Curiosity Rover snapped this self portrait mosaic with the MAHLI camera while sitting on flat sedimentary rocks at the “John Klein” outcrop where the robot conducted historic first sample drilling inside the Yellowknife Bay basin, on Feb. 8 (Sol 182) at lower left in front of rover. The photo mosaic was stitched from raw images snapped on Sol 177, or Feb 3, 2013, by the robotic arm camera - accounting for foreground camera distortion. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Marco Di Lorenzo/KenKremer (kenkremer.com).
NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover can’t find any sign of methane on the red planet, but the agency emphasized that methane would be only one indicator of possible life. There could be others.
“It reduces the probability of current methane-producing Martian microbes, but this addresses only one type of microbial metabolism,” stated Michael Meyer, NASA’s lead scientist for Mars exploration. “As we know, there are many types of terrestrial microbes that don’t generate methane.”
Curiosity (which can look for habitable conditions, but not life itself) sniffed the atmosphere six times for methane between October 2012 and June 2013. It didn’t see any sign of the molecule, which has been detected in other parts of Mars. The instrument being used, the tunable laser spectrometer, would be able to detect minute concentrations. Scientists today estimate methane on Mars must be 1.3 parts per billion at the most, which is only one-sixth as much as earlier estimates.
This image shows concentrations of Methane reported on Mars in 2009, from an Earth-based observatory. Credit: NASA
On Thursday, NASA pointed out that reports of the highest concentrations of Mars methane came from Earth-based observatories, which seems to imply that they think peering through Earth’s atmosphere may have distorted the measurements. Some Earthly measurements indicated local regions with methane as high as 45 parts per billion.
“There’s no known way for methane to disappear quickly from the atmosphere,” stated Sushil Atreya, a professor of atmospheric and space science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“Methane is persistent. It would last for hundreds of years in the Martian atmosphere. Without a way to take it out of the atmosphere quicker, our measurements indicate there cannot be much methane being put into the atmosphere by any mechanism, whether biology, geology, or by ultraviolet degradation of organics delivered by the fall of meteorites or interplanetary dust particles.”
Researchers estimate only 10 to 20 tons per year of methane enter the atmosphere of Mars, which is 50 million times less than what occurs on Earth. You can read more details in the paper in Science Express.
What do you think is happening? Leave your ideas in the comments.
Curiosity’s views a rock outcrop after arriving for a short stay at ‘Waypoint 1’- dramatically back dropped by her primary destination, Mount Sharp. Front hazcam camera image from Sol 393 (Sept 13, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Curiosity’s views a rock outcrop at ‘Darwin’ after arriving for a short stay at ‘Waypoint 1’ on Sept 12 (Sol 392) – dramatically back dropped by her primary destination, Mount Sharp. Front hazcam camera image from Sol 393 (Sept 13, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Story updated – see close up mosaic views of Darwin outcrop below[/caption]
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has just rolled into an intriguing site called ‘Darwin’ at ‘Waypoint 1’- having quickly picked up the driving pace since embarking at last on her epic trek to mysterious Mount Sharp more than two months ago. Did life giving water once flow here on the Red Planet?
Because the long journey to Mount Sharp – the robots primary destination – was certain to last nearly a year, the science team carefully choose a few stopping points for study along the way to help characterize the local terrain. And Curiosity has just pulled into the first of these so called ‘Waypoints’ on Sept 12 (Sol 392), the lead scientist confirmed to Universe Today.
“Curiosity has arrived at Waypoint 1,” project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Universe Today.
“Darwin is named after a geologic formation of rocks from Antarctica.”
She has now driven nearly 20% of the way towards the base of the giant layered Martian mountain she will eventually scale in search of life’s ingredients.
Altogether, the team selected five ‘Waypoints’ to investigate for a few days each as Curiosity travels in a southwestward direction on the road from the first major science destination in the ‘Glenelg’ area to the foothills of Mount Sharp, says Grotzinger.
“We’ll stay just a couple of sols at Waypoint 1 and then we hit the road again,” Grotzinger told me.
Curiosity’s Progress on Rapid Transit Route from ‘Glenelg’ (start at top) to Mount Sharp entry point (bottom). Triangles indicate geologic ‘Waypoint’ stopping points along the way. Curiosity arrived at Waypoint 1 on Sol 392 (Sept 12, 2013). Credit: NASA
‘Waypoint 1’ is an area of intriguing outcrops that was chosen based on high resolution orbital imagery taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling some 200 miles overhead. See route map herein.
In fact the team is rather excited about ‘Waypoint 1’ that’s dominated by the tantalizing rocky outcrop discovered there nicknamed ‘Darwin’.
Although Curiosity will only stay a short time at each of the stops, the measurements collected at each ‘Waypoint’ will provide essential clues to the overall geologic and environmental history of the six wheeled rover’s touchdown zone.
“Waypoint 1 was chosen to help break up the drive,” Grotzinger explained to Universe Today.
“It’s a chance to study outcrops along the way.”
The images from MRO are invaluable in aiding the rover handlers planning activities, selecting Curiosity’s driving route and targeting of the most fruitful science forays during the long trek to Mount Sharp – besides being absolutely crucial for the selection of Gale Crater as the robots landing site in August 2012.
The ‘Darwin’ outcrop may provide more data on the flow of liquid water across the crater floor.
Evolving Excitement Over ‘Darwin’ Rock Outcrop at ‘Waypoint 1’. For at least a couple of days, the science team of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is focused on a full-bore science campaign at a tantalizing, rocky site informally called “Darwin.” This view of Darwin was taken with the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Sol 390 (Sept. 10, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
The scientists goal is to compare the floor of Gale Crater to the sedimentary layers of 3 mile high (5 kilometer high) Mount Sharp.
