Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Celebrates 90 Sols Scooping Mars and Snapping Amazing Self-Portrait with Mount Sharp

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

NASA’s revolutionary Curiosity rover is celebrating 90 Sols on Mars by snapping amazing self-portraits (see our mosaics above and below) and biting into the Red Planet’s surface to accomplish unprecedented scientific analysis of an alien world.

Nov. 6 marked a major milestone in Curiosity’s daring and evolving mission in search of signs of life. This is the three month anniversary of her toiling on the breathtaking Martian surface since the hair-raising pinpoint touchdown on Aug. 6 inside Gale Crater at the foothills of a humongous and gorgeous layered mountain that likely holds the key to understanding Mars watery past and 4 billion plus year evolution.

The never before seen mosaic vista above shows a matchless self portrait of Curiosity’s Mastcam ‘head’ and body combined with a thrilling scene of her target destination – Mount Sharp – the layered mound of sediments that could unlock the mysteries of whether Mars ever possessed habitats favorable for the evolution of life, past or present.

Last week on Sols 84 & 85 (Oct 31 & Nov 1) Curiosity took hundreds of high resolution color images with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera – located at the end of the 7 foot (2.1 m) long robotic arm – thus affording us a breathtaking portrait view of our emissary from Earth to Mars.

Our Sol 85 self-portrait mosaic was stitched together by the imaging team of Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Last week NASA released the first self portrait mosaic of the Sol 84 MAHLI camera imagery that included the left flank of 3 mile (5 km) Mount Sharp.

Image Caption: High-Resolution Self-Portrait by Curiosity Rover Arm Camera. On Sol 84 (Oct. 31, 2012), NASA’s Curiosity rover used the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) to capture this set of 55 high-resolution images, which were stitched together to create this full-color self-portrait. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The Curiosity team spent considerable effort to build the imaging sequences and then remotely maneuver the robotic arm to precisely collect the raw images and transmit them to Earth.

Previously the team used the MAHLI camera to photograph Curiosity’s underbelly (see our mosaic).

Image Caption: A mosaic of photos taken by the MAHLI camera on Curiosity’s arm shows the underbelly of the rover and its six wheels, with Martian terrain stretching back to the horizon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

For the past month Curiosity has been hunkered down at “Rocknest” ripple which lies at the edge of “Glenelg” – her first major science destination – and that sits at the natural junction of three types of geologically diverse terrain.

Rocknest afforded the perfect type of fine grained Martian dust to carry out the first test scoops of Martian soil and then used the material to thoroughly cleanse the robots’ sample processing system of residual Earthy contamination and then ingest the first samples into the robots pair of analytical chemistry labs – CheMin and SAM.

Curiosity has eaten into Rocknest 4 times so far and delivered two samples to the CheMin (Chemistry and Mineralogy) instrument for analysis.

Scoop sample #5 should deliver the first solid material to SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) sometime in the next week or so.

SAM is specifically engineered to search for organic molecules – the building blocks of life as we know it. CheMin uses X-ray diffraction techniques to accurately determine the mineralogical composition of pulverized and sieved red planet soil and rock samples.

Curiosity’s key science finding during the first 90 Sols is the discovery of evidence for an ancient Martian stream bed at three different locations along the short route she has traversed to date.

Curiosity found a trio of outcrops of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock. Hip deep liquid water once flowed vigorously on the floor of Gale Crater billions of years ago. Liquid water is a prerequisite for the origin of life.

Since the landing, some 400 members of the Curiosity science team had been camped out at Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif to efficiently coordinate the rovers surface planning and operations.

With the first 90 Sols now successfully behind them and with Curiosity operating in tip top shape, most of the science team has just departed JPL and returned to their home institutions scattered across the globe, mostly in North America and Europe.

The 1 ton SUV sized Curiosity rover has taken over 22,000 pictures thus far and is funded for a 2 year primary mission.

Ken Kremer

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

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

See more of our Curiosity Mars mosaics by Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo at PBS Nova TV (airing Nov 14), NBC News Cosmic log and Scientific American.

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. 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

Posted on by Jason Major

Cassini Discovers Titan’s Glowing Atmosphere

A pair of images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft show Titan glowing in the dark.

Titan never ceases to amaze. Saturn’s largest moon, it’s wrapped in a complex, multi-layered nitrogen-and-methane atmosphere ten times thicker than Earth’s. It has seasons and weather, as evidenced by the occasional formation of large bright clouds and, more recently, an area of open-cell convection forming over its south pole. Titan even boasts the distinction of being the only other world in the Solar System besides Earth with large amounts of liquid existing on its surface, although there in the form of exotic methane lakes and streams.

We have NASA’s Cassini spacecraft to thank for these discoveries, and now there’s one more for the ceaseless explorer to add to its list: Titan glows in the dark.

