Monthly Archives: July 2022

Mars can be an awfully windy place, it turns out.

The Perseverance rover touched down on the Red Planet in February 2021 carrying, among other instruments, a weather station dubbed Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA). That instrument includes two wind sensors that measure speed and direction, among several other sensors that provide weather metrics such as humidity, radiation and air temperature.

Pebbles carried aloft by strong Red Planet gusts recently damaged one of the wind sensors, but MEDA can still keep track of wind at its landing area in Jezero Crater, albeit with decreased sensitivity, Jos Antonio Rodriguez Manfredi, principal investigator of MEDA, told Space.com.

Related: 1 year later, Ingenuity helicopter still going strong on Mars

"Right now, the sensor is diminished in its capabilities, but it still provides speed and direction magnitudes," Rodriguez Manfredi, a scientist at the Spanish Astrobiology Center in Madrid, wrote in an e-mail."The whole team is now re-tuning the retrieval procedure to get more accuracy from the undamaged detector readings."

The two approximately ruler-sized wind sensors on Perseverance are encircled by six individual detectors that aim to give accurate readings from any direction, according to materials (opens in new tab) from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, which manages the rover.

Each of the two main wind sensors is attached to a boom that can unfold to move the sensors away from the rover as it drives, because the car-sized Perseverance does affect wind currents by its own movements through the thin Martian atmosphere, JPL officials stated.

Like all instruments on Perseverance, the wind sensor was designed with redundancy and protection in mind, Rodriguez Manfredi noted. "But of course, there is a limit to everything."

And for an instrument like MEDA, the limit is more challenging, since the sensors must be exposed to environmental conditions in order to record wind parameters. But when stronger-than-anticipated winds lifted larger pebbles than expected, the combination resulted in damage to some of the detector elements.

"Neither the predictions nor the experience we had from previous missions foresaw such strong winds, nor so much loose material of that nature," Rodriguez Manfredi said. (He is also principal investigator of another temperature and wind sensor on the NASA InSight lander, on the Red Planet since November 2018 and expected to end its mission this year.)

He added it was was ironic that the sensors were damaged by wind, or "precisely by what we went looking for."

Perseverance landed on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, and, along with a helicopter called Ingenuity, is exploring an ancient river delta that may have been rich in microbes billions of years ago.

Besides measuring wind, weather and rock composition, the rover is picking up the most promising material to cache for a future sample return-mission aiming to send samples to Earth in the 2030s.

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Perseverance Mars rover wind sensor damaged by pebbles, but still operational - Space.com

Twenty-five years ago on July 4, 1997, NASA landed its first rover on Mars and beamed back a photo from the planets surface. In doing so, the agency set up its first on-the-go, vehicular science lab on another world, able to visit more than one place in the course of its mission.

The almost 10-month Pathfinder mission and the 83-day journey of its accompanying Sojourner rover set the stage for the fleet of wheeled interplanetary explorers to follow including the two rovers still active on the Red Planet: Curiosity and Perseverance.

As NASAs Pathfinder spacecraft soared through the Martian atmosphere on July 4, 1997, a young, ambitious, and scrappy team of scientists in California anxiously watched the data pouring into mission controls computers. They were together responsible for what was NASAs hardiest lander and its first-ever Martian rover.

It took three years to put together, but now it was showtime. In its descent, Pathfinder careened right at the Red Planet. It had no brakes, slicing through the thin Martian atmosphere at seven kilometers per second and heading for a hard stop on the surface within just five minutes.

Pathfinder was without question the most robust lander we ever sent to Mars. The others had been afraid of rocks, Matthew Golombek, the missions project scientist, tells Inverse.

The team kept up with the dramatic event by following along as the spacecraft executed more than a hundred commands, and together they waited for that most-important maneuver of all: The moment when a clever concoction of airbags would open and absorb the shock of their precious Earthling hardware as it smacked into the Martian dirt.

Pathfinder had to be tough.

To get a taste of what the surface looks like for further exploration of Mars, Golombek, a former geologist, knew they needed a microwave-sized robot that was able to actually scout out the ground. A traveling craft on Mars could help answer the major questions that its predecessor Viking, which landed on Mars in 1976, raised about the ancient history of the planet a time when Mars may have hosted water.

But the surface reconnaissance images of the planet available in 1997 were blotchy rubble compared to the high-resolution views offered by our satellites around Mars today. Without a sure guide, Pathfinder risked landing on potentially hazardous rocks.