Waypoint 1 is just over 1 mile along the approximately 5.3-mile (8.6-kilometer) route from ‘Glenelg’ to the entry point at the base of Mount Sharp.
Curiosity spent over six months investigating the ‘Yellowknife Bay’ area inside Glenelg before departing on July 4, 2013.
What’s the origin of Darwin’s name?
“Darwin comes from a list of 100 names the team put together to designate rocks in the Mawson Quadrangle – Mawson is the name of a geologist who studied Antarctic geology,” Grotzinger told me.
“Recently we left the Yellowknife Quadrangle, so instead of naming rocks after geological formations in Canada’s north, we now turn to formation names of rocks from Antarctica, and Darwin is one of them.
“That will be the theme until we cross into the next quad,” Grotzinger explained.
Curiosity investigates the ‘Darwin’ rock outcrop up close after arriving for a short stay at ‘Waypoint 1’ on Sept 12 (Sol 392). This photo mosaic was assembled from navcam images taken on Sept 12, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
Inside Yellowknife Bay, Curiosity conducted the historic first interplanetary drilling into Red Planet rocks and subsequent sample analysis with her duo of state of the art chemistry labs – SAM and CheMin.
At Yellowknife Bay, the 1 ton robot discovered a habitable environment containing the chemical ingredients that could sustain Martian microbes- thereby already accomplishing the primary goal of NASA’s flagship mission to Mars.
“We want to know how the rocks at Yellowknife Bay are related to what we’ll see at Mount Sharp,” Grotzinger elaborated in a NASA statement. “That’s what we intend to get from the waypoints between them. We’ll use them to stitch together a timeline — which layers are older, which are younger.”
On Sept. 5, Curiosity set a new one-day distance driving record for the longest drive yet by advancing 464 feet (141.5 meters) on her 13th month on the Red Planet.
As Curiosity neared Waypoint 1 she stopped at a rise called ‘Panorama Point’ on Sept. 7, spotted an outcrop of light toned streaks informally dubbed ‘Darwin and used her MastCam telephoto camera to collect high resolution imagery.
Curiosity will use her cameras, spectrometers and robotic arm for contact science and a “full bore science campaign” involving in-depth mineral and chemical composition analysis of Darwin and Waypoint 1 for the next few Sols, or Martian days, before resuming the trek to Mount Sharp that dominates the center of Gale Crater.
Curiosity Spies Mount Sharp – her primary destination. Curiosity will ascend mysterious Mount Sharp and investigate the sedimentary layers searching for clues to the history and habitability o the Red Planet of billions of years. This mosaic was assembled from Mastcam camera images taken on Sol 352 (Aug 2, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer
She will not conduct any drilling here or at the other waypoints, several team members have told me, unless there is some truly remarkable ‘Mars-shattering’ discovery.
Why is Curiosity now able to drive longer than ever before?
“We have put some new software – called autonav, or autonomous navigation – on the vehicle right after the conjunction period back in March 2013,” Jim Erickson, Curiosity Project Manager of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told Universe Today.
“This will increase our ability to drive. But how much it helps really depends on the terrain.”
And so far the terrain has cooperated.
“We are on a general heading of southwest to Mount Sharp,” said Erickson. See the NASA JPL route map.
“We have been going through various options of different planned routes.”
As of today (Sol 394), Curiosity remains healthy, has traveled 2.9 kilometers and snapped over 82,000 images.
If all goes well Curiosity could reach the entry point to Mount Sharp sometime during Spring 2014, at her current driving pace.
Learn more about Curiosity, Mars rovers,LADEE, Cygnus, Antares, MAVEN, Orion and more at Ken’s upcoming presentations
Sep 17/18: LADEE Lunar & Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Rodeway Inn, Chincoteague, VA
Oct 3: “Curiosity, MAVEN and the Search for Life on Mars – (3-D)”, STAR Astronomy Club, Brookdale Community College & Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ, 8 PM
Oct 8: LADEE Lunar & Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Princeton University, Amateur Astronomers Assoc of Princeton (AAAP), Princeton, NJ, 8 PM
Are Earthlings really Martians ? Did life arise on Mars first and then journey on meteors to our planet and populate Earth billions of years ago? Earth and Mars are compared in size as they look today.
Are Earthlings really Martians ?
Did life arise on Mars first and then journey on rocks to our planet and populate Earth billions of years ago? Earth and Mars are compared in size as they look today. NASA’s upcoming MAVEN Mars orbiter is aimed at answering key questions related to the habitability of Mars, its ancient atmosphere and where did all the water go. Story updated[/caption]
That’s the controversial theory proposed today (Aug. 29) by respected American chemist Professor Steven Benner during a presentation at the annual Goldschmidt Conference of geochemists being held in Florence, Italy. It’s based on new evidence uncovered by his research team and is sure to spark heated debate on the origin of life question.
Benner said the new scientific evidence “supports the long-debated theory that life on Earth may have started on Mars,” in a statement. Universe Today contacted Benner for further details and enlightenment.
“We have chemistry that (at least at the level of hypothesis) makes RNA prebiotically,” Benner told Universe Today. “AND IF you think that life began with RNA, THEN you place life’s origins on Mars.” Benner said he has experimental data as well.
First- How did ancient Mars life, if it ever even existed, reach Earth?
On rocks violently flung up from the Red Planet’s surface during mammoth collisions with asteroids or comets that then traveled millions of miles (kilometers) across interplanetary space to Earth – melting, heating and exploding violently before the remnants crashed into the solid or liquid surface.
An asteroid impacts ancient Mars and send rocks hurtling to space – some reach Earth. Did they transport Mars life to Earth? Or minerals that could catalyze the origin of life on Earth?
“The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock,” says Benner, of The Westheimer Institute of Science and Technology in Florida. That theory is generally known as panspermia.