Seen above in two versions of the same calibrated raw image, acquired by Cassini on May 7, 2009, Titan hovers in front of a background field of stars which appear as blurred streaks due to the 560 seconds (about 9 1/2 minutes) exposure time and the relative motion of the spacecraft.

The image on the left shows Titan in visible light, receiving reflected sunlight off Saturn itself — “Saturnshine” — while the moon was on the ringed planet’s night side. The image on the right was processed to exclude this reflected light… and yet it still shines. (E pur si candeo?)

Read: Titan’s Surface “the Consistency of Soft, Damp Sand”

The hazy moon’s dim glow — measuring only around a millionth of a watt — comes from not only the top of its atmosphere (which was expected) but also from much deeper within, at altitudes of 300 km (190 miles).

The glow is created by chemical reactions within Titan’s atmosphere, sparked by interactions with charged particles from the Sun and Saturn’s magnetic field.

“It turns out that Titan glows in the dark – though very dimly,” said Robert West, the lead author of a recent study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and a Cassini imaging team scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “It’s a little like a neon sign, where electrons generated by electrical power bang into neon atoms and cause them to glow. Here we’re looking at light emitted when charged particles bang into nitrogen molecules in Titan’s atmosphere.”

The light is analogous to the airglow seen in Earth’s atmosphere, often photographed by astronauts aboard the ISS.

Still, even taking known sources of external radiation into account, Titan is glowing from within with an as-yet-unexplained light. More energetic cosmic rays may be to blame, penetrating deeper into the moon’s atmosphere, or there could be unexpected chemical reactions or phenomena at work — a little Titanic lightning, perhaps?

“This is exciting because we’ve never seen this at Titan before,” West said. “It tells us that we don’t know all there is to know about Titan and makes it even more mysterious.”

Read more on the Cassini mission page here, and see more images from Cassini on the CICLOPS imaging center site.

Images: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. Inset image: Titan’s atmosphere and upper-level hydrocarbon haze, seen in June 2012. Color composite by J. Major.

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Gorgeous Glenelg – ‘Promised Land’ Panorama on Mars

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. This is a cropped version of the full mosaic as assembled from 75 images acquired by the Mastcam 100 camera. See full mosaic below. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

NASA’s 1 ton mega rover Curiosity is simultaneously eating Martian dirt and busily snapping hundreds of critical high resolution color photos of her surroundings at the gorgeous locale of tasty terrain of outcrops the scientists call the ‘Promised Land’ – a place that will help unveil the watery mysteries of ancient Mars.

11 weeks into Curiosity’s 2 year primary mission she finds herself at a spot dubbed Glenelg – her first major science destination – and which lies at the natural junction of three types of geologically varied terrain.

See our detailed color panoramic mosaics of the road ahead inside Glenelg as the robot methodically scans around at the inviting mix of geologic features never before investigated by a robotic emissary from Earth.

Glenelg offers an unprecedented opportunity for a boon of discoveries to the rover science team long before she arrives at her ultimate destination – the 3.4 mile (5.5 km) high layered mountain named Mount Sharp.

Image Caption: Panoramic mosaic shows gorgeous Glenelg snapped by Curiosity from Rocknest windblown dune on Sol 64 (Oct. 10) with eroded crater rim and base of Mount Sharp in the distance. This mosaic as assembled from 75 images acquired by the high resolution Mastcam 100 camera on Sol 64. Click to enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Image Caption: Panorama shows beautiful vista of distant eroded rim of Gale Crater and breathtaking foreground terrain. This mosaic was assembled from high resolution Mastcam 100 images taken by Curiosity on Sol 50 (Sep. 26). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger scientist explained to me that the team is using the Mastcam 100 imagery to come up with options for the upcoming driving and exploration plan to be carried out over at least the next few weeks.

“We are at Glenelg and consider ourselves to be in the ‘Promised Land’. We took the images in the direction we will be traveling,” said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology during a media teleconference on Oct. 18.

“We mostly see outcrops there and that’s the reason we took those prioritized images,” he said about the Mastcam 100 imagery from Sols 64 and 66.

“These images will help guide us and give the team options in terms of what I am calling ‘tours’. The team comes up with hypothesis based on the images about observations they would like to make and where they would like to drive.”.

“Then we will integrate the different observations to come up with a model we hope for how the Glenelg area was put together geologically. And then that will inform ultimately our selection for which rock to drill into for the first time,” explained Grotzinger.

