But broadcasting the process as it unfolded no matter the outcome made the triumph all the more impactful.

I think maybe I internalized that as a 10 or 11 year old kid, that Hey, if you ever get to do this, share it. Dont keep it to yourself. Let other people see the beauty of it, and the opportunity of it, says Hadfield. And its why Im in the Deep Space Food Challenge as well. To me, its part of my own responsibility, but its also a really cool facet of it that we need. And where the technology can spin back and really help everybody.

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The race is on to develop space food for Mars and it could change how we eat on Earth - National Post

Dust devils are generally used as a trope in media when the writers want to know that an area is deserted. They signify the desolation and isolation that those places represent. Almost none of the settings of those stories are close to the isolation of Perseverance, the Mars rover that landed on the planet earlier this year. Fittingly, the number of dust devils Perseverance has detected is also extremely high over 300 in its first three months on the planet.

The paper discussing those findings, written by Brian Jackson of Boise State University, is available on arXiv. Data used in that analysis was collected by a suite of instruments on the rover known as the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA). That suite includes everything from humidity and wind sensors to ground temperature and dust optical sensors.

Those sensors were all put to good use, collecting data on that many dust devils. However, this wasnt the first time dust devils were seen on Mars the Viking missions first noticed them back in the 1970s, and they have been visible even from space by orbiting satellites for years. But never before have as many fine-tuned on the ground sensors been able to collect a myriad of data on the phenomena.

Other rovers have also experience dust devils, but Jezero crater, Perseverances landing site, seems to have a high occurrence of dust devils. Meteorological predictions suggested that might be the case, and observational evidence from Perseverance so far has confirmed those predictions.

What the predictions didnt expect was the number of dust devils that didnt involve any dust. Only about 20% of the 309 vortices nearly 5 per sol detected dimmed the light around the rover by more than 2%. An insolation (i.e., light detection) sensor was used to estimate how much dust was in the air during the events. Even with relatively limited dust uptake, scientists believe that dust devils are one of the most significant contributing factors to the amount of dust floating around Mars atmosphere.

Martian dust is notorious for its difficult clinginess and toxicity and could prove a problematic hazard to deal with when crewed exploration missions start. This confirmation of meteorological models with Perseverances data is a positive step toward genuinely understanding Maritan weather patterns. But it also might mean that Jezero Crater isnt a particularly great place to go with the first human missions.

Learn More:Brian Jackson Vortices and Dust Devils As Observed by the MEDA Instruments onboard Mars 2020 Perseverance RoverSpace.com Perseverance rover spots its first dust devil on MarsUT Summer is Dust Devil Time on MarsUT This is a Dust Devil on Mars

Lead Image:A large dust devil on Mars.Credit HiRISE, MRO, LPL, University of Arizona, NASA

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Perseverance has Already Detected Over 300 Dust Devils and Vortices on Mars - Universe Today

Two national college ranking guides again have given Mars Hill University high marks. U.S. News and World Report lists Mars Hill among the top colleges in the south, as well as a strong performer in social mobility. Washington Monthly ranks Mars Hill among the top baccalaureate colleges in the nation and a Best Bang for the Buck among institutions in the southeast.

In its 2022 Best Colleges rankings, released this week, U.S. News rated Mars Hill University 29th in the category of Best Regional Colleges South. U.S. News defines regional colleges as those with a strong focus on the liberal arts and programs such as business and nursing, and with a primary focus on undergraduate education. The rankings are based on such criteria as graduation rates, faculty expertise, class size and incoming students college entrance exam scores.

The magazine also rated Mars Hill in the number 25 position for Top Performers On Social Mobility. That category focuses on institutions which enroll and graduate large proportions of students from economically disadvantaged families.

Its gratifying to see our hard work in this area paying off, said MHU President Tony Floyd. A key part of our mission is to serve students like this students who face financial and other challenges in their pursuit of a college education to not only help them get to college, but to persist to graduation.