To date, about 120 Martian meteorites have been discovered on Earth.
And Benner explained that one needs to distinguish between habitability and the origin of life.
“The distinction is being made between habitability (where can life live) and origins (where might life have originated).”
NASA’s new Curiosity Mars rover was expressly dispatched to search for environmental conditions favorable to life and has already discovered a habitable zone on the Red Planet’s surface rocks barely half a year after touchdown inside Gale Crater.
Furthermore, NASA’s next Mars orbiter- named MAVEN – launches later this year and seeks to determine when Mars lost its atmosphere and water- key questions in the Origin of Life debate.
Curiosity accomplished Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at John Klein outcrop on Feb 8, 2013 (Sol 182) and discovered a habitable zone, shown in this context mosaic view of the Yellowknife Bay basin taken on Jan. 26 (Sol 169). The robotic arm is pressing down on the surface at John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals – dramatically back dropped with her ultimate destination; Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Of course the proposed chemistry leading to life is exceedingly complex and life has never been created from non-life in the lab.
The key new points here are that Benner believes the origin of life involves “deserts” and oxidized forms of the elements Boron (B) and Molybdenum (Mo), namely “borate and molybdate,” Benner told me.
“Life originated some 4 billion years ago ± 0.5 billon,” Benner stated.
He says that there are two paradoxes which make it difficult for scientists to understand how life could have started on Earth – involving organic tars and water.
Life as we know it is based on organic molecules, the chemistry of carbon and its compounds.
But just discovering the presence of organic compounds is not the equivalent of finding life. Nor is it sufficient for the creation of life.
And simply mixing organic compounds aimlessly in the lab and heating them leads to globs of useless tars, as every organic chemist and lab student knows.
Benner dubs that the ‘tar paradox’.
Although Curiosity has not yet discovered organic molecules on Mars, she is now speeding towards a towering 3 mile (5 km) high Martian mountain known as Mount Sharp.
Curiosity Spies Mount Sharp – her primary destination
Curiosity will ascend mysterious Mount Sharp and investigate the sedimentary layers searching for clues to the history and habitability of the Red Planet over billions of years. This mosaic was assembled from over 3 dozen Mastcam camera images taken on Sol 352 (Aug 2, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com
Upon arrival sometime next spring or summer, scientists will target the state of the art robot to investigate the lower sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp in search of clues to habitability and preserved organics that could shed light on the origin of life question and the presence of borates and molybdates.
It’s clear that many different catalysts were required for the origin of life. How much and their identity is a big part of Benner’s research focus.
“Certain elements seem able to control the propensity of organic materials to turn into tar, particularly boron and molybdenum, so we believe that minerals containing both were fundamental to life first starting,” says Benner in a statement. “Analysis of a Martian meteorite recently showed that there was boron on Mars; we now believe that the oxidized form of molybdenum was there too.”
The second paradox relates to water. He says that there was too much water covering the early Earth’s surface, thereby causing a struggle for life to survive. Not exactly the conventional wisdom.
“Not only would this have prevented sufficient concentrations of boron forming – it’s currently only found in very dry places like Death Valley – but water is corrosive to RNA, which scientists believe was the first genetic molecule to appear. Although there was water on Mars, it covered much smaller areas than on early Earth.”
Parts of ancient Mars were covered by oceans, lakes and streams of liquid water in this artists concept, unlike the arid and bone dry Martian surface of today. Subsurface water ice is what remains of Martian water.
I asked Benner to add some context on the beneficial effects of deserts and oxidized boron and molybdenum.
“We have chemistry that (at least at the level of hypothesis) makes RNA prebiotically,” Benner explained to Universe Today.
“We require mineral species like borate (to capture organic species before they devolve to tar), molybdate (to arrange that material to give ribose), and deserts (to dry things out, to avoid the water problem).”
“Various geologists will not let us have these [borates and molybdates] on early Earth, but they will let us have them on Mars.”
“So IF you believe what the geologists are telling you about the structure of early Earth, AND you think that you need our chemistry to get RNA, AND IF you think that life began with RNA, THEN you place life’s origins on Mars,” Benner elaborated.
“The assembly of RNA building blocks is thermodynamically disfavored in water. We want a desert to get rid of the water intermittently.”
I asked Benner whether his lab has run experiments in support of his hypothesis and how much borate and molybdate are required.
“Yes, we have run many lab experiments. The borate is stoichiometric [meaning roughly equivalent to organics on a molar basis]; The molybdate is catalytic,” Benner responded.
“And borate has now been found in meteorites from Mars, that was reported about three months ago.
At his talk, Benner outlined some of the chemical reactions involved.
Although some scientists have invoked water, minerals and organics brought to ancient Earth by comets as a potential pathway to the origin of life, Benner thinks differently about the role of comets.
“Not comets, because comets do not have deserts, borate and molybdate,” Benner told Universe Today.
MAVEN is NASA’s next Mars orbiter and seeks to determine when Mars lost its atmosphere and water- key questions in the Origin of Life debate. MAVEN is slated to blastoff for Mars on Nov. 18, 2013. It is shown here with solar panels deployed as part of environmental testing procedures at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Waterton, Colorado, before shipment to Florida in early August. Credit: Lockheed Martin
Benner has developed a logic tree outlining his proposal that life on Earth may have started on Mars.
“It explains how you get to the conclusion that life originated on Mars. As you can see from the tree, you can escape that conclusion by diverging from the logic path.”
Finally, Benner is not one who blindly accepts controversial proposals himself.
He was an early skeptic of the claims concerning arsenic based life announced a few years back at a NASA sponsored press conference, and also of the claims of Mars life discovered in the famous Mars meteorite known as ALH 84001.
“I am afraid that what we thought were fossils in ALH 84001 are not.”