Image Caption: Curiosity scoops up Martian soil sample on Sol 66 (Oct 12. 2012). Navcam camera image mosaic shows the robotic arm at work during scooping operations. Curiosity later delivered the first soil sample to the circular CheMin sample inlet at the center on the rover deck. Tiny trenches measure about 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Image caption: Three bite marks left in the Martian ground by the scoop on the robotic arm of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity are visible in this image taken by the rover’s right Navigation Camera during the mission’s 69th Martian day, or sol (Oct. 15, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Curiosity is currently parked at a windblown ripple named ‘Rocknest’. It afforded the perfect type of dusty martian material to first test out the scoop and clean the sample processing system twice before finally inhaling the first sample of Martian sand into the robots Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) analytical instrument several sols ago to determine what minerals it contains.

Results from the Red Planet soil poured into the CheMin experiment located on the rover’s deck are expected in the coming week or so.

Tosol is Sol 75. Curiosity has taken nearly 20,000 pictures so far and driven a total distance of about 1,590 feet (484 meters).

Ken Kremer

See more of our Curiosity Mars mosaics by Ken Kremer & Marco Di Lorenzo at NBC News Cosmic log

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

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Mars rover Scooping in Search of Pristine material at Rocknest

Image caption: Time lapse context view of Curiosity maneuvering her robotic arm. Curiosity conducts a close- up examination of windblown ‘Rocknest’ ripple site and inspects sandy material at “bootlike” wheel scuff mark with the APXS (Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer) and MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) instruments positioned on the rotatable turret at the arm’s terminus. Colorized mosaic was stitched together from Sol 57 & 58 Navcam raw images shows the arm in action just prior to 1st sample scooping here. Surrounding terrain and eroded rim of Gale Crater rim is visible on the horizon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

NASA’s Curiosity rover is actively searching for uncontaminated Martian soil after finding new flecks of “bright material” of unknown origin in the windblown sands at “Rocknest” ripple.

The team leading the Curiosity Mars Science Lab (MSL) mission decided to dump the second scoopful of dusty material collected last week on Sol 66 (Oct. 12). Instead they will search for pristine Martian sand to pour into the rover’s critical sample-processing mechanisms to use as a decontamination agent for cleansing the interior chambers and walls of Earthly residues.

Image Caption: Bright Particle of Martian Origin in Scoop Hole. This image contributed to an interpretation by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity science team that some of the bright particles on the ground near the rover are native Martian material. Other light-toned material nearbyhas been assessed as small debris from the spacecraft. Curiosity’s Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera took this image on Sol 66 (Oct. 12, 2012) showing part of the hole or bite left in the ground when Curiosity collected its first scoop of Martian soil five sols earlier. A clod of soil near the top center of the image contains a light-toned particle. The observation that the particle is embedded in the clod led scientists to assess this particle as Martian material, not something from the spacecraft. This assessment prompted the mission to continue scooping in the area, despite observations of a few light-toned particles in the area being scooped. The image shows an area about 2 inches (5 centimeters) across. It is brightened to improve visibility in the shaded area. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The science team is proceeding with appropriate caution – just as they indicated at press briefings – so as not to gum up the sample processing system with material that could give false positive readings for organic compounds or compromise the integrity of the rover’s delicate sample handling and delivery system.

“Concerns that the bright spot is more material shed from the flight system, and that some of this terrestrial material is in the scooped dirt, led the tactical team to decide to dump the scoop and take MAHLI images of the scoop targets first,” wrote MSL scientist Ken Herkenhoff in a rover team update.

The second scoopful of Martian sand from Rocknest was intentionally discarded on Sol 67 (Oct.13) after up close imaging by the MAHLI microscopic imaging camera revealed several specks of bright material that could be debris from the landing system or the rover itself or possibly even native Martian material.

The third test sample will be carefully analyzed by MAHLI, ChemCam and Mastcam and verified to be free of FOD before the team decides to pour the new processed sand into the processing system and eventually into the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) analytical chemistry instruments on the rover deck.

Image Caption: Small Debris on the Ground Beside Curiosity – This image from the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity shows a small bright object on the ground beside the rover at the “Rocknest” site about half an inch (1.3 centimeters) long. The rover team has assessed this object as debris from the spacecraft, possibly from the events of landing on Mars. The image was taken on Sol 65 (Oct. 11, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Progress has been slowed somewhat by communications glitches with a radio transmitter at a Deep Space Network ground station and an unrelated new problem with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) which went into “safe mode” on Sol 69. MRO serves as the highest volume communications relay for Curiosity’s images and scientific and engineering data.

Tosol is Sol 71 and Curiosity is now 10 weeks into her two year long mission to investigate whether Mars ever had conditions sufficient to sustain microbial life forms.

Curiosity made a pinpoint landing inside Gale Crater on Aug. 5/6, just a few miles away from her ultimate destination – the sedimentary lower layers of Mount Sharp holding deposits of hydrated minerals.