Washington Monthlys 2021 rankings, released in its September/October 2021 issue, put Mars Hill University in the number 59 slot among Bachelors Colleges. It also places Mars Hill 68th among the Best Bang for the Buck institutions in the southeast, a category ranking of schools which the magazine says help non-wealthy students attain marketable degrees at affordable prices. Washington Monthly describes its rankings as a different kind of college ranking than that of U.S. News and World Report, focusing on social mobility, research and service opportunities for students.About Mars Hill University:

Mars Hill University is a premier private, liberal arts institution offering over 30 baccalaureate degrees, as well as masters degrees in criminal justice, elementary education, teaching, and management. Founded in 1856 by Baptist families of the region, the campus is located just 20 minutes north of Asheville in the mountains of western North Carolina.

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Rankings show Mars Hill University Continue to be a Leader in the Region - Mountain Xpress

Planetary physicist Shannon Curry is the new principal investigator for the MAVEN mission to Mars, which has been studying the atmosphere and magnetic field of the planet since 2014.

As a young girl growing up in Cincinnati, Shannon Curry repeatedly asked her parents about the night sky, especially the planets, but as non-scientists, they seldom had answers. That is what college is for, her parents told her.

So, she earned a B.S. in astrophysics from Tufts University and become a systems engineer at Lockheed Martin before entering the University of Michigan to complete a Ph.D. in atmospheric and space physics. Seven years ago, she joined the Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) at the University of California, Berkeley, to focus on missions to the planets Mars and Venus.

Curry is now in a prime position to answer many of the questions she posed her parents more than 20 years ago. She has been appointed the principal investigator of MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, one of three NASA satellite missions now orbiting the red planet and the only one run by a woman.

At the age of 38, she is also one of the youngest principal investigators of any NASA mission.

I never imagined I would lead a mission to Mars, said Curry, who is deputy associate director for planetary science and astrobiology at SSL. My focus is to continue executing our mission and achieving our science goals. We have a killer team, so I am looking forward to the next chapter of MAVEN.

Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder, was the first principal investigator of the MAVEN mission to Mars. (Photo by Merry Bullock)

Principal investigators are scientists or engineers outside of NASA who bear responsibility for a missions success. The role of MAVEN principal investigator until last month, a job filled by Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder includes managing operations, the orbit, the data pipeline and processing, fuel usage, and just making sure the spacecraft stays up and running until the end of the decade, Curry said, in part to relay data from the rovers on the surface back to Earth.

As the youngest of the NASA satellites orbiting Mars the others are the 20-year-old Mars Odyssey and the 15-year-old Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) MAVEN is the main contact between Mars and Earth through the Deep Space Network.

There is enormous responsibility on MAVEN to make it to the 2030 goalpost, because at some point, Mars Odyssey will be decommissioned, and the same thing with MRO, Curry said.

As a planetary physicist, though, Currys primary interest is the science. In the seven years since MAVEN settled into orbit around Mars, it has contributed immensely to our current understanding of the planets history in particular, why it lost its atmosphere and what happened to the oceans of water that used to cover the planet. Curry said that an atmosphere is critical to maintaining liquid water on the surface of any planet, and as soon as it disappears something that happened on Mars some 4 billion years ago, early in our solar systems history so does the water. The question NASA has been asking about Mars for decades is: Where did that water go? The answer has implications for whether life ever arose on the planet, and if so, where it may be hiding today.

This illustration shows the MAVEN spacecraft and the limb of Mars (Image courtesy of NASA/GSFC)

We know 100% there was liquid water on the surface of Mars. We can see dry river deltas, we can see features on the surface that were carved or created in the presence of water, she said. So, with that geomorphic evidence, we know liquid water existed on the surface on a million-year timescale, though it could have even been a billion. That said, as the atmosphere eroded, as atmospheric pressure decreased, the water had to go either up or down. I think of MAVEN as on Team Up.

In other words, from its orbit less than 100 kilometers above the surface, MAVENs instruments monitor the escape of gases upward into space. Scientists then use these numbers to project back in time to estimate when and how much water evaporated into space, as opposed to the water that froze out underground or at the polar caps. These estimates also give a measure of how much total water once filled the now dried-up rivers and oceans.

