Solar System Archives

December 2, 2012April 13, 2022 by Ken Kremer

Vote ‘Curiosity’ as TIME Person of the Year

I Need You ! Vote for ‘Curiosity’ as TIME magazine Person Of The Year. NASA’s new Curiosity Mars rover snapped this Head and Shoulders Self-Portrait on Sol 85 (Nov. 1 , 2012) as Humanity’s emissary to the Red Planet in Search of Signs of Life. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Caption – I Need You ! Vote for ‘Curiosity’ as TIME magazine Person Of The Year.
NASA’s new Curiosity Mars rover snapped this Self-Portrait on Sol 85 (Nov. 1 , 2012) as Humanity’s emissary to the Red Planet in Search of Signs of Life. Mosaic Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

You can make it happen. Vote Now ! Vote Curiosity !

Vote for ‘Curiosity’ as the Time magazine Person of the Year

Make your voice heard – Help send a message to the Feds to “Save Our Science” as the Fiscal Cliff nears and threatens our Science.

Perhaps you are a doubter. Well think again. Because at this moment NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has thrust forward into 5th Place, inching ahead of – comedian Stephen Colbert, according to the running tally at TIME’s Person of the Year website.

NASA’s SUV-sized Curiosity Mars rover is the most powerful science robot ever dispatched as Humanity’s emissary to the surface of the Red Planet. She is searching for Signs of Life and may shed light on the ultimate questions – “Are We Alone?” – “Where do We fit In?

Curiosity is NASA’s first Astrobiology mission to Mars since the twin Viking landers of the 1970’s.

TIME’s editors are soliciting your input on worthy candidates for Person of the Year, although they will choose the ultimate winner.

You have until 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 12 to cast your vote. The winner of the people’s choice will be announced on Dec. 14. The magazine itself with the ultimate winner appears on newsstands on Dec. 21

Image caption: Curiosity trundling across Mars surface inside Gale Crater on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). Colorized mosaic stitched together from Navcam images. This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA ‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary which premiered on PBS TV on Nov. 14. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Read TIME’s statement about voting for Curiosity:

You may own a cool car — you may even own a truly great car — but it’s a cinch that no matter how fantastic it is, it can never be anything more than the second best car in the solar system. The greatest of all is the Mars Curiosity rover, one ton of SUV-size machine now 160 million miles from Earth and trundling across the Martian surface. It was the rover’s landing on Mars last August that first caught people’s eyes: an improbable operation that required a hovering mother ship to lower the rover to the surface on cables like a $2.5 billion marionette. But it’s the two years of exploration Curiosity has ahead of it — with a suite of instruments 10 times as large as any ever carried to Mars before — that will make real news. NASA built the country one sweet ride, and yes, alas, it’s sweeter than yours.

Cast your vote for Curiosity now, and avoid the long lines – before it’s too late

Ken Kremer

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Learn more about Curiosity’s groundbreaking discoveries and NASA missions at my upcoming pair of free presentations for the general public at two colleges in New Jersey:

Dec 6: Free Public lecture titled “Atlantis, The Premature End of America’s Shuttle Program and What’s Beyond for NASA” including Curiosity, Orion, SpaceX and more by Ken Kremer at Brookdale Community College/Monmouth Museum and STAR Astronomy club in Lincroft, NJ at 8 PM

Dec 11: Free Public lecture titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (in 3 D)” and more by Ken Kremer at Princeton University and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP) in Princeton, NJ at 8 PM – Princeton U Campus at Peyton Hall, Astrophysics Dept.

November 29, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Saturn’s Strange Hexagon – In Living Color!

Color-composite Cassini image of Saturn’s northern hexagon (NASA/JPL/SSI/Jason Major)

Cassini sure has been busy these past few days! After returning some mind-blowing images of the swirling 3,000-km-wide cyclone over Saturn’s north pole the spacecraft pulled back to give a wider view of the ringed giant’s upper latitudes, revealing one of its most curious features: the northern hexagon.

The image above is a color-composite made from raw images acquired by Cassini on November 28 from a distance of 379,268 miles (610,373 kilometers) away. Because the color channels were of a much lower resolution than the clear-filter monochrome image, the color is approximate in relation to individual atmospheric details. Still, it gives an idea of the incredible variation in hues around Saturn’s northern hemisphere as well as clearly showing the uncannily geometric structure of the hexagon.