Video Caption: This 256 frame video clip shows the 1st sample of Martian material being vibrated inside Curiosity’s table spoon sized scoop on Oct. 7, 2012.

Ken Kremer

Posted on by John Williams

Keeping an Earthly Eye on Io’s Insane Volcanic Activity

Although space missions Voyager and Galileo observed evidence of volcanic activity on Io, it was a faint blue plume at the edge of Io’s limb in a highly-enhanced image from Voyager that first offered evidence of the moon’s turbulent nature.

You fancy yourself an armchair astronomer? A group of California researchers have stepped it up a notch by monitoring the intense volcanic eruptions on Jupiter’s strangest moon Io from the comfort of their home.

Io, the innermost of the four largest moons around Jupiter, or the Galilean moons, is the most volcanically active object in the Solar System with more than 400 active volcanoes spitting out plumes of sulfur and sulfur dioxide. Scientists think a gravitational tug-of-war with Jupiter is one cause of Io’s intense vulcanism. Researchers point out that most of the processes are not well understood. While Io’s eruptions can’t be seen directly from Earth, a team led by Frank Marchis, a researcher at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute have come up with an unique combination of Earth-based telescope arrays and archival imagery from the Voyager and Galileo probes, according to a press release. The team announced their findings at the 2012 Division of Planetary Sciences meeting today in Reno, Nevada.

“Since our first observation of Io in 2001 using the W. M. Keck II 10-m telescope from the top of Mauna Kea in Hawaii and its AO (adaptive optics) system, our group became very excited about the technology,” says Marchis. “We also began using AO at the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and at the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. The technology has improved over the years, and the image quality and usefulness of those complex instruments has made them part of the essential instrument suite for large telescopes.”

A faint blue plume on a grainy and highly enhanced image from Voyager 1 first hinted at Io’s dynamic nature. Voyager’s cameras showed a bizarre terrain of volcanic fields, dark spots and active plumes. Scientists nicknamed it the “Pizza Moon.” NASA’s Galileo probe observed more than 160 active volcanoes in various stages of eruption during its looping tour of the solar system’s largest planet.

But crystal clear pictures from Galileo ceased in 2003. Observing a Moon-sized object at the incredible distance to Jupiter from Earth is a challenge because of the blurring caused by Earth’s stirring atmosphere. Since 2001, all large 8- to 10-meter telescopes have been equipped with adaptive optics that correct for that blur. Since 2003, Marchis and his team have gathered about 40 cycles of observations of Io in the near-infrared showing details as small as 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, on the surface of the moon.

Observations of several bright & young eruptions detected at short wavelengths (~2.1 microns) on the top and longer wavelengths (~3.2 microns) on the bottom since 2004 using the W. M. Keck 10-meter telescope (May 2004, Aug 2007, Sep 2007, July 2009), the Gemini North 8-meter telescope (Aug 2007), and the ESO VLT-Yepun 8-meter telescope (Feb 2007), all with their adaptive optics systems. The thermal signature of the Tvashtar outburst can be seen near the north pole on images collected in 2007. A new eruption on Pillan Patera was seen in Aug 2007. A young and bright eruption was detected on Loki Patera in July 2009. This is the last bright eruption that was detected in our survey; since then, Io’s volcanic activity has been quiescent. Credit: F. Marchis

“Spacecraft have only been able to capture fleeting glimpses of Io’s volcanoes, Voyager for a few months, Galileo a few years, and New Horizons a few days. Ground-based observations, on the other hand, can continue to monitor Io’s volcanoes over long time-scales. The more telescopes looking at Io, the better time coverage we can obtain.” Said Julie Rathbun from Redlands University, a planetary scientist not directly involved in this study but who has conducted monitoring of Io with NASA’s IRTF 3-meter telescope for more than 15 years. “AO observations from 8-10m class telescopes are a dramatic improvement in spatial resolution over previous ground-based observations. Soon they will not only be our only way to monitor Io’s volcanoes, but the best way. We should be making these observations more often.”

Simulation of observations of Io using the W. M. Keck telescope and its current AO system, a next-generation AO system mounted on the W. M. Keck telescope (KNGAO), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) equipped with its AO system (NFIRAOS). The spatial resolution on the center of Io provided by these AO systems is respectively 140 km, 110 km and 35 km in the H band (1.6 microns). Two young eruptive centers labeled A & B can be detected only on the TMT observations. The KNGAO instrument detected the brightest eruption labeled A. Credit: F. Marchis

According to the team, observations reveal a series of young and energetic eruptions called outbursts. These events stand out indicating a high eruption temperature. Coincidentally, the team observed the awakening of the volcano Tvashtar while New Horizons slingshot past Jupiter on its way to Pluto. The eruption lasted from April 2006 to September 2007. Older observations from Galileo show a similar eruption pattern in 1999 lasting for 15 months.