An enormous amount got trapped in the crust, and an enormous amount escaped to space, Curry said. Given the current escape rate, we are looking at between half a meter and 10 meters of a global equivalent layer of water, that is, if the whole planet had been covered in water. That comes just from atmospheric and ionospheric measurements by MAVEN. When you fold in what the rovers are telling us, in terms of soundings and sample analysis on the ground, I think it is more than that.

As MAVEN principal investigator, Curry has already begun to outline MAVENs next chapter of science with the mission team, which involves not only atmospheric studies, but also measurements of the strength and distribution of magnetic fields on the surface.

One of our biggest goals will be to study the Martian atmosphere under extreme conditions, she said.

Space scientist Janet Luhmann, one of those who conceived the MAVEN mission, was a mentor to Curry.

These extreme conditions are created by the sun, which began a new solar cycle last year and will become much more active over the next five years. Coincidentally, at the peak of the solar cycle, the Martian global dust storm season will begin. Global dust storms occur roughly every three Martian years and can last anywhere from two weeks to two months.

Its rare for these two events to overlap at exactly the same time, Curry said.

The extreme activity of the sun during the first billion years of the solar system was what stripped away Mars atmosphere in the first place, she said, whereas Earth and Venus retained theirs. The reasons why these three planets suffered different fates have major implications for exoplanet studies, suggesting that planets may need more than just the right temperature being in the Goldilocks Zone, or habitable zone, that allows liquid water to persist in order to support life. Planets also may need a global magnetic field to protect the atmosphere from solar storms and perhaps volcanoes to replace the atmosphere eroded away by active stars like our early sun.

I am ecstatic for the leaps weve made in exoplanetary exploration and science, but there is a lot we can learn from our own planets, she said. It is important for all of us in the planetary community to take our expertise about our particular target and start to piece together a larger picture about how we all got here, figuratively and literally.

MAVEN was conceived by Jakosky, the late UC Berkeley physics professor Robert Lin, and Lins SSL colleague, Janet Luhmann, during an hour-long phone conversation in 2003 that ended with a decision to propose the mission to NASA. Jakosky assembled a MAVEN team that proposed and won the NASA MAVEN mission in 2007. The satellite was launched in November 2013, but Lin did not live to see this milestone: He died suddenly from a stroke in November of 2012.

The late Robert Lin, professor of physics, in 2008, upon his retirement as director of the Space Sciences Laboratory. Lin, Bruce Jakosky and Janet Luhman conceived of the MAVEN mission in 2003. (UC Berkeley photo by Peg Skorpinski)

So, while Lin recruited Curry to SSL even before she completed her Ph.D. her thesis was about what MAVEN would detect on Mars it was Luhmann who onboarded her and served as a mentor.

Janet picked me up, and I came to work under her wing and tutelage, Curry said. I cant speak highly enough about her mentorship to me. She is absolutely the epitome of poise, grace and hard work when it comes to science.

As part of Currys transition to principal investigator, Luhmann will step down as deputy principal investigator, making way for SSLs David Mitchell to assume that position. Mitchell has been project manager of MAVEN since its inception.

She (Curry) brings energy and ideas that will take MAVEN into new science and applications territories, bringing its many types of observations to the attention of new audiences, Luhmann said.

Jakosky emphasized that Currys experience as a planetary physicist, mathematician, statistician and systems engineer makes her more than qualified to lead the MAVEN mission.

She knows how science and engineering work together, said Jakosky. She has a good thought process. During the various meetings, I watched her collect the information necessary to make thoughtful and intelligent decisions.

Since coming to SSL, Curry put these skills to use as project scientist for the ESCAPADE twin-satellite mission to Mars, where she teamed with SSLs Rob Lillis, and as the science lead for NASAs Parker Solar Probe during its many gravity-assist loops around Venus, which are an opportunity to probe the planet.

As she takes the helm at MAVEN, Curry is excited about seeing early career scientists use data from the mission, as she has done since before arriving at SSL.