(Can I get another “WOW”?)

Made of a band of upper-atmospheric winds, for some reason at this latitude the stream forms a six-sided hexagonal shape. The entire structure is about 25,000 km across — large enough for four Earths to fit inside! The polar cyclone can be seen at the very center.

First seen by Voyagers 1 and 2 over 30 years ago the hexagon appears to be fixed with Saturn’s rotation rate, which is a remarkably speedy 0.44 Earth-days (about 10.5 hours.)

“This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides,” said atmospheric expert and Cassini team member Kevin Baines back in 2007. “We’ve never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn’s thick atmosphere where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate is perhaps the last place you’d expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is.”

As scientists puzzled over the mechanisms behind the geometric feature, they came to the conclusion that not only is it a very natural occurrence, it’s also something that is not uncommon in fluid dynamics… apparently its sides are bound by the eddying storms. (Read more in this article by Nicole Gugliucci.)

Here are some more raw images from Cassini’s Nov. 28 pass:

Amazing! Here we are well over 8 years after arriving at Saturn and Cassini is still astounding us almost daily with views of the ringed world. (I knew it was my favorite planet for a reason!)

As always, stay tuned to Universe Today for more!

Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Color-composite by Jason Major.

November 28, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Incredible Raw Image of Saturn’s Swirling North Pole

Ok, are you ready for this?

I know… WOW.

This swirling maelstrom of clouds is what was seen over Saturn’s north pole earlier today, November 27, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This is a raw image, acquired in polarized light, from a distance of 238,045 miles (383,097 kilometers)… all I did was remove some of the hot pixels that are commonly found on Cassini images taken with longer exposures.

Again… WOW.

My attempt at a color composite can be seen below, plus another treat:

It’s rough, and a little muddy because the clouds were moving between image channels (not to mention the blue channel image was rather underexposed) but here’s a color-composite of the same feature, made from images taken from a slightly different perspective:

Color composite of Saturn’s north polar vortex

Pretty darn cool… Cassini does it yet again!

The images above show an approximately 3,000-4,000-km-wide cyclone above Saturn’s north pole. Saturn is also known to have a long-lived hexagonal jet stream feature around its north pole as well, but that is not shown in those images as it runs along a lower latitude. Instead, you can see that HERE:

Saturn’s northern hexagon

Captured with a wider angle, in this image the hexagon structure can be made out as well as the cyclone, which sits at the center just over the pole. Saturn’s hexagon is about 25,000 km (15,500 miles) in diameter… large enough to fit almost four Earths inside. This image was also acquired today.

An RGB composite of this feature is below:

Saturn’s northern hexagon – color composite

It’s been a few years since we’ve gotten such a good look at Saturn’s north pole… thanks to Cassini’s new orbital trajectory, which is taking it high above the ring plane and poles of Saturn, we now have the opportunity to view the gas giant’s dynamic upper latitudes again. I’m sure this is just a taste of what’s to come!

(Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Color composites by Jason Major)

November 27, 2012January 4, 2016 by Jason Major

Lighting Up Mercury’s Shadowy North Pole

Part of a stereographic projection of Mercury’s north pole

Talk about northern exposure! This is a section of a much larger image, released today by the MESSENGER team, showing the heavily-cratered north pole of Mercury as seen by the MESSENGER spacecraft’s Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) instrument.

See the full-size image below:

Many MDIS images were averaged together to create a mosaic of Mercury’s polar region, which this stereographic projection is centered on. MESSENGER is at its lowest altitude as it passes over Mercury’s northern hemisphere — about 200 kilometers (124 miles), which is just a little over half the altitude of the ISS.

The largest centrally-peaked crater near the center is Prokofiev, named after a 20th-century Russian composer. Approximately 110 km (68 mi.) in diameter, its permanently-shadowed interior is home to radar-bright deposits that are thought to contain water ice.

Even though Mercury is almost three times closer to the Sun than Earth is and hosts searing daytime temperatures of 425ºC (800ºF), there’s virtually no atmosphere to hold or transmit that heat. Nighttime temperatures can reach as low as -185ºC (-300ºF), and since a day on Mercury is 176 Earth days long it gets very cold for quite a long time!