“The episodicity of these volcanoes points to a regular recharge of magma storage chambers” said Ashley Davies a volcanologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and a member of the study. “This will allow us to model the eruption process and understand the how heat is removed from Io’s deep interior by this particular style of volcanic activity.”

The team found four additional eruptions including a previously unobserved active volcano in 2004. The new sporadic blast accounted for about 10 percent of Io’s average thermal output, according to Marchis. The outburst was more energetic than Tvashtar in 2001. While the team continues to study Io, they have noted that since September 2010, the crazily active moon has been mostly quiet. A dozen or so permanent, low temperature eruptions dot the globe but the team has not detected the young, fire fountain style eruptions seen before.

“The next giant leap in the field of planetary astronomy is the arrival of Giant Segmented Mirror Telescopes, such as the Thirty Meter Telescope expected to be available in 2021. It will provide a spatial resolution of 35 km in the near-infrared, equivalent to the spatial resolution of global observations taken by the Galileo spacecraft. When pointed at Io, these telescopes will offer the equivalent of a spacecraft flyby of the satellite,” Marchis said.

Source: SETI

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Voyager 1 May Have Left the Solar System

Number of particles from the Sun hitting Voyager 1. Credit: NASA

While there’s no official word from NASA on this, the buzz around the blogosphere is that Voyager 1 has left the Solar System. The evidence comes from this graph, above, which shows the number of particles, mainly protons, from the Sun hitting Voyager 1 across time. A huge drop at the end of August hints that Voyager 1 may now be in interstellar space. The last we heard from the Voyager team was early August, and they indicated that on July 28, the level of lower-energy particles originating from inside our Solar System dropped by half. However, in three days, the levels had recovered to near their previous levels. But then the bottom dropped out at the end of August.

The Voyager team has said they have been seeing two of three key signs of changes expected to occur at the boundary of interstellar space. In addition to the drop in particles from the Sun, they’ve also seen a jump in the level of high-energy cosmic rays originating from outside our Solar System.

The third key sign would be the direction of the magnetic field. No word on that yet, but scientists are eagerly analyzing the data to see whether that has, indeed, changed direction. Scientists expect that all three of these signs will have changed when Voyager 1 has crossed into interstellar space.

“These are thrilling times for the Voyager team as we try to understand the quickening pace of changes as Voyager 1 approaches the edge of interstellar space,” said Edward Stone, the Voyager project scientist for the entire mission, who was quoted in early August. “We are certainly in a new region at the edge of the solar system where things are changing rapidly. But we are not yet able to say that Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space.”

Stone added that the data are changing in ways that the team didn’t expect, “but Voyager has always surprised us with new discoveries.”

Voyager 1 launched on Sept. 5, 1977, is approximately 18 billion kilometers (11 billion miles) from the Sun. Voyager 2, which launched on Aug. 20, 1977, is close behind, at 15 billion km (9.3 billion miles) from the Sun.

Sources: NASA, Eric Berger/ Houston Chronicle, Scientific American

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Set for 1st Martian Scooping at ‘Rocknest’ Ripple

Image caption: Context view of Curiosity working at ‘Rocknest’ Ripple. Curiosity’s maneuvers robotic arm for close- up examination of ‘Rocknest’ ripple site and inspects sandy material at “bootlike” wheel scuff mark with the APXS (Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer) and MAHLI (Mars Hand Lens Imager) instruments positioned on the rotatable turret at the arm’s terminus. Mosaic was stitched together from Sol 57 & 58 Navcam raw images and shows the arm extended to fine grained sand ripple in context with the surrounding terrain and eroded rim of Gale Crater rim on the horizon. Rocknest patch measures about 8 feet by 16 feet (2.5 meters by 5 meters).See NASA JPL test scooping video below. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

NASA’s Curiosity rover is set to scoop up her 1st sample of Martian soil this weekend at a soil patch nicknamed ‘Rocknest’ -see our context mosaic above – and will funtion as a sort of circulatory system cleanser for all the critical samples to follow. This marks a major milestone on the path to delivering Mars material to the sample acquisition and processing system for high powered analysis by the robots chemistry labs and looking for the ingredients of life, said the science and engineering team leading the mission at a media briefing on Thursday, Oct 4.

Since landing on the Red Planet two months ago on Aug. 5/6, Curiosity has trekked over 500 yards eastwards across Gale crater towards an intriguing area named “Glenelg” where three different types of geologic terrain intersect.

This week on Oct. 2 (Sol 56), the rover finally found a wind driven patch of dunes at ‘Rocknest’ with exactly the type of fine grained sand that the team was looking for and that’s best suited as the first soil to scoop and injest into the sample acquisition system.