In her free time, Shannon Curry is an avid runner and rock climber. (Photo courtesy of Shannon Curry)

You see graduate students and postdocs get really excited about their discoveries. Its sort of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to work on data that no one else has ever seen from another planet and get to share that experience with others, she said.

When not working, Curry can be found on the running trails in the nearby hills she and her husband met at a local running club or at a local climbing gym. Or, as of early this year, caring for her newborn. When Curry interviewed for the MAVEN principal investigator job in December, she was 8 months pregnant and now has an eight-month-old boy, Jack.

Ive got my spacecraft baby and my human baby, and I love them both very much, she said.

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Planet maven Shannon Curry takes over MAVEN mission to Mars - UC Berkeley

Sometimes it feels like being a Pitt fan would be easier if they were just plain bad. Right now, the Panthers exist in limbo, never as perennially bad as the Vanderbilts or Kansases of the world, but also far from an equal of the elites. Instead, they float around seven and eight wins with an inexplicable or utterly maddening loss or three sprinkled throughout the season.

One of those seemingly regular letdowns came on Saturday, when Western Michigan marched into Heinz Field and shredded the Panther defense, winning in key moment after key moment on the way to a 44-41 upset victory.

The Panthers struggled mightily on Saturday afternoon against the Broncos to run, defend and play without penalties. Some outstanding individual performances kept them afloat, but were unable to cover for the fact that Pitt was thoroughly outplayed by Western Michigan.

This loss hurts more than just Pitts recordAfter Pitt topped Tennessee on the road last week, they broke an ugly pattern and passed what, on paper, looked like the only formidable test of the non-conference schedule. It looked like they were ready to take the next step and put together a special season. But they came crashing back to earth in week three.

Pitt was not ready to play. The Panthers refused to adjust, committed bone-headed penalties and handled the ball sloppily. They failed to show up and now, even if they turn things around and become the team that was expected entering 2021, the shadow of the WMU game will follow them for the remainder of the year. If we had just won the Western Michigan game, will become a common refrain because of the way it marred any momentum Pitt built when they defied recent history by taking down a Power Five non-conference opponent on the road.

This game is, in the grand scheme of things, pretty meaningless. Head coach Pat Narduzzi said after the game that there is still an ACC schedule left to play and hes right, but losing to a MAC team inflicts an added psychological toll on a Power Five team and its fanbase.

Pride was a casualty of Saturdays game. For a week, fans got to believe this team wouldnt confirm their worst expectations and seven days later, they are kicking themselves for giving in to the optimism.

The Panthers have bonafide stars in the passing offense

Senior quarterback Kenny Pickett has lived up to his preseason hype so far this season. Through three games, hes on pace to shatter career records in passing yards, completion percentage, passing touchdowns and rushing yards for a single season. Hes also in the top 20 nationally in completions and passer rating.

Pickett recorded a career day against the Broncos, throwing for 382 yards and six touchdowns a personal, single-game high that doubled his previous ceiling while using his feet to extend plays and drives. Pickett also passed Dan Marino and Tino Sunseri on the all-time passing yards leaderboard at Pitt with a 67-yard touchdown strike to sophomore receiver Jordan Addison. He almost single-handedly kept the Panthers in the game, matching the Broncos blow-for-blow accounting for every Panthers score.

And Addison had a spectacular day of his own. He caught six passes for 124 yards and three touchdowns the best single-game touchdown total of his young career, and he hit that mark before halftime. Senior tight end Lucas Krull also continued to be a valuable asset in the red zone. He managed just three catches but two of them were for touchdowns. Junior receiver Jared Wayne didnt score, but reached the century mark in receiving yards for just the second time in his career and made clutch catches late in the game while the WMU defense was focused on trying to contain Addison.

Pitt will go as far as Pickett and the passing offense does. The aerial attack is a clear strength for the Panthers on that side of the ball. They are the 25th-best offense in the country by yards per game and the 11th-best by points per game, thanks in large part to their nearly 364 pass yards per game.