Also, because Mercury’s axis of rotation isn’t tilted like Earth’s, low elevation areas near the poles receive literally no sunlight. Unless vaporized by a meteorite impact any ice gathered inside these deep craters would remain permanently frozen.

Here’s an orthographic projection of the image above, showing what the scene would look like on Mercury — that is, if it was ever fully lit by the Sun, which it isn’t.

Many of the craters on Mercury’s north pole have recently been named after famous artists, authors and composers, such as Kandinsky, Stieglitz, Goethe, and even one named after J.R.R. Tolkien. You can see an annotated image showing the names of Mercury’s north polar craters here.

On November 29, NASA will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EST to reveal new observations from MESSENGER, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury. The news conference will be carried live on NASA Television and the agency’s website… you can tune in on NASA TV here.

Image credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

November 26, 2012April 13, 2022 by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Ramps Up Complexity of Surface Ops with 1st ‘Touch and Go’ Maneuver – Cool Animation

Image Caption: Thanksgiving Greetings from Mars ! Curiosity snaps Head and Shoulders Self-Portrait on Sol 85 while posing at windblown ‘Rocknest’ ripple with eroded rim of Gale Crater in the background. This color mosaic was assembled from Mastcam 34 raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). See below the utterly cool animation of Curioity’s 1st ever ‘Touch and Go’ maneuver. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, NASA’s Curiosity mega Mars rover completed her first so-called “touch and go” maneuver – whereby she drives to and inspects an interesting rock and then moves on the same day to the next target of interest.

Check out the totally cool action animation below depicting Curiosity’s first ever “touch and go” movement and a subsequent martian drive of 83 feet (25.3 meters) conducted on Nov. 18.

“The ‘touch and go’ on Sol 102 went well, the data arriving in time for planning Sol 104”, says rover team member Ken Herkenhoff, of the US Geological Survey (USGS).

The science and engineering team guiding Curiosity is commanding her to accomplish ever more sophisticated and bold forays across the floor of Gale crater after finishing more than a month of investigations at the windblown ripple named “Rocknest.

On Nov 16, Curiosity drove 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) to get within arm’s reach of a rock called “Rocknest 3”. She deployed the arm and placed the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument onto the rock, and then took two 10-minute APXS readings of data to ascertain the chemical elements in the rock.

Thereafter Curiosity stowed her 7 foot (2.1 m) long arm and drove eastward toward the next target called “Point Lake”.

Curiosity is now inside the ‘Glenelg’ geologic formation which the science team selected as the first major science destination because it lies at the intersection of three diverse types of geology areas that will help unlock the secrets of Mars’ ancient watery history and evolution to modern times.

Image Caption: Panoramic mosaic shows gorgeous Glenelg snapped by Curiosity on Sol 64 (Oct. 10) with eroded crater rim and base of Mount Sharp in the distance. Curiosity is now touring inside Glenelg. This is a cropped version of the full mosaic as assembled from 75 images acquired by the Mastcam 100 camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

“We have done touches before, and we’ve done goes before, but this is our first ‘touch-and-go’ on the same day,” said Curiosity Mission Manager Michael Watkins of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. “It is a good sign that the rover team is getting comfortable with more complex operational planning, which will serve us well in the weeks ahead.”

During the holiday period, Curiosity is taking high resolution imagery, conducting atmospheric observations and making measurements with the DAN neutron spectrometer and her other state-of-the-art science instruments.

Meanwhile, the Curiosity science team is still ‘chewing over’ the meaning of the results from the first ever scoopful of soil spooned up at ‘Rocknest’ and ingested by the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) chemistry instrument on the rover deck that is designed to detect organic molecules – the building blocks of life.

“We’ve got a briefing on Monday [Dec 3] where we’ll discuss our results,” Curiosity project manager John Grotzinger, of Caltech, told me. Those SAM results will be announced to a flurry of interest during the annual meeting of the AGU (American Geophysical Union) being held from Dec 3-7 in San Francisco.