The debate on whether Earthlings are really Martians will continue as science research progresses and until definitive proof is discovered and accepted by a consensus of the science community of Earthlings – whatever our origin.
On Nov. 18, NASA will launch its next mission to Mars – the MAVEN orbiter. Its aimed at studying the upper Martian atmosphere for the first time.
“MAVENS’s goal is determining the composition of the ancient Martian atmosphere and when it was lost, where did all the water go and how and when was it lost,” said Bruce Jakosky to Universe Today at a MAVEN conference at the University of Colorado- Boulder. Jakosky, of CU-Boulder, is the MAVEN Principal Investigator.
MAVEN will shed light on the habitability of Mars billions of years ago and provide insight on the origin of life questions and chemistry raised by Benner and others.
…………….
Learn more about Mars, the Origin of Life, LADEE, Cygnus, Antares, MAVEN, Orion, Mars rovers and more at Ken’s upcoming presentations
Sep 5/6/16/17: “LADEE Lunar & Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Rodeway Inn, Chincoteague, VA, 8 PM
Oct 3: “Curiosity, MAVEN and the Search for Life on Mars – (3-D)”, STAR Astronomy Club, Brookdale Community College & Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ, 8 PM
Oct 9: “LADEE Lunar & Antares/Cygnus ISS Rocket Launches from Virginia”; Princeton University, Amateur Astronomers Assoc of Princeton (AAAP), Princeton, NJ, 8 PM
Curiosity Spies Mount Sharp - her primary destination. Curiosity will ascend mysterious Mount Sharp and investigate the sedimentary layers searching for clues to the history and habitability o the Red Planet of billions of years. This mosaic was assembled from Mastcam camera images taken on Sol 352 (Aug 2, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer
Curiosity Spies Mount Sharp – her primary destination. Curiosity will ascend mysterious Mount Sharp and investigate the sedimentary layers searching for clues to the history and habitability of the Red Planet over billions of years. But first she must safely trespass through the treacherous dark dunes fields. This mosaic was assembled from over 2 dozen Mastcam camera images taken on Sol 352 (Aug 2, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer
See the full mosaic below [/caption]
It’s never a dull moment for NASA’s Curiosity rover at T Plus 1 Year since touchdown on the Red Planet and T Minus 1 year to arriving at her primary target, the huge mountain overwhelming the center of the landing site inside Gale Crater.
Curiosity is literally and figuratively zooming in on stunningly beautiful and mysterious Mount Sharp (see our new mosaics above/below), her ultimate destination, while conducting ‘Science on the Go’ with her duo of chemistry labs – SAM and CheMin – and 8 other science instruments as she passes the 2 kilometer driving milestone today; Aug 20 !
“We are holding samples for drops to ChemMin and SAM when the science team is ready for it,” Jim Erickson, Curiosity Project Manager of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told Universe Today in an exclusive interview.
“Curiosity has landed in an ancient river or lake bed on Mars,” Jim Green, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, told Universe Today.
So, those samples were altered by liquid Martian water – a prerequisite for life.
Curiosity Spies Mount Sharp – her primary destination. Curiosity will ascend mysterious Mount Sharp and investigate the sedimentary layers searching for clues to the history and habitability of the Red Planet over billions of years. But first she must safely trespass through the treacherous dark dunes fields. This mosaic was assembled from over 3 dozen Mastcam camera images taken on Sol 352 (Aug 2, 2013.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com
In fact the car sized rover has saved samples from both the ‘John Klein’ and ‘Cumberland’ drill sites collected previously in the ‘Yellowknife Bay’ area for analysis by the miniaturized labs in the rovers belly -when the time is right.
“Curiosity has stored a Cumberland sample and still has a John Klein sample on board for future use,” Erickson explained.
And that time has now arrived!
“We have put a sample from the Cumberland drill hole into SAM for more isotopic measurements,” reported science team member John Bridges in a blog update on Sol 363, Aug. 14, 2013.
“The sample had been cached within the robotic arm’s turret.”
Curiosity is multitasking – conducting increasingly frequent traverses across the relatively smooth floor of Gale Crater while running research experiments for her science handlers back here on Earth.
NASA’s Curiosity rover make tracks to Mount Sharp (at left) across the floor of Gale Crater. The rover paused to image the windblown ripple at right, below the hazy crater rim. The wheel tracks are about eight feet apart. This panoramic mosaic was assembled from a dozen navcam camera images taken on Sol 354 (Aug 4, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
She’s captured stunning new views of Mount Sharp – rising 5 km (3 miles) high into the sky – and movies of Mars tiny pair of transiting moons while ingesting new portions of the drilled rock samples acquired earlier this year.
Here’s our video compilation of Phobos and Deimos transiting on Aug 1, 2013
Video caption: Transit of Phobos in front of Deimos, taken by MSL right MastCam imager on Sol 351 around 3:12 AM local time (Aug 1, 2013, 8:42 UTC); 16 original frames + 14 interpolated (5x speed-up). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer
The sample analysis is still in progress.
“The SAM data have not all been received yet,” wrote science team member Ken Herkenhoff in a blog update.
Earlier analysis of sample portions from both ‘John Klein’ and ‘Cumberland’ revealed that the Yellowknife Bay area on Mars possesses the key mineral ingredients proving that Red Planet was once habitable and could have sustained simple microbial life forms.
The scientists are seeking further evidence and have yet to detect organic molecules – which are the building blocks of life as we know it.
This time lapse mosaic shows Curiosity maneuvering her robotic arm to drill into her 2nd martian rock target named “Cumberland” to collect powdery Martian material on May 19, 2013 (Sol 279) for analysis by her onboard chemistry labs; SAM & Chemin- see 3 inlet ports lower left. The photomosaic was stitched from raw images captured by the navcam cameras on May 14 & May 19 (Sols 274 & 279). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
Yellowknife Bay resembles a dried out river bed where liquid water once flowed eons ago when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter than today.