Coaches and players have said throughout preseason and the first three weeks of the regular season that they want to run the ball better. Its a noble goal, but Pitt shouldnt turn to the ground just for its own sake. The game plan is already pass-heavy and every time a big play is needed, offensive coordinator Mark Whipple should put the ball in the hands of Pickett, his leading man.

This secondary is the Achilles heel of a good defense

For the second straight week, the Pitt secondary was burned often and didnt make a shift from their primarily man-to-man defensive scheme. Sophomore receivers Skyy Moore and Corey Crooms caught 19 of their 26 total targets for a combined 285 yards and a pair of touchdowns, beating the Panthers top corners redshirt senior Damarri Mathis and redshirt junior Marquis Williams early and often.

The Panthers got away with some blown coverages last week against Tennessee because Volunteer quarterbacks were repeatedly inaccurate on deep balls. But against WMU, they had no such luck. Redshirt sophomore quarterback Kaleb Eleby was deadly accurate, striking for three touchdowns in a span of eight passes.

The Panthers continued to press the Broncos nonetheless and paid for it dearly. Two-thirds of WMU plays that went for 15 or more yards came through the air.

One of the calling cards of Narduzzis defenses at Pitt has been a tendency to commit more bodies to stopping the run and challenging his defensive backs to win in one-on-one matchups.

Entering this season, that seemed like a good strategy. Its been effective in recent years Williams and Mathis were considered two of the better corners in the conference and redshirt sophomore safety Brandon Hill was considered a rising star. But the unit was instead sloppy on Saturday, responsible for five of the defenses six penalties and 41 of 42 penalty yards.

It was clear from the get-go that the secondary was not going to be one of the weaker arms of this Pitt team, but now they have become an unexpected liability. They will need to improve their play on the backend to support their defensive line and linebacking corps, who is holding opponents under 100 yards per game on the ground so far this year.

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They are who we think they are: WMU loss mars hopeful start for Pitt - The Pitt News

Rolls-Royce is currently working on a power source for mining resourcing on the Moon and even Mars.

The firm recently released a joint study with the UK Space Agency into nuclear reactor development for space rockets and mining. The firm is taking a look at how a micro-nuclear reactor could be implemented into a rocket and then redeployed as a power source for mining on the Moon and mining on Mars. The head of Rolls-Royce's defense division, Dave Gordon, said that the firm can utilize its 60-years of development experience making nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Navy and apply it to nuclear rocket/space mining development.

Gordon said rockets and submarines are similar in the following ways, "non-air breathing environments, long-endurance, super reliable with a very dense power source." Gordon goes on to say that there aren't very many rare metals on Earth and that other objects in space have an abundance of these metals. Mining these metals will require a power source, and Gordon argues that the power source will have to be nuclear and not solar. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

Jak Connor

Jak joined the TweakTown team in 2017 and has since reviewed 100s of new tech products and kept us informed daily on the latest news. Jak's love for technology, and, more specifically, PC gaming, began at 10 years old. It was the day his dad showed him how to play Age of Empires on an old Compaq PC. Ever since that day, Jak fell in love with games and the progression of the technology industry in all its forms. Instead of typical FPS, Jak holds a very special spot in his heart for RTS games.

Originally posted here:

Rolls-Royce to power Moon and Mars mining with nuclear reactors - TweakTown

To minimize the cost of building Mars colonies, scientists at the University of Manchester have developed a way for astronauts to make their own concrete on the Red Planet using space dust and human blood.

The challenge: If we want to establish Mars colonies, were going to need to construct buildings on the Red Planet where colonists can live and work.

However, sending construction materials from Earth to the Red Planet would be way too costly every extra pound of payload increases the cost of a Mars mission by at least $2,400.

Scientists suggest astronauts build Mars colonies out of their own blood, sweat, and tears literally.

Space dust: Rather than sending everything we need to build Mars colonies to the planet, experts suggest astronauts make use of the resources already there, such as its rocks and water deposits.

Now, University of Manchester scientists are suggesting astronauts build Mars colonies out of their own blood, sweat, and tears literally.