Learn more about Curiosity’s groundbreaking discoveries, SAM and NASA missions at my upcoming pair of free presentations for the general public at two colleges in New Jersey:

- on Dec 11 at Princeton University and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP) in Princeton, NJ at 8 PM.
- and on Dec. 6 at Brookdale Community College, Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ at 8 PM – hosted by STAR astronomy

Ken Kremer

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November 21, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Makemake’s Mysteriously Missing Atmosphere

Artist’s impression of the surface of Makemake, a dwarf planet beyond Pluto (ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger)

It turns out there’s no air up there: the distant dwarf planet Makemake is surprisingly lacking in an atmosphere, according to findings made by astronomers using telescopes at ESO’s La Silla and Paranal observatories.

An international team of astronomers used the mountaintop telescopes to observe Makemake as it passed in front of a faint background star in April 2011, a brief stellar occultation that lasted only about a minute. By watching how the starlight was blotted out by Makemake, measurements could be made of the dwarf planet’s size, mass and atmosphere — or, in this case, its lack thereof… a finding which surprised some scientists.

“As Makemake passed in front of the star and blocked it out, the star disappeared and reappeared very abruptly, rather than fading and brightening gradually. This means that the little dwarf planet has no significant atmosphere,” said team leader José Luis Ortiz of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain. “It was thought that Makemake had a good chance of having developed an atmosphere — that it has no sign of one at all shows just how much we have yet to learn about these mysterious bodies.”

First discovered in 2005, Makemake is an icy dwarf planet about 2/3 the diameter of Pluto — and 19 AU further from the Sun (but not nearly as far as the larger Eris, which is over 96 AU away.) It was thought that Makemake might have a tenuous, seasonal atmosphere similar to what has been found on Pluto, but it now appears that it does not… at least not in any large-scale, global form.

Due to its small size, sheer distance and apparent lack of moons, making scientific observations of Makemake has been a challenge for astronomers. The April 2011 occultation allowed measurements to be made — even if only for a minute — that weren’t possible before, including first-ever calculations of the dwarf planet’s density and albedo.

As it turns out, Makemake’s albedo is about 0.77 — comparable to that of dirty snow… a reflectivity higher than Pluto’s but lower than that of Eris. Its density is estimated to be 1.7 ± 0.3 g/cm³, indicating a composition of mostly ice with some rock.

“Our new observations have greatly improved our knowledge of one of the biggest [icy bodies], Makemake — we will be able to use this information as we explore the intriguing objects in this region of space further,” said Ortiz.

Is Historic Discovery imminent concerning Martian Organic Chemistry ?

Image caption: Curiosity scoops repeatedly into this Martian soil at windblown ripple dubbed ‘Rocknest’, shown in this mosaic, and delivered samples to the SAM chemistry instrument, on the robots deck, to search for any signatures of organic molecules – the building blocks of life. This color mosaic was stitched together from hi-res color images taken by the robots 34 mm Mastcam camera on Sols 93 and 74. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS/Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Has Curiosity made a ‘Historic’ science discovery with the SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) chemistry instrument that analyzes Martian soil (see mosaic above) and is designed to detect organic molecules – the building blocks of life? Has Curiosity unambiguously and directly detected the first signatures of organics on Mars ? Is an announcement imminent?

Speculation is rampant that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has made an earth-shaking discovery ‘for the history books’ , following a radio interview by NPR’s Joe Palca with the mission’s Principal Investigator, John Grotzinger, while sitting in his office at Caltech last week. NPR reported the story on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

“We’ve got a briefing on Monday [Dec 3] where we’ll discuss our results,” John Grotzinger told me.

Grotzinger will describe the SAM data and their potentially pivotal implications at the annual meeting of the AGU (American Geophysical Union) being held from Dec 3-7 in San Francisco. Many papers and results from the first three months of the Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) mission will be presented at the AGU meeting.

“The science team is analyzing data from SAM’s soil inspection, but not ready to discuss yet,” JPL Press spokesman Guy Webster informed me today.

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday period here in the US so the answers will wait a tad longer.

Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background.SAM chemistry suite located on robot’s deck near Mast. To the left is the northern rim wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Curiosity had been collecting and analyzing Martian soil samples for more than a month at a windblown ripple called ‘Rocknest’. So far Curiosity has scooped into the Martian soil five times and delivered a single sample to SAM and two to the adjacent CheMin chemistry instrument.