As the 1 ton robot ascends Mount Sharp, she will examine sedimentary layers layed down on ancient Mars over hundreds of millions and perhaps billions of years of past history and habitability.
And just as the rover was celebrating 1 year on Mars on Aug 5/6, she found an intriguing sand dune on Sol 354. See our mosaic
“The rover paused to take images of its tracks after crossing a windblown ripple,” Herkenhoff reported.
As the six wheeled rover approaches Mount Sharp over the next year, she will eventually encounter increasing treacherous dunes that she must cross before beginning her mountain climbing foray.
As of today, Sol 369 (Aug. 20) Curiosity has broken through the 2 kilometer driving mark with a new 70 meter drive, snapped over 75,000 images and fired over 75,000 laser shots.
Mount Sharp is about 8 kilometers (5 miles) distant as the Martian crow flies.
How long will the journey to Mount Sharp require?
“Perhaps about a year,” Erickson told me. “We are trying to make that significantly faster by bringing autonav [autonomous navigation software] online.”
“That will help. But how much it helps really depends on the terrain.”
So far so good.
Meanwhile NASA’s next Mars orbiter called MAVEN (for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), recently arrived at the Kennedy Space Center after a cross country flight.
Kennedy technicians are completing assembly and check out preparations for MAVEN’s blastoff to the Red Planet on Nov. 18 from Florida atop an Atlas V rocket similar to the one that launched Curiosity nearly 2 years ago.
And I’ll be at Kennedy to report up close on MAVEN’s launch.
A DVD bound for Mars... (Courtesy of Lockheed Martin/LASP).
Fans of Mars and spaceflight waxed poetic as the haiku selected to travel to Mars aboard the MAVEN spacecraft were announced earlier this month.
The contest received 12,530 valid entries from May 1st through the contest cutoff date of July 1st. Students learned about Mars, planetary exploration and the MAVEN mission as they composed haiku ranging from the personal to the insightful to the hilarious.
“The contest has resonated with people in ways that I never imagined! Both new and accomplished poets wrote poetry to reflect their views of Earth and Mars, their feelings about space exploration, their loss of loved ones who have passed on, and their sense of humor,” said Stephanie Renfrow, MAVEN Education & Public Outreach & Going to Mars campaign lead.
A total of 39,100 votes were cast in the contest; all entries receiving more than 2 votes (1,100 in all) will be carried on a DVD affixed to the MAVEN spacecraft bound for Martian orbit.
Five poems received more than a thousand votes. Among these were such notables as that of one 8th grader from Denver Colorado, who wrote;
Phobos & Deimos
Moons orbiting around Mars
Snared by Gravity
Another notable entry which was among the poems sited for special recognition by the MAVEN team was that of Allison Swets of Michigan;
My body can’t walk
My mouth can’t make words but I
Soar to Mars today
377 artwork entries were also selected to fly aboard MAVEN as well.
Didn’t get picked? There’s still time to send your name aboard MAVEN along with thousands that have already been submitted. You’ve got until September 10!
Part of NASA’s discontinued Scout-class of missions, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN mission, or MAVEN, is due to launch out of Cape Canaveral on November 18th, 2013. Selected in 2008, MAVEN has a target cost of less than $500 million dollars US, not including launch carrier services atop an Atlas V rocket in a 401 flight configuration.
The Phoenix Lander was another notable Scout-class mission that was extremely successful, concluding in 2008.
Principal investigator for MAVEN is the University of Boulder at Colorado’s Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).
The use of poetry to gain public interest in the mission is appropriate, as MAVEN seeks to solve the riddle that is the Martian atmosphere. How did Mars lose its atmosphere over time? What role does the solar wind play in stripping it away? And what is the possible source of that anomalous methane detected by Mars Global Surveyor from 1999 to 2004?
MAVEN is based on the design of the Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. It will carrying an armada of instruments, including a Neutral Gas & Ion Mass Spectrometer, a Particle and Field Package with several analyzers, and a Remote Sensing Package built by LASP.
MAVEN just arrived at the Kennedy Space Center earlier this month for launch processing and mating to its launch vehicle. Launch will be out of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on November 18th with a 2 hour window starting at 1:47 PM EST/ 18:47 UT.
MAVEN spacecraft at a Lockheed Martin clean room near Denver, Colo. (Credit: Lockheed Martin).
Assuming that MAVEN launches at the beginning of its 20 day window, it will reach Mars for an orbital insertion on September 22, 2014. MAVEN will orbit the Red Planet in an elliptical 150 kilometre by 6,200 kilometre orbit, joining the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the European Space Agencies’ Mars Express and the aging Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has been surveying Mars since 2001.
The window for an optimal launch to Mars using a minimal amount of fuel opens every 24 to 26 months. During the last window of opportunity in 2011, the successful Mars Curiosity rover and the ill-fated Russian mission Phobos-Grunt sought to make the trip.
This time around, MAVEN will be joined by India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on October 21st. If successful, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) will join Russia, ESA & NASA in nations that have successfully launched missions to Mars.
This window comes approximately six months before Martian opposition, which next occurs on April 8th, 2014. In 2016, ESA’s ExoMars Mars Orbiter and NASA’s InSight Lander will head to Mars. And 2018 may see the joint ESA/NASA ExoMars rover and… if we’re lucky, Dennis Tito’s proposed crewed Mars 2018 flyby.
Interestingly, MAVEN also arrives in Martian orbit just a month before the close 123,000 kilometre passage of comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring, although as of this time, there’s no word if it will carry out any observations of the comet.