As fast as the descent began, however, the mystifying moment was over: Pathfinder somehow landed safely on Mars. The room erupted with joy and relief, Golombek recalls.

Of course, everyone was cheering wildly, Golombek says. He laughs, remembering the moment when guards and people from other divisions at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory streamed into the room to look at the pictures coming in from Mars.

Mission scientists and engineers celebrating Pathfinders Mars landing on July 4, 1997. MIKE NELSON/AFP/Getty Images

Their fascination was merely a taste of what was to come.

The public reaction was unprecedented. There cant have ever been a more popular Mars mission than Pathfinder, because it had been 25 years since anybody had landed on the surface of Mars, Golombek says.

Orbital pictures dont convey the same feeling as a view from the ground, which offers humans a glimpse of Mars in much the same way we view our home on Earth from the surface.

NASA spent $265 million on Pathfinder and its companion rover Sojourner. Adjusted for inflation, that is less than one-fifth of the price of each of the two most-recent NASA rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance.

When Dan Goldin began his tenure as NASA administrator in 1992, the space agency was in a much different place than it is today. In a 20th anniversary special about Pathfinder, Goldin describes the birth of the agencys Discovery program as a need for projects that would be faster, better, cheaper. Pathfinder was the second project given the greenlight under this umbrella.

In 1992, NASA sent the Mars Observer to the Red Planet. But three days before its scheduled orbital insertion, NASA lost contact with the mission, likely due to a fuel leak. That set back NASA $803 million. Later, the Mars Global Surveyor launched on November 7, 1996 a few weeks before Pathfinder and entered orbit around Mars on September 11, 1997. Its price tag was a little north of $200 million.

During a conversation with Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina before Goldins confirmation in 1992, the two discussed the state of the space agency there had been a series of recent and very expensive missteps.

NASA grounded the Space Shuttle program for two years following the 1986 Challenger tragedy and it had built Endeavour to replace it. The agency also launched the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990, but it needed repairs in space. The Galileo probe heading to Jupiter couldnt deploy its high-gain antenna, hobbling its ability to send data back.

As Goldin tells it, Hollings insisted that if he wanted the job, he needed to keep a tight cap on the budget. And so Pathfinder, created primarily as a low-cost technology demonstration, was conceived.

(It is worth noting that after Pathfinder, NASA suffered two high-profile setbacks related to the faster, better, cheaper mantra. In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter misfired during an orbital insertion due to a mismatch in measurement units used (one system used metric, the other U.S. standard) while being built. Later that year, the Mars Polar Lander failed on its landing attempt, crashing into the South Pole of Mars.)

I call myself the oldest Martian, Golombek says, referring to the affectionate JPL term for those who exclusively study the Red Planet. He gained the status in 1992 when he joined the Pathfinder project.

As project scientist, it was Golombeks job to fully realize the scientific aspects of the mission and communicate them to the engineering team.

They had many objectives. If Pathfinder survived the 34 million-mile journey to reach Mars, the team needed to perform an atmospheric entry move they had never attempted before. On the ground, the rover Sojourner would take images of the surface from far away and up close; its alpha proton X-ray spectrometer would analyze rock composition. It would take note of the Martian weather, and this would all set a baseline for future Mars exploration.

Sojourner took this picture of Mars, in which Pathfinder is visible. JPL published this picture on July 10, 1997.AFP/AFP/Getty Images

NASA had already sent a lander to Mars. But Vikings 1 and 2 couldnt travel they stayed put during their 5 and 2.8-year (respectively) missions. This made it harder to study interesting rocks, which Golombek says are the currency of any geologist. But a rover was also just an exciting prospect to break the ice, he says, bolstering future space exploration and enhancing how we perceive other planets.

It was the beginning of a Mars Renaissance, Golombek says.

Pathfinder and Sojourner returned more than 12,500 images from the planets surface, conducted more than a dozen chemical analyses of Martian soil, and found evidence that supported Vikings findings that water may have once flowed on Mars surface. The spacecraft observed dust devils, too.

The iconic rust-colored dirt of Mars is now home to several active NASA missions, set into motion by Pathfinders landing 25 years ago.

Since Pathfinder, theres been basically a mission to Mars almost every opportunity, Golombek says.

We have a flotilla of orbiters, we have three spacecraft, two rovers, and a lander on the surface, Golombek says.

I mean, we have a little community up there.