“This data is gonna be one for the history books,” Grotzinger went on to say to NPR. “It’s looking really good.”

JPL Press spokesman Guy Webster advises caution and patience while damping down euphoria. He told me that the team is still trying to interpret and understand the analysis from SAM and seeking to clarify their meaning before making any premature conclusions.

“This is no change from the policy with past results from the mission, such as SAM’s atmosphere analysis or CheMin’s soil sample analysis: The scientists want to gain confidence in the findings before taking them outside of the science team,” Webster informed me.

“As for history books, the whole mission is for the history books. John was delighted about the quality and range of information coming in from SAM during the day a reporter happened to be sitting in John’s office last week. He has been similarly delighted by results at other points during the mission so far,” Webster said.

Organic molecules are the basis for life as we know it, and they have never before been discovered on the Red Planet’s surface. I am an organic chemist and to me the detection of organics on Mars would indeed be “Earth-shaking”. But just a finding of organics alone does NOT mean we discovered life. Organics are a prerequisite to life. Life requires finding much more complex molecules, like amino acids and far more beyond that.

Furthermore, finding signatures of organics so close to the surface might be a surprising result when one recalls that highly destructive ionizing radiation bombards the Martian topsoil 24/7.

So, it’s wise for the MSL team to be abundantly cautious and recheck their results multiple times. They wisely waited for further data before prematurely announcing the discovery of Martian methane. Initial SAM atmospheric measurements detecting methane turned out to be false – they actually originated from contamination by residual traces of Florida air trapped in the interior chambers of SAM and were carried all the way to Mars.

If organics are detected in the dusty dunes at Rocknest, the implications could be vast and potentially point to their widespread distribution across Gale crater and beyond.

As renowned astronomer Carl Sagan once said; ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Stay tuned.

Learn more about Curiosity’s groundbreaking discoveries, SAM and NASA missions at my upcoming free public presentations:

- on Dec. 6 held at Brookdale Community College, Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ at 8 PM – hosted by STAR astronomy
- and on Dec 11 held at Princeton University and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP) in Princeton, NJ at 8 PM.

Ken Kremer

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November 19, 2012December 23, 2015 by Jason Major

Saturn. In color.

Color-composite of Saturn, made from raw Cassini images acquired in visible light channels on 18 Nov. 2012. (NASA/JPL/SSI. Composite by Jason Major.)

Looking for an awesome view of Saturn as it would look from 1,951,681 kilometers (1,212,718 miles) away? Here you go.

Just my and Cassini’s way of reminding everyone how beautiful our own Solar System is! Lest we forget.

November 19, 2012April 13, 2022 by Ken Kremer

Can Humans Live on Mars?

Image caption: Curiosity is taking the first ever radiation measurements from the surface of another planet in order to determine if future human explorers can live on Mars – as she traverses the terrain of the Red Planet. Curiosity is looking back to her rover tracks and the foothills of Mount Sharp and the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the distant horizon on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA ‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary which premiered on PBS TV on Nov. 14. RAD is located on the rover deck in this colorized mosaic stitched together from Navcam images by the image processing team of Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Metallic robots constructed by ingenious humans can survive on Mars. But what about future human astronauts?

NASA’s plucky Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has thrived for nearly a decade traversing the plains of Meridiani Planum despite the continuous bombardment of sterilizing cosmic and solar radiation from charged particles thanks to her radiation hardened innards.

How about humans? What fate awaits them on a bold and likely year’s long expedition to the endlessly extreme and drastically harsh environment on the surface of the radiation drenched Red Planet – if one ever gets off the ground here on Earth? How much shielding would people need?

Answering these questions is one of the key quests ahead for NASA’s SUV sized Curiosity Mars rover – now 100 Sols, or Martian days, into her 2 year long primary mission phase.

Preliminary data looks promising.

Curiosity survived the 8 month interplanetary journey and the unprecedented sky crane rocket powered descent maneuver to touch down safely inside Gale Crater beside the towering layered foothills of 3 mi. (5.5 km) high Mount Sharp on Aug. 6, 2012.

Now she is tasked with assessing whether Mars and Gale Crater ever offered a habitable environment for microbial life forms – past or present. Characterizing the naturally occurring radiation levels stemming from galactic cosmic rays and the sun will address the habitability question for both microbes and astronauts. Radiation can destroy near-surface organic molecules.