These launches will also represent the first planetary missions to depart Earth since 2011. You can follow the mission as @MAVEN2Mars on Twitter. We’ll also be attending the MAVEN Conference and Workshop this weekend in Boulder and tweeting our adventures (wi-fi willing) as @Astroguyz. We also plan on attending the November launch in person as well!
And in the end, it was perhaps for the good of all mankind that our own rule-breaking (but pithy) Mars haiku didn’t get selected:
Rider of the Martian Atmosphere
Taunting Bradbury’s golden-bee armed Martians
While dodging the Great Galactic Ghoul
Hey, never let it be said that science writers make great poets!
This image was taken by the Curiosity rover's right Mastcamy on Sol 351 (2013-08-01 08:44:11 UTC). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.
Sol 351 for the Curiosity rover on Mars was a marvelous night for a moon dance. The Mars Science Laboratory rover caught sight of Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos together in the sky. And not just one image was captured: the rover’s Mast Camera captured a series of 41 images to allow the MSL team to create this timelapse movie of the dance, where the smaller moon Diemos is occulted by Phobos.
The movie from MSL takes just a few seconds to watch, but the team said the real time it took to shoot the 41 images was 55 seconds.
Sol 351 equates to August 1, 2013 here on Earth.
See a raw still shot below:
Update: JPL has now put out a press release about the movie, confirming that no previous images from missions on the surface has caught one moon eclipsing the other.
They also said there was a slight delay in getting these images from the rover, as there were higher-priority images in the queue that were to be used for planning the rover’s drives.
Scientists know that the orbit of Phobos is very slowly getting closer to Mars, while the orbit of Deimos may be slowly getting farther from the planet. These observations of Phobos and Deimos help researchers make knowledge of the moons’ orbits even more precise.
“The ultimate goal is to improve orbit knowledge enough that we can improve the measurement of the tides Phobos raises on the Martian solid surface, giving knowledge of the Martian interior,” said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, College Station, a co-investigator for use of Curiosity’s Mastcam. “We may also get data good enough to detect density variations within Phobos and to determine if Deimos’ orbit is systematically changing.”
There’s also this nice graphic comparing our Moon to Phobos and Deimos:
his illustration provides a comparison for how big the moons of Mars appear to be, as seen from the surface of Mars, in relation to the size that Earth’s moon appears to be when seen from the surface of Earth. Earth’s moon actually has a diameter more than 100 times greater than the larger Martian moon, Phobos. However, the Martian moons orbit much closer to their planet than the distance between Earth and Earth’s moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems/Texas A&M Univ.
Although Phobos has a diameter less than one percent the diameter of Earth’s Moon, Phobos also orbits much closer to Mars than our moon’s distance from Earth. As seen from the surface of Mars, Phobos looks about half as wide as what Earth’s moon looks like to viewers on Earth.
Curiosity accomplished Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at John Klein outcrop on Feb 8, 2013 (Sol 182), shown in this context mosaic view of the Yellowknife Bay basin taken on Jan. 26 (Sol 169). The robotic arm is pressing down on the surface at John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals – dramatically back dropped with her ultimate destination; Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are hosting a live webcast on Tuesday, August 6 starting at 14:45 UTC (10:45 a.m. EDT) to celebrate the one year anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing on Mars. Update: We’ve now inserted the replay from NASA TV, and it’s a great recap of the excitement of landing and the discoveries of past year, and you’ll hear from all the major science and engineering names from the MSL mission.
You can ask questions for the team on Twitter and G+ during the broadcast, just use #AskNASA to pose your question.
Curiosity team members will share remembrances about the dramatic landing night and the overall mission. Immediately following that program, NASA will carry a live public event from NASA Headquarters in Washington. That event will feature NASA officials and crew members aboard the International Space Station as they observe the rover anniversary and discuss how its activities and other robotic projects are helping prepare for a human mission to Mars and an asteroid.
Also, below, is the replay of events held at NASA HQ to celebrate the anniversary:
Opportunity rover’s 1st mountain climbing goal is dead ahead in this up close view of Solander Point along the eroded rim of Endeavour Crater. Opportunity will soon ascend the mountain in search of minerals signatures indicative of a past Martian habitable environment. This navcam panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 3385 (Aug 2, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
Opportunity rover’s 1st mountain climbing goal is dead ahead in this up close view of Solander Point at Endeavour Crater. Opportunity will ascend the mountain looking for clues indicative of a Martian habitable environment. This navcam panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 3385 (Aug 2, 2013).
Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)[/caption]
NASA’s most powerful Mars orbiter has been given the green light today (Aug. 5) to capture new high resolution spectral scans that are absolutely crucial for directing the long lived Opportunity rover’s hunt for signatures of habitability atop the intriguing mountain she will soon ascend.
In a plan only recently approved by NASA, engineers are aiming the CRISM mineral mapping spectrometer aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling overhead to collect high resolution survey scans of Solander Point – Opportunity’s 1st mountain climbing goal along the rim of huge Endeavour Crater.
“New CRISM observations centered over Solander Point will be acquired on Aug. 5, 2013,” Ray Arvidson told Universe Today exclusively. Arvidson is the mission’s deputy principal scientific investigator from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.
NASA’s decade old rover Opportunity is about to make ‘landfall’ at the base of Solander Point, the Martian mountain she will scale in search of the chemical ingredients that could sustain Martian microbes.
So the new spectral data can’t come back to Earth soon enough.
Currently, the science team lacks the same quality of high resolution CRISM data from Solander Point that they had at a prior stop at Cape York. And that data was crucial because it allowed the rover to be precisely targeted – and thereby discover a habitable zone, Arvidson told me.
“CRISM collected lots of overlapping measurements at Cape York to sharpen the image resolution to 5 meters per pixel to find the phyllosilicate smectite [clay minerals] signatures at Matejivic Hill on Cape York.”