See NASA JPL earthly test scooping video below to visualize how it works:

“We now have reached an important phase that will get the first solid samples into the analytical instruments in about two weeks,” said Mission Manager Michael Watkins of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The rover used its wheels to purposely scuff the sand and expose fresh soil – and it sure looked like the first human “bootprint” left on the Moon by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Curiosity will remain at the “Rocknest” location for the next two to three weeks as the team fully tests and cleans the walls of most of the sample collection, handling and analysis hardware – except for the drilling equipment – specifically to remove residual contaminants from Earth.

Image caption: ‘Rocknest’ From Sol 52 Location on Sept. 28, 2012, four sols before the rover arrived at Rocknest. The Rocknest patch is about 8 feet by 16 feet (1.5 meters by 5 meters). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The purpose of this initial scoop is to use the sandy material to thoroughly clean out, rinse and scrub all the plumbing pipes, chambers, labyrinths and interfaces housed inside the complex CHIMRA sampling system and the SAM and CheMin chemistry labs of an accumulation of a very thin and fine oily layer that could cause spurious, interfering readings when the truly important samples of Martian soil and rocks are collected for analysis starting in the near future.

The scientists especially do not want any false signals of organic compounds or other inorganic materials and minerals stemming from Earthly contamination while the rover and its instruments were assembled together and processed for launch.

“Even though we make this hardware super squeaky clean when it’s delivered and assembled at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, by virtue of its just being on Earth you get a kind of residual oily film that is impossible to avoid,” said Daniel Limonadi of JPL, lead systems engineer for Curiosity’s surface sampling and science system. “And the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument is so sensitive we really have to scrub away this layer of oils that accumulates on Earth.”

The team plans to conduct three scoop and rinse trials – dubbed rinse and discard – of the sample acquisition systems. So it won’t be until the 3rd and 4th soil scooping at Rocknest that a Martian sample would actually be delivered for entry into the SAM and CheMin analytical chemistry instruments located on the rover deck.

“What we’re doing at the site is we take the sand sample, this fine-grained material and we effectively use it to rinse our mouth three times and then kind of spit out,” Limonadi said. “We will take a scoop, we will vibrate that sand on all the different surfaces inside CHIMRA to effectively sand-blast those surfaces, then we dump that material out and we rinse and repeat three times to finish cleaning everything out. Our Earth-based testing has found that to be super effective at cleaning.”

Limondi said the first scooping is likely to be run this Saturday (Oct 6) on Sol 61, if things proceed as planned. Scoop samples will be vibrated at 8 G’s to break them down to a very fine particle size that can be easily passed through a 150 micron sieve before entering the analytical instruments.

The team is being cautious, allowing plenty of margin time and will not proceed forward with undue haste.

“We’re being deliberately slow and incredibly careful,” said Watkins. “We’re taking a lot of extra steps here to make sure we understand exactly what’s going on, that we won’t have to do every time we do a scoop in the future.”

Curiosity’s motorized, clamshell-shaped scoop measures 1.8 inches (4.5 centimeters) wide, 2.8 inches (7 centimeters) long, and can sample to a depth of about 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters). It is part of the CHIMRA collection and handling device located on the tool turret at the end of the rover’s arm.

“The scoop is about the size of an oversized table spoon,” said Limonadi.

Image caption: Curiosity extends 7 foot long arm to investigate ‘Bathurst Inlet’ rock outcrop with the MAHLI camera and APXS chemical element spectrometer in this mosaic of Navcam images assembled from Sols 53 & 54 (Sept. 29 & 30, 2012). Mount Sharp, the rover’s eventual destination is visible on the horizon. Thereafter the rover drove more than 77 feet (23 meters) eastwards to reach the ‘Rocknest’ sand ripple. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

During the lengthy stay at Rocknest, the rover will conduct extensive investigations of the surrounding rocks and terrain with the cameras, ChemCam laser, DAN, RAD as well as weather monitoring with the REMS instrument.

After finishing her work at Rocknest, Curiosity will resume driving eastward to Glenelg, some 100 meters (yards) away where the team will select the first targets and rock outcrops to drill, sample and analyze.

At Glenelg and elsewhere, researchers hope to find more evidence for the ancient Martian stream bed they discovered at rock outcrops at three different locations that Curiosity has already visited.

Curiosity is searching for organic molecules and evidence of potential habitable environments to determine whether Mars could have supported Martian microbial life forms, past or present.