Researchers are using Curiosity’s state-of-the-art Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) instrument to monitor high-energy radiation on a daily basis and help determine the potential for real life health risks posed to future human explorers on the Martian surface.

“The atmosphere provides a level of shielding, and so charged-particle radiation is less when the atmosphere is thicker,” said RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. See the data graphs herein.

“Absolutely, the astronauts can live in this environment. It’s not so different from what astronauts might experience on the International Space Station. The real question is if you add up the total contribution to the astronaut’s total dose on a Mars mission can you stay within your career limits as you accumulate those numbers. Over time we will get those numbers,” Hassler explained.

The initial RAD data from the first two months on the surface was revealed at a media briefing for reporters on Thursday, Nov. 15 and shows that radiation is somewhat lower on Mars surface compared to the space environment due to shielding from the thin Martian atmosphere.

Image caption: Longer-Term Radiation Variations at Gale Crater. This graphic shows the variation of radiation dose measured by the Radiation Assessment Detector on NASA’s Curiosity rover over about 50 sols, or Martian days, on Mars. (On Earth, Sol 10 was Sept. 15 and Sol 60 was Oct. 6, 2012.) The dose rate of charged particles was measured using silicon detectors and is shown in black. The total dose rate (from both charged particles and neutral particles) was measured using a plastic scintillator and is shown in red. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ SwRI

RAD hasn’t detected any large solar flares yet from the surface. “That will be very important,” said Hassler.

“If there was a massive solar flare that could have an acute effect which could cause vomiting and potentially jeopardize the mission of a spacesuited astronaut.”

“Overall, Mars’ atmosphere reduces the radiation dose compared to what we saw during the cruise to Mars by a factor of about two.”

RAD was operating and already taking radiation measurements during the spacecraft’s interplanetary cruise to compare with the new data points now being collected on the floor of Gale Crater.

Mars atmospheric pressure is a bit less than 1% of Earth’s. It varies somewhat in relation to atmospheric cycles dependent on temperature and the freeze-thaw cycle of the polar ice caps and the resulting daily thermal tides.

“We see a daily variation in the radiation dose measured on the surface which is anti-correlated with the pressure of the atmosphere. Mars atmosphere is acting as a shield for the radiation. As the atmosphere gets thicker that provides more of a shield. Therefore we see a dip in the radiation dose by about 3 to 5%, every day,” said Hassler.

Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background. Mountains in the background to the left are the northern wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

There are also seasonal changes in radiation levels as Mars moves through space.

The RAD team is still refining the radiation data points.

“There’s calibrations and characterizations that we’re finalizing to get those numbers precise. We’re working on that. And we’re hoping to release that at the AGU [American Geophysical Union] meeting in December.”

Image caption: Daily Cycles of Radiation and Pressure at Gale Crater. This graphic shows the daily variations in Martian radiation and atmospheric pressure as measured by NASA’s Curiosity rover. As pressure increases, the total radiation dose decreases. When the atmosphere is thicker, it provides a better barrier with more effective shielding for radiation from outside of Mars. At each of the pressure maximums, the radiation level drops between 3 to 5 percent. The radiation level goes up at the end of the graph due to a longer-term trend that scientists are still studying. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

Radiation is a life limiting factor to habitability. RAD is the first science instrument to directly measure radiation from the surface of a planet other than Earth.

“Curiosity is finding that the radiation environment on Mars is sensitive to Mars weather and climate,” Hassler concluded.

Unlike Earth, Mars lost its magnetic field some 3.5 billion years ago – and therefore most of its shielding capability from harsh levels of energetic particle radiation from space.

Much more data will need to be collected by RAD before any final conclusions on living on Mars, and for how long and in which type habitats, can be drawn.

Learn more about Curiosity and NASA missions at my upcoming free public presentations:

- on Dec. 6 held at Brookdale Community College, Monmouth Museum, Lincroft, NJ at 8 PM – hosted by STAR astronomy
- and on Dec 11 held at Princeton University and the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton (AAAP) in Princeton, NJ at 8 PM.

