Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Communication Glitch for Phoenix, MRO

The UHF communications radio on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has switched to standby and was unable to relay instructions to the Phoenix lander for its activities for sol 2, which included unstowing its robotic arm. The problem arose at 0608 PDT on Tuesday. MRO did receive the sol 2 sequence from Earth – meaning the communications link between Earth and MRO continues to operate normally. But subsequently MRO reported that there had been a “problem with the handshake between MRO and Phoenix,” said Fuk Li, manager of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. A ‘handshake’ is the set of signals the radios on the two spacecraft send each other to establish a data-communications link.

“All this is is a one-day hiccup in being able to move the arm around, so it’s no big deal,” said Ed Sedivy, Phoenix program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

The next opportunity to send commands to Phoenix will occur on Wednesday morning, when Mars Odyssey, the other spacecraft used to communicate with Phoenix, passes over the landing site. At that time, the commands that failed to reach the lander today will be transmitted. We’ll keep you posted.

Also, we’ll take this opportunity to share a couple of other tidbits about Phoenix. The image above was taken on sol 1, and shows Phoenix’s backshell off in the distance.


On board Phoenix is a weather station, contributed by the Canadian Space Agency and University of Aarhus in Denmark. The weather station was activated in the first hour after landing on Mars. Measurements are being recorded continuously. Skies were clear and sunny on Sol 1 on Mars. The temperature varied between minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit in the early morning and minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon. The average pressure was 8.55 millibars, which is less than a 1/100th of the sea level pressure on Earth.

This image shows the spacecraft’s robotic arm in its stowed configuration, with the a biobarrier, a shiny, protective film, that covers the arm on landing day, or Sol (Martian day) 0, and then the biobarrier was removed during lander’s first full day on Mars, Sol 1.

The “elbow” of the arm can be seen at the top center of the picture, and the biobarrier is the shiny film seen to the left of the arm.

The biobarrier is an extra precaution to protect Mars from contamination with any bacteria from Earth. While the whole spacecraft was decontaminated through cleaning, filters and heat, the robotic arm was given additional protection because it is the only spacecraft part that will directly touch the ice below the surface of Mars. After Phoenix landed, springs were used to pop back the barrier, giving it room to deploy.

These images were taken on May 25, 2008 and May 26, 2008 by the spacecraft’s Surface Stereo Imager.

News Sources: Astrobiology Magazine, JPL Phoenix News

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

The A-Train: Using Five Satellites as One to Analyze Polluted Clouds

The A-Train - 5 satellites collaborate to scan polluted clouds (NASA)

This is one of the finest examples of satellite collaboration. Five Earth-observing orbiters, four from NASA and one from France, are working together to provide the deepest analysis of cloud cover ever carried out. The satellites orbit in a close formation, only eight minutes apart, and create what is known as the “Afternoon Constellation” (or “A-Train” for short). They are so close in fact, that they can be considered to act as one satellite, capable of carrying out a vast suite of measurements on the pollution content of clouds. This work is shedding new light on the link between clouds, pollution and rainfall, a study that could never be achieved with one satellite alone…

Pollution in clouds is a critical problem for the international community. These rogue particles can seriously change the natural behaviour of clouds and entire weather systems, but until now, scientists have been uncertain about the difference in rainfall from polluted and unpolluted cloud cover. This is primarily because no single environmental satellite has been able to probe deep into clouds with the limited number of instruments it can carry. But using the collective power of five independent satellites, scientists are beginning to unlock the secrets polluted clouds have been hiding.

Particulates from pollution mixing with clouds above the US (NASA)

Researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) in Pasadena have recently discovered that clouds peppered with pollutant particles do not produce as much rain as their unpolluted counterparts. This finding was only possible after analysing data from the near-simultaneous measurements made by the five A-Train satellites. The constellation includes NASA’s Aqua, Aura, CloudSat and CALIPSO and the French Space Agency’s PARASOL.

“Typically, it is very hard to get a sense of how important the effect of pollution on clouds is. With the A-Train, we can see the clouds every day and we’re getting confirmation on a global scale that we have an issue here.” – Anne Douglass, project scientist at Goddard for NASA’s Aura satellite.

The A-Train is turning up some interesting, if alarming, results. When focusing on the skies above South America during the June-October dry season, the JPL team found that the increased level of agricultural burning during this period injected more aerosols into the clouds. This had the effect of shrinking the size of ice crystals in the clouds, preventing the crystals from getting large enough to fall as rain. This direct effect of burning and ice crystal formation has never been connected before the use of the A-Train. However, during wet seasons, the aerosol content in clouds appeared not to be a critical factor on the amount of rainfall.

How is it possible to distinguish between polluted and unpolluted clouds? Firstly, the A-Train’s Aura satellite measures the concentration of carbon monoxide in the clouds. This