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25 years ago, NASA landed its first rover on Mars and catalyzed the search for life - Inverse

Seen are six views of the Nili Fossae region of Mars captured by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM, one of the instruments aboard NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHU-APL

The rainbow-colored map, to be released in batches over six months, covers the vast majority of the planet Mars, revealing dozens of minerals found on its surface.

Scientists are about to get a new look at the Red Planet, thanks to a multicolored 5.6-gigapixel map. Covering 86% of the surface of Mars, the map reveals the distribution of dozens of key minerals. By looking at mineral distribution, researchers can better understand Mars watery past and can prioritize which regions need to be studied in more depth.

The first portions of this map have been released by NASAs Planetary Data System. Over the next six months, more will be released, completing one of the most comprehensive surveys of the Martian surface ever made. (Read more about these map segments.)

NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, has been mapping minerals on the Red Planet for 16 years, with its Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM. (MRO launched on August 12, 2005, and arrived at Mars on March 10, 2006.)

This near-global map was captured by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM. The yellow square indicates the Nili Fossae region of Mars, which is highlighted in six views in the previous image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JHU-APL

Using detectors that see visible and infrared wavelengths, the CRISM team has previously produced high-resolution mineral maps that provide a record of the formation of the Martian crust and where and how it was altered by water. These maps have been crucial to helping scientists understand how lakes, streams, and groundwater shaped the planet billions of years ago. NASA has also used CRISMs maps to select landing sites for other spacecraft, as with Jezero Crater, where NASAs Perseverance rover is exploring an ancient river delta.

The first piece of this new map includes 51,000 images, each of which represents a strip 336 miles (540 kilometers) long by 6 miles (10 kilometers) wide that was captured as MRO passed overhead. The resolution is lower than CRISM maps made from targeted observations because the data was acquired with the instrument looking straight down, a different imaging strategy designed to cover much more of the planet.

To acquire its data, CRISM used two spectrometers, one of which was designed with three cryocoolers to keep temperatures low so that it could more clearly detect the longest wavelengths of reflected solar infrared light. Used in succession, the last of these cryocoolers completed its lifecycle in 2017, limiting the instruments capabilities to view visible wavelengths. So this will be CRISMs last map covering the instruments full wavelength range. The instrument is now in a standby mode and may record data a few more times in the coming months before being decommissioned.

One last map will be released within the year, covering visible wavelengths and focusing only on iron-bearing minerals; this will have twice the spatial resolution of the latest map.

The CRISM investigation has been one of the crown jewels of NASAs MRO mission, said Richard Zurek, the missions project scientist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Analyses based on these final maps will provide new insights into the history of Mars for many years to come.

MRO is led by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is a division of Caltech in Pasadena. CRISM is led by Johns Hopkins Universitys Applied Physics Laboratory.

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NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Releasing Spectacular 5.6-Gigapixel Map of the Red Planet - SciTechDaily

WASHINGTONSaying the ambitious new project would be a historic, once-in-a-generation leap forward in the annals of space exploration, NASA announced Friday its plan to put the moon on Mars by 2040. Ever since we first sent a man to the moon half a century ago, the American people have been waiting for us to take the next step and send the moon to Mars, said NASA administrator Bill Nelson, adding that within two decades, the famed image of Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrongs first footprint on the moon would be joined in the public consciousness by photos of the 1,500-mile-wide crater the moon was expected to leave on the Red Planet. No space mission is without risks. The moon could descent too quickly and disintegrate on impact with the Martian surface, or it could, upon its return, fail to achieve the velocity needed to escape the gravity of Mars and make it back home to its orbit around the Earth. But should we succeed in our mission, it could open up many other opportunities for us, such as putting the Earth on Mars, putting Mars on Venus, and so on. Nelson added that it might also one day be possible to build a colony on Mars that could be inhabited by hundreds of moons.

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NASA Announces Plan To Put Moon On Mars By 2040 - The Onion

Science & Exploration

04/07/2022400 views30 likes

In a bold vision to secure Europes role in space exploration and so benefit from the many scientific, economic, and societal rewards, ESA is publicly releasing its new exploration roadmap after its presentation to its Council, the agencys highest ruling body.

Called Terrae Novae 2030+ (Latin for new worlds), the document lays the groundwork for Europe to ensure its leading role in space exploration for future prosperity.

This new long-term roadmap for exploration is now available to guide decision-makers who will ultimately make the choices on how far to take Europe on the journey of deep-space exploration, says ESAs director of Human and Robotic Exploration, David Parker.