Ken Kremer

Image caption: Curiosity’s Travels Through Sol 56 – Oct. 2, 2012

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Roving Curiosity at Work on Mars Searching for Ingredients of Life

Image Caption: Curiosity at work on Mars inside Gale Crater. Panoramic mosaic showing Curiosity in action with her wheel tracks and the surrounding terrain snapped from the location the rover drove to on Sol 29 (Sept 4). The time lapse imagery highlights post drive wheel tracks at left, movement of the robotic arm from the stowed to deployed position with pointing instrument turret at right with Mt Sharp and a self portrait of Curiosity’s instrument packed deck top at center. This colorized mosaic was assembled from navigation camera (Navcam) images taken over multiple Martian days while stationary beginning on Sol 29. Click to Enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

NASA’s Mega Martian Rover Curiosity is swiftly trekking across the Red Planet’s science rich terrain inside Gale Crater as she approaches the two month anniversary since the daring atmospheric plunge and pinpoint touchdown on Aug. 5/6 beside her eventual destination of the richly layered mountainside of Mount Sharp.

In this ultra short span of time, Curiosity has already fulfilled on her stated goal of seeking the signs of life and potentially habitable environments by discovering evidence for an ancient Martian stream bed at three different locations – at the landing site and stops along her traverse route – where hip deep liquid water once vigorously flowed billions of years ago. Liquid water is a prerequisite for the origin of life.

Curiosity discovered a trio of outcrops of stones cemented into a layer of conglomerate rock – initially at “Goulburn” scour as exposed by the landing thrusters and later at the “Link” and “Hottah” outcrops during the first 40 sols of the mission.

If they find another water related outcrop, Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Project Manager John Grotzinger told me that the robotic arm will be deployed to examine it.

“We would do all the arm-based contact science first, and then make the decision on whether to drill. If we’re still uncertain, then we still have time to deliberate,” Grotzinger told me.

Image caption: Remnants of Ancient Streambed on Mars. NASA’s Curiosity rover found evidence for an ancient, flowing stream on Mars at a few sites, including the rock outcrop pictured here, which the science team has named “Hottah” after Hottah Lake in Canada’s Northwest Territories. It may look like a broken sidewalk, but this geological feature on Mars is actually exposed bedrock made up of smaller fragments cemented together, or what geologists call a sedimentary conglomerate. Scientists theorize that the bedrock was disrupted in the past, giving it the titled angle, most likely via impacts from meteorites. This image mosaic was taken by the 100-millimeter Mastcam telephoto lens on Sol 39 (Sept. 14, 2012). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

“This is the first time we’re actually seeing water-transported gravel on Mars. This is a transition from speculation about the size of streambed material to direct observation of it,” said Curiosity science co-investigator William Dietrich of the University of California, Berkeley.

Image Caption: Curiosity conducts 1st contact science experiment at “Jake” rock on Mars. This 360 degree panoramic mosaic of images from Sols 44 to 47 (Sept 20-23) shows Curiosity arriving near Jake rock on Sol 44. The robot then drove closer. Inset image from Sol 47 shows the robotic arm extended to place the science instruments on the rock and carry out the first detailed contact science examination of a Martian rock with the equipment positioned on the turret at the arms terminus. Jake rock is named in honor of recently deceased team member Jake Matijevic. This mosaic was created in tribute to Jake and his outstanding contributions. Click to Enlarge. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

The one-ton robot soon departed from her touchdown vicinity at “Bradbury Landing” and set off on a multi-week eastwards traverse to her first science target which the team has dubbed “Glenelg”.

See our panoramic Curiosity mosaics herein showing the rovers movements on various Sols as created by Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo from NASA raw images.

Curiosity is also now closing in on the spot from which she will reach out with the advanced 7 foot long (2.1 meter) robotic arm to scoop up her very first Martian soil material and deliver samples to the on board chemistry labs.

At a Sept. 27 briefing for reporters, Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena, Calif., said the team hopes to find a suitable location to collect loose, gravelly Martian soil within the next few sols that can be easily sifted into the analytical labs. Curiosity will then spend about 2 or 3 weeks investigating the precious material and her surroundings, before continuing on to Glenelg.

The science team chose Glenelg as the first target for detailed investigation because it sits at the intersection of three distinct types of geologic terrain, affording the researchers the opportunity to comprehensively explore the diverse geology inside the Gale Crater landing site long before arriving at the base of Mount Sharp. That’s important because the rover team estimates it will take a year or more before Curiosity reaches Mount Sharp, which lies some 10 kilometers (6 miles) away as the Martian crow flies.

As of today, Sol 53, Curiosity has driven a total distance of 0.28 mile (0.45 kilometer) or more than ¾ of the way towards Glenelg. Yestersol (Sol 52), the six wheeled robot drove about 122 feet (37.3 meters) toward the Glenelg area and is using visual odometry to assess her progress and adjust for any wheel slippage that could hint at sand traps or other dangerous obstacles.

The longest drive to date just occurred on Sol 50 with the robot rolling about 160 feet (48.9 meters).