“We don’t have that at Solander Point. We only have 18 meters per pixel data. And at that resolution you can’t tell if the phyllosilicate smectite [clay minerals] outcrops are present.”
Today’s new survey from Mars orbit will vastly improve the spectral resolution – from 18 meters per pixel down to 5 meters per pixel.
“5 meter per pixel CRISM resolution is expected in the along-track direction over Solander Point by commanding the gimbaled optical system to oversample that much,” Arvidson explained.
Opportunity rover’s view from very near the foothills of Solander Point looking along the rim and vast expanse of Endeavour Crater. Solander Point is the 1st Martian Mountain NASA’s Opportunity will climb and the rovers next destination. Solander Point may harbor clay minerals indicative of a past Martian habitable environment. This navcam mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 3374 (July 21, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
The new CRISM spectral survey from Mars is essential to enable the science team to carefully study the alien, unexplored terrain in detail and locate the clay minerals and other water bearing minerals, even before the rover arrives.
Clay minerals form in neutral pH water conducive to life.
Opportunity would then be commanded to drive to preselected sites to conduct “ground truth” forays at Solander.
That’s just like was done at Cape York and the “Esperance” rock loaded with clay minerals that turned into one of the “Top 5 discoveries of the mission” according to Arvidson and Steve Squyres, Opportunity’s Science Principal Investigator of Cornell.
But it took some cajoling and inter team negotiations to convince everyone to move forward with the special but crucial CRISM imaging plan.
Since MRO is getting on in age – it launched in 2005 – NASA and the spacecraft managers have to carefully consider special requests such as this one which involves slewing the MRO spacecraft instruments and therefore entails some health risks to the vehicle.
“CRISM has been operating at Mars since 2006 and sometimes the optics on a gimble have actuators that get stuck a little bit and don’t sweep as fully as planned.”
Nevertheless, Arvidson told me a few weeks ago he was hopeful to get approval.
“I suspect I can talk the team into it.”
And eventually he did! And informed me for the readers of Universe Today.
The fact that the Opportunity scientists already scored a ‘Science Home Run’ with their prior CRISM targeting request at Cape York certainly aided their cause immensely.
The new approved CRISM measurements due to be captured today will give Opportunity the best chance to be targeted to the most promising mineral outcrops, and as quickly as possible.
“With the coordinated observations from CRISM and Opportunity we will go into Solander Point a lot smarter!”
“And we’ll have a pretty good idea of what to look for and where,” Arvidson told me.
Opportunity snap up close view of the base of Solander Point and mountain slopes she will ascend soon. This hi res pancam camera mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 3385 (Aug 2, 2013). Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer (kenkremer.com)
Today marks Opportunity’s 3389th Sol or Martian day roving Mars. Merely 90 days were expected!
Having completed her investigation of the rocky crater plains, the rover continues to drive south.
Any day now Opportunity will drive onto the Bench surrounding Solander and start a new phase of the mission.
Since she basically arrived at Solander with plenty of power and ahead of schedule prior to the onset of the 6th Martian winter, the robot has some spare time to investigate the foothills before ascending the north facing slopes.
“We will be examining the bench and then working our way counterclockwise to reach the steep slopes associated with the Noachian outcrops that are part of the Endeavour rim,” Arvidson said.
Ken Kremer Opportunity rover location in the latest MRO/HiRISE color image. The green line shows more or less the route we hope to take to the base of Solander point. Since it is only a couple of hundred meters away, we could be there is a couple of drives. Maybe by the end of next week. The label say “3374” but this is also roughly the location through 3379. Credit: NASA/JPL/Larry Crumpler
Traverse Map for NASA’s Opportunity rover from 2004 to 2013
This map shows the entire path the rover has driven during more than 9 years and over 3387 Sols, or Martian days, since landing inside Eagle Crater on Jan 24, 2004 to current location near foothills of Solander Point at the western rim of Endeavour Crater. Opportunity discovered clay minerals at Esperance – indicative of a habitable zone. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer
Curiosity accomplished Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at John Klein outcrop on Feb 8, 2013 (Sol 182), shown in this context mosaic view of the Yellowknife Bay basin taken on Jan. 26 (Sol 169). The robotic arm is pressing down on the surface at John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals – dramatically back dropped with her ultimate destination; Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo
Curiosity accomplished Historic 1st drilling into Martian rock at John Klein outcrop on Feb 8, 2013 (Sol 182), shown in this context mosaic view of the Yellowknife Bay basin taken on Jan. 26 (Sol 169). The robotic arm is pressing down on the surface at John Klein outcrop of veined hydrated minerals – dramatically back dropped with her ultimate destination; Mount Sharp.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo Story updated with further details[/caption]
NASA’s mega Mars rover Curiosity is celebrating 1 Year on the Red Planet since the dramatic landing on Aug. 6, 2012 by reveling in a string of groundbreaking science discoveries demonstrating that Mars could once have supported past life – thereby accomplishing her primary science goal – and with a promise that the best is yet to come!
“We now know Mars offered favorable conditions for microbial life billions of years ago,” said the mission’s project scientist, John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
“Curiosity has landed in an ancient river or lake bed on Mars,” Jim Green, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, told Universe Today.
Curiosity is now speeding onwards towards Mount Sharp, the huge 3.4 mile (5. 5 km) mountain dominating the center of her Gale Crater landing site – and which is the primary destination of the mission.
During Year 1, Curiosity has transmitted over 190 gigabits of data, captured more than 71,000 images, fired over 75,000 laser shots to investigate the composition of rocks and soil and drilled into two rocks for sample analysis by the pair of state-of-the-art miniaturized chemistry labs housed in her belly – SAM & CheMin.
“From the sophisticated instruments on Curiosity the data tells us that this region could have been habitable in Mars’ distant past,” Green told me.
“This is a major step forward in understanding the history and evolution of Mars.”