Terrae Novae is not only literally about exploring new worlds, but by describing the limitless opportunities for discovery, economic growth and inspiration it also expresses our ambitions for Europes future innovators, scientists and explorers.

We hope that everyone can use this roadmap to make our three-part vision a reality: to continue a strong presence working in low-Earth orbit, to send the first European astronauts to explore the Moon throughout the 2030s, and to prepare Europes role in the first historic human voyage to Mars.

While ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti continues her Minerva mission on the International Space Station, the first European Service Module for Artemis awaits its launch and construction of the lunar Gateway gathers momentum, ESA is already looking forward to exciting new projects. These include the European Large Logistic Lander designed to support human exploration of the Moon; and the Earth Return Orbiter, the spacecraft that will return from Mars with invaluable scientific samples as part of the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return campaign.

Against this background, the array of candidate new exploration campaigns draw on all of ESAs world-class abilities from space transportation (including future launchers) to operations, technology, communication, navigation, applications, and commercialisation. The underlying capability of being able to launch and deliver payloads to low-Earth orbit, the Moon and Mars is a unifying theme which will ensure constant scientific breakthroughs and technological developments, and so ensure Europe retains a place in the first rank of space explorers.

As ESAs Director General Josef Aschbacher explains: More than any other space activity, space exploration offers a unique blend of curiosity and opportunity the curiosity to venture into the unknown in search of new horizons and new knowledge; and the opportunity to return to society the many benefits of making the journey.

I now invite our political decision-makers to define Europes level of ambition so that ESA, together with all its stakeholders, can translate this strategy roadmap into reality.

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From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars: ESA's exploration roadmap for space autonomy and leadership - ESA Science & Technology

Only the hardiest organisms can thrive in one of the coldest springs on earth. Thats why in the summers of 2017 and 2019, Lyle Whyte took a helicopter to Lost Hammer Spring in the unpopulated High Arctic region of Nunavut, Canada. Snow, ice, salt tufa, rocks, and permafrost surround the unassuming spring, which is nestled among nearly barren, treeless mountains on the island of Axel Heiberg, a few hundred miles from the North Pole. He had traveled to this out-of-this-world place to study the microbes that live in its salty, icy, low-oxygen water in hopes of learning about what life might have been like if it ever emerged in similar spotson Mars.

In a new paper in The International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal, Whyte and his colleagues write that the microorganisms that live a few inches down in the springs sediment can indeed survive the harsh environment. Most Earth species depend either directly or indirectly on solar energy. But these microbes can survive on a chemical energy source: They eat and breathe inorganic compounds like methane and hydrogen sulfide, which makes the area smell like rotten eggs, even from a distance. (The research teams pilot calls the site the stinky springs.) You have these rock-eating bugs, essentially, that are eating simple inorganic molecules, and theyre doing this under very Mars-like conditions, in this frozen world, says Whyte, an astrobiologist at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

The search for extraterrestrial life has often focused on the Red Planet. Scientists believe that more than 3 billion years ago, Mars was warmer and wetter than it is today, and had a more protective atmosphere. While the planet is almost completely inhospitable to life now, researchers envision past Martian microbes eking out a lifeor even flourishingat the frigid, mucky bottom of some pond. Scientists have been sending rovers to trundle along the surface to hunt for evidence of such long-extinct alien microorganisms, and a drone copter to scout the path ahead. But its expensiveand difficultto send a sampling expedition to Mars. Canada is a heck of a lot closer, and its not a bad proxy.

The Lost Hammer Spring has a number of unique attributes that mimic parts of the Martian landscape, Whyte says. First, theres the subzero temperature (about -5 Celsius), as well as the extreme saltiness of the water25 percent salinity, about 10 times as salty as seawater. (The salt keeps the water liquid, preventing it from freezing over.) Mars has been found to have salt deposits here and there, some of which might have been in brines eons ago, which perhaps would have been the last habitable spots on the planet. The water at Lost Hammer is nearly devoid of oxygen, at less than 1 part per million, which is uncommon on Earth but not on other worlds. Any creature holding out there counts as an extremophile, because it survives in bleak conditions on the fringe of where life can exist at all.

Lost Hammer Spring, on Axel Heiberg Island in the High Arctic region of Nunavut, Canada.

On each of their trips to the remote Canadian region, Whyte and his colleagues scooped up samples of the briny mud, each just a few grams. Back at their lab, they used machines to isolate microbial cells and sequence their genomes and RNA to figure out what the microbes use for energy and how they tolerate the conditions in the spring. That could aid astronomers efforts to figure out where and how microbes might be sustained on Mars or other worlds.