Curiosity recently conducted her first detailed rock contact science investigation with the robotic arm at a rock named “Jake”, in honor of Jake Matijevic, a recently deceased MSL team member who played a key and leading role on all 3 generations of NASA’s Mars rovers. See our 360 degree panoramic “Jake rock” mosaic created in tribute to Jake Matijevic.

Curiosity is searching for hydrated minerals, organic molecules and signs of habitats favorable for past or present microbial life on Mars.

Ken Kremer

Image Caption: “Hottah” water related outcrop. Context mosaic shows location of Hottah” outcrop (bottom right) sticking out from the floor of Gale Crater as imaged by Curiosity Navcam on Sol 38 with Mount Sharp in the background. The Glenelg science target lies in the terrain towards Mt Sharp. This is what an astronaut geologist would see on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo

Alluvial Fan Where Water Flowed Downslope. This image shows the topography, with shading added, around the area where NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The black oval indicates the targeted landing area for the rover known as the “landing ellipse,” and the cross shows where the rover actually landed.An alluvial fan, or fan-shaped deposit where debris spreads out downslope, has been highlighted in lighter colors for better viewing. On Earth, alluvial fans often are formed by water flowing downslope. New observations from Curiosity of rounded pebbles embedded with rocky outcrops provide concrete evidence that water did flow in this region on Mars, creating the alluvial fan. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UofA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Planets in our Solar System May Have Formed in Fits and Starts

Solar shockwaves would have produced proto-planetary rings at different times, meaning the planets did not form simultaneously (artist concept). Credit: ESO.

Did all the planets in our Solar System form at about the same time? Conventional thinking says the components of our Solar System all formed at the same time, and formed rather quickly. But new research indicates that a series of shockwaves emitted from our very young Sun may have caused the planets to form at different times over millions of years.

“The planets formed in intervals – not altogether, as was previously thought,” said Dr. Tagir Abdylmyanov, Associate Professor from Kazan State Power Engineering University in Russia.

Abdylmyanov’s research, which models the movements of particles in fluids and gasses and in the gas cloud from which our Sun accreted, indicates that the first series of shockwaves during short but very rapid changes in solar activity would have created the proto-planetary rings for Uranus, Neptune, and dwarf planet Pluto first. Jupiter, Saturn, and the asteroid belt would have come next during a series of less powerful shockwaves. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars would have formed last, when the Sun was far calmer. This means that our own planet is one of the youngest in the Solar System.

“It is difficult to say exactly how much time would have separated these groups,” Abdylmyanov said, “but the proto-planetary rings for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would have likely formed very close to the Sun’s birth. 3 million years later and we would see the debris ring destined to form Saturn. Half a million years after this we would see something similar but for Jupiter. The asteroid belt would have begun to form about a million years after that, and another half a million years on we would see the very early stages of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.”

The shockwaves emitted from the new-born Sun would have rippled out material at different times, creating a series of debris rings around the Sun from which the planets formed.

Abdylmayanov hopes that this research will help us understand the development of planets around distant stars. “Studying the brightness of stars that are in the process of forming could give indications as to the intensity of stellar shockwaves. In this way we may be able to predict the location of planets around far-flung stars millions of years before they have formed.”

His work was part of the European Planetary Science Congress taking place this week in Madrid, Spain.

Posted on by Jason Major

Saturn Shows Off Its Shadow

Take a look up at the enormous shadow cast by Saturn onto its own rings in this raw image, acquired by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on September 18, 2012.

Cassini captured this image from below Saturn’s ring plane at a distance of 1,393,386 miles (2,242,437 kilometers). It shows not only the gas giant’s shadow but also the wispy nature of the rings, which, although complex, extensive and highly reflective (the light seen on Saturn above is reflected light from the rings!) they are still very thin — less than a mile (about 1 km) on average and in some places as little as thirty feet (10 meters) thick.

Seen in the right light, some of the thin innermost rings can seem to nearly disappear entirely — especially when backlit by Saturn itself.

Views like the one above are once again possible because of Cassini’s new orbit, which takes it high above and below the ring plane, providing a new perspective for studying Saturn and its moons. Ultimately by next April the spacecraft will be orbiting Saturn at an inclination of about 62 degrees — that’d be like an orbit around Earth that goes from Alaska to the northernmost tip of Antarctica. (Find out how Cassini alters its orbit here.)

With this viewpoint Cassini will get some great views of Saturn’s north and south poles, which are gradually moving into their summer and winter seasons, respectively, during the ringed planet’s 29.5-Earth-year orbital period.

After more than 8 years in orbit Cassini is still fascinating us with enthralling images of Saturn on a regular basis. Read more about the Cassini mission here.

Cassini spots shepherd moons Pan (within the Encke Gap) and Prometheus (along the inner edge of the F ring) in an image acquired on Sept. 18, 2012

Images: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.