And be sure to watch the excellent PBS NOVA Mars documentary – ‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ – which also features Curiosity mosaics created by the imaging team of Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo.

Ken Kremer

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November 14, 2012April 13, 2022 by Ken Kremer

‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ – PBS NOVA TV Curiosity Documentary Premieres Nov. 14

If you’ve been following the spectacular adventures of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover since the nerve wracking Sky Crane touchdown just 3 months ago, then PBS NOVA TV has a sweet treat in store for you – Viewer Alert !

Be sure to tune in Wednesday night Nov.14 at 9 PM EDT/PDT for the premiere broadcast of NOVA’s thrilling new documentary titled “Ultimate Mars Challenge” on your local PBS station. The highly acclaimed NOVA science series has been decorated with numerous major television awards.

Get a preview of the show by watching this short 30 second trailer below, featuring the top scientists and engineers who created and gave birth to the Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission at NASA field centers and University’s and aerospace companies spread across the US and Europe – and then guided her to an unprecedented pinpoint landing beside a layered Martian mountain in search of the ingredients of life.

‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ also features several Curiosity mosaics specially created for the program by the image processing team of Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo

And in case you miss the show or want to watch it again, check this PBS link to replay the video of episodes of NOVA.

Read this Program Description from PBS for complete details:

“Ultimate Mars Challenge gives viewers a front-row seat for the Curiosity’s thrilling landing as well as the spectacular discoveries to come. The most ambitious robotic geologist ever, Curiosity carries 10 new instruments that will advance the quest for signs that Mars might have once been suitable for life.

But no rover does it alone: Curiosity joins a team that includes the Mars Odyssey, Express, and Reconnaissance orbiters, along with the tireless Opportunity rover. As we reveal the dynamic new picture of Mars that these explorers are painting, we will discover the deep questions raised by forty years of roving Mars: How do we define life? How does life begin and what does it need to survive? Are we alone in the universe?

Why go back to Mars? Far from dead, Mars holds untold potential. Nearly half a century of Mars exploration has yielded tantalizing clues that Mars may once have harbored life—and may harbor it still.

The extraordinary landing of a revolutionary rover named Curiosity—which successfully touched down inside the Gale Crater—means we have wheels down on the planet once again, in the form of the most sophisticated robot ever to rove the Mars surface.

Will NASA’s bold mission and this marvel of technology answer some of our biggest questions and usher in a new golden age of exploration? NOVA goes behind the scenes on NASA’s quest to solve the riddles of the red planet”

Image Caption: Curiosity Self Portrait with Mount Sharp at Rocknest ripple in Gale Crater. Curiosity used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on the robotic arm to image herself and her target destination Mount Sharp in the background. Mountains in the background to the left are the northern wall of Gale Crater. This color panoramic mosaic was assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 85 (Nov. 1, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

‘Ultimate Mars Challenge’ was produced by the Emmy award winning team of Jill Shinefield and Gail Willumsen at Gemini Productions in West Hollywood, California. Jill and Gail were on site at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., to cover the Aug. 5/6 touchdown inside Gale Crater. They say the show just wrapped production in early November, so it’s completely up-to-date through the first 90 Martian days, or Sols, of the 2 year prime mission.

On Nov. 9, Curiosity delivered her first soil sample to the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite that is designed to detect organic molecules and help determine if Mars ever supported Martian microbial life – watch for my upcoming story.

Image caption: Curiosity looks back to her rover tracks and the foothills of Mount Sharp and the eroded rim of Gale Crater in the distant horizon on Sol 24 (Aug. 30, 2012). This panorama is featured on PBS NOVA Ultimate Mars Challenge’ documentary premiering on Nov. 14. The colorized mosaic was stitched together from Navcam images. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Ken Kremer / Marco Di Lorenzo

Check the PBS, NASA and JPL websites for mission details. Later this week on Nov. 16, I’ll be presenting a free public talk about the mission titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (3-D)”, at Union County College in NJ, hosted by Amateur Astronomers Inc. (AAI) in Cranford, NJ. And the power is thankfully back on ! – in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Ken Kremer
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Nov. 16: Free Public Lecture titled “Curiosity and the Search for Life on Mars (in 3 D)” and more by Ken Kremer at Union County College and Amateur Astronomers Inc in Cranford, NJ.