Scientists have been trying to develop viable technologies to produce concrete-like materials on the surface of Mars, but we never stopped to think that the answer might be inside us all along, researcher Aled Roberts said in a press release.

When they added urea, the material became stronger than ordinary concrete.

Constructing Mars colonies: For a new study, the Manchester team simulated Mars dust and combined it with a common blood plasma protein to produce a material that, once dried, has about the same compressive strength as concrete meaning it would be able to hold about the same load.

When they added urea a waste material that could be extracted from human urine, sweat, and tears during water recycling to the mix, the materials compressive strength increased up to 300%, making it stronger than ordinary concrete.

The scientists dubbed their creation AstroCrete and calculated that six astronauts could produce about 1,110 pounds of the high-strength kind during a two-year mission.

If the material was used to bind together sandbags, they predict each astronaut could expand a Mars habitat enough during their mission to accommodate an additional colonist.

The cold water: The scientists note that more research is needed before AstroCrete can be considered a viable building material for Mars colonies.

In addition to testing the material under simulated Mars conditions to see how it would hold up, they also note a need to consider how donating plasma twice a week in microgravity might affect astronauts health.

Still, were likely decades away from building any Mars colonies, so they have time to dig further into their unique solution to the problem of off-world construction.

Wed love to hear from you! If you have a comment about this article or if you have a tip for a future Freethink story, please email us at tips@freethink.com.

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Mars colonies could be built from astronauts blood and urine - Freethink

With sensors seemingly ubiquitous in machines and electronics, it seems appropriate to celebrate their place in the tech world now that Fierce Electronics is about to kick off Sensors Converge in San Jose, California, a showcase of sensors and related applications.

Did you know that commercial off-the-shelf sensors are being used on Mars to help the inertial guidance system of the small Ingenuity drone helicopter? Thats something coming up Tuesday at Sensors Converge in a video presentation by Havard Grip, pilot of Ingenuity.

Sensors on their own are amazing enough, but engineers are using them inside an array of aerospace and industrial applications. Some consumer applications are equally dazzling, not to mention helpful.

Take the FIXD Sensor, a small device that fits into the OBD2 port under the drivers side dash of cars built after 1996. A connected smartphone app can read out hundreds of error codes, including the dreaded check engine light.

The $20 device first appeared in 2016 and 2.7 million have been sold, FIXD recently said. A premium app for $6 a month has received 100,000 subscribers.

According to the company, co-founders of Atlanta-based FIXD were tired of seeing friends and family stress over the check engine light. Co-founders John Gattuso, Frederick Grimm and Julian Knight were engineering students who met at Georgia Tech.

The FIXD Sensor example makes it easy to see how sensors when combined with processors in applications can be powerful, whether in medical devices, microwave ovens, product manufacturing lines, gas fields or weather satellites.

Sometimes it hard to know where the sensor in an application stops and the processor starts.

In a recent smart farming example, STMicroelectronics announced its STM32WLE5 SoC, the worlds first LoRa SoC, is being used in a robot from CIHEVEA that automates extraction of latex from 200,000 rubber trees on a rubber-tree plantation in Hainan, China.

The robot has two precision motors and a series of environmental sensors that monitor weather, including temperature, air pressure and humidity. While clamped to a rubber tree, the SoC transmits the sensor data to a mesh gateway via a dedicated LoRa network server. That server in turn monitors and coordinates the robots. If conditions are right, the SoC triggers rubber-tapping motors to being autonomous cutting, usually in early morning when the latex sap is rising.

Plantation officials estimate the robot increases latex yield by up to three times while limiting damage to trees and lessening the need for human workers who face dangers doing the tapping work.

As all these examples make clear, sometimes the innovative uses of sensors in applications are so numerous that they can be overlooked and under-appreciated. We dont always see the trees for the forest.

Editor's Note: Sensor Converge starts runs Sept. 21-23 in San Jose, California, and streaming globally. Registration is free.

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Sensors are everywhere: On Mars, in cars and even rubber tree robots - FierceElectronics