And just in the nick of time for her 1 year anniversary, the car sized robot just passed the 1 mile (1.6 kilometer) driving mark on Aug. 1, or Sol 351.
Mount Sharp still lies roughly 5 miles (8 kilometers) distant – as the Martian crow flies.
“We will be on a general heading of southwest to Mount Sharp,” Jim Erickson, Curiosity Project Manager of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), told Universe Today in an exclusive interview. See the NASA JPL route maps below.
“We have been going through various options of different planned routes.”
How long will the journey to Mount Sharp take?
“Perhaps about a year,” Erickson told me.
“We have put some new software – called autonav, or autonomous navigation – on the vehicle right after the conjunction period back in March 2013. This will increase our ability to drive.”
The total distance driven by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity passed the one-mile mark a few days before the first anniversary of the rover’s landing on Mars. This map traces where Curiosity drove between landing at “Bradbury Landing” on Aug. 5, 2012, PDT, (Aug. 6, 2012 (Universal Time and EDT) and the position reached during the mission’s 351st Martian day, or sol, (Aug. 1, 2013). The Sol 351 leg added 279 feet (85.1 meters) and brought the odometry since landing to about 1.05 miles (1,686 meters). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
“We are trying to make that significantly faster by bringing the new autonav online. That will help. But how much it helps really depends on the terrain.”
So far the terrain has not been problematical.
“Things are going very well and we have a couple of drives under our belt,” said Erickson, since starting the long trek to Mount Sharp about a month ago.
The lower reaches of Mount Sharp are comprised of exposed geological layers of sedimentary materials that formed eons ago when Mars was warmer and wetter, and much more hospitable to microscopic life.
“It has been gratifying to succeed, but that has also whetted our appetites to learn more,” says Grotzinger. “We hope those enticing layers at Mount Sharp will preserve a broad diversity of other environmental conditions that could have affected habitability.”
Indeed, Curiosity’s breakthrough discovery that the surface of Mars possesses the key chemical ingredients required to sustain microbial life in a habitable zone, has emboldened NASA to start mapping out the future of Mars exploration.
“NASA’s Mars program is back on track with the 2016 InSight lander and the 2020 rover,” Jim Green, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, told Universe Today in an interview.
“Successes of our Curiosity — that dramatic touchdown a year ago and the science findings since then — advance us toward further exploration, including sending humans to an asteroid and Mars,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in a statement.
“Wheel tracks now, will lead to boot prints later.”
Following the hair-raising touchdown using with the never before used sky-crane descent thrusters, the science team directed the 1 ton robot to drive to a nearby area of interesting outcrops on the Gale crater floor – at a place called Glenelg and Yellowknife Bay.
Along the way, barely 5 weeks after landing, Curiosity found a spot laden with rounded pebbles at the Hottah outcrop of concretions that formed in an ancient stream bed where hip deep liquid water once flowed rather vigorously.
In February 2013, Curiosity conducted the historic first ever interplanetary drilling into Red Planet rocks at the ‘John Klein’ outcrop inside Yellowknife Bay that was shot through with hydrated mineral veins of gypsum.
The Yellowknife Bay basin looks like a dried up river bed.
This scene combines seven images from the telephoto-lens camera on the right side of the Mast Camera (Mastcam) instrument on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 343 of the rover’s work on Mars (July 24, 2013). The center of the scene is toward the southwest. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems
Analysis of pulverized portions of the gray colored rocky powder cored from the interior of ‘John Klein’ revealed evidence for phyllosilicates clay minerals that typically form in pH neutral water. These starting findings on the crater floor were unexpected and revealed habitable environmental conditions on Mars – thus fulfilling the primary science goal of the mission.
See herein our context panoramic mosaic from Sol 169 showing the robotic arm touching and investigating the Martian soil and rocks at ‘John Klein’.
And if you take a visit to Washington, DC, you can see our panorama (assembled by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo) on permanent display at a newly installed Solar System exhibit at the US National Mall in front of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum- details here.
A mosaic by the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, assembled by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo is now part of the permanent Solar System Exhibit outside the National Air and Space Museum on the US National Mall in Washington, D.C. Image courtesy NCESSE.
“We have found a habitable environment [at John Klein] which is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around, and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it,” says Grotzinger, summing up the mission.
Curiosity captured unique and rare view of tiny Martian moons Phobos & Deimos together on Sol 351 (Aug 1, 2013). Look close and see craters on pockmarked Phobos. Credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS, contrast enhanced by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken KremerOn the long road to Mount Sharp, Curiosity will make occasional stops for science.
This past week she captured rare sky watching images of the diminutive Martian moons – Phobos and Deimos – together!
Meanwhile, Curiosity’s 10 year old sister rover Opportunity Is trundling merrily along and will arrive shortly at her own mountain climbing goal on the opposite of Mars.
And NASA’s next Mars orbiter called MAVEN (for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has just arrived intact at the Kennedy Space Center after a cross country trip aboard a USAF C-17.
Technicians at Kennedy will complete final preparations for MAVEN’s blastoff to the Red Planet on Nov. 18 from the Florida Space Coast atop an Atlas V rocket.
On Tuesday, Aug 6, NASA will broadcast a half day of new programming on NASA TV commemorating the landing and discussing the science accomplished so far and what’s coming next.
And stay tuned for more astonishing discoveries during ‘Year 2’ on the Red Planet from our intrepid rover Curiosity – Starting Right Now !
Curiosity Route Map From ‘Glenelg’ to Mount Sharp
This map shows where NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity landed in August 2012 at “Bradbury Landing”; the area where the rover worked from November 2012 through May 2013 at and near the “John Klein” target rock in the “Glenelg” area; and the mission’s next major destination, the entry point to the base of Mount Sharp. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona