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Why the Search for Life on Mars Is Happening in Canadas Arctic - WIRED

Having a conversation on Mars would be difficult. Thats partly because Mars can be really cold, and your teeth may be chattering. But its also because the Red Planets thin atmosphere of mostly carbon dioxide doesnt carry sound well. In fact, someone speaking next to you on Mars would sound as quiet as if they were talking 60 meters (200 feet) away.

Its a pretty drastic difference from Earth, says Baptiste Chide. You dont want to do it. Better to use microphones and a headset, he says, even at close range. Chide is a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He and his colleagues shared these new findings about sound on Mars in the May 26 issue of Nature.

Chides team analyzed some of the first sound recordings ever made on the Red Planet. The recordings had been picked up by a microphone on NASAs Perseverance rover. This space robot has been exploring Mars since February 2021.

What Perseverance recorded werent the sounds of events on Mars. They were noises made when the rover fired a laser at small rocks nearby. That zap created a sound wave similar to thunder, but on a much smaller scale. Chide and his team studied about five hours worth of sounds collected in this way.

These data allowed the researchers to measure the speed of sound on Mars and revealed a surprise. On this planet theres more than one. Within the range of human hearing, high-pitched sounds travel at about 250 meters per second (559 miles per hour). Low-pitched sounds travel slower about 240 meters per second (537 miles per hour). Those low-pitched waves will travel just a few meters before becoming inaudible. The higher sounds dissipate over even shorter spans.

For an Earthling, this may be surprising. But it makes sense, says Andy Piacsek. Hes a physicist at Central Washington University, in Ellensburg. He was not involved in the new research, but he does study how sound waves move through different materials.

When a sound wave moves through air or a fluid, it adds energy to the molecules around it. Air will gradually move that energy around. This is called the relaxation effect.

For sound waves traveling through air, relaxation depends on the frequency of the sound and the type of molecules in the air. On Mars, the relaxation after a high-pitched sound happens faster than after a low-pitched sound. Thats because the atmosphere has low pressure and is mostly made of carbon dioxide.

This doesnt happen on Earth because the pressure of our atmosphere is so much higher than on Mars, Piacsek says. Plus, Earths atmosphere is mostly nitrogen. Under those conditions, the relaxation effect is about the same for high and low pitches. So on Earth, all sounds generally travel at about 343 meters per second (767 miles per hour). (To hear how sounds differ between Earth and Mars, visit NASAs Sounds of Mars site.)

If a song were playing from a speaker on Mars, higher sounds would reach a listener before the lower sounds. Lets say you somehow had a city on Mars, with birds, says Chide. Birds are too high in frequency. You wouldnt hear them. You would only hear the sounds of the city. The high carbon-dioxide content of the Martian air is to blame, Chide says.

Of course, there arent birds on Mars but thats not why scientists study sound on alien worlds. Measuring the speed of sound can give scientists a precise way to study the Martian atmosphere, says Chide. Air pressure, temperature and humidity all affect the speed of sound. So, by measuring changes in the speed of sound over time, Chide says, researchers can learn more about Martian weather. We can measure temperature in small fractions of time, he says even day to day.

With Perseverance broadcasting more sounds back to Earth, scientists will be able to study how its soundscape changes over the course of Martian seasons, Chide says. Were very excited to see how sound behaves during winter and autumn during every season on Mars.

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Noises sound totally different on Mars than on Earth. Here's why - Science News for Students

John Sorbo, 65, of Valencia, drives his sidecar sidekick, Tommy, down Crowe Avenue in Mars during the Independence Day Celebration parade Monday. The men threw candy to kids watching the parade. Cary Shaffer/Butler Eagle 07/04/22

MARS If Butler County residents who felt like sleeping in were looking for a late-afternoon Fourth of July parade on Monday, they didnt have to look any further than the borough of Mars.

The annual parade brought something for people of all ages to enjoy, which included food vendors, balloon artists and airbrush tattoo artists near the spaceship by The Narrative Church and the Christian Community Church of Richland.

It was wonderful today, but there could be more shade, parade attendee Becky Fritz said with a laugh. It was nice to see the kids running around as well. There was something for everybody.

A portion of this story is shared with you as a digital media exclusive. To read the full story and support our local, independent newsroom, please subscribe at butlereagle.com.

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Mars parade has a little bit of everything - Butler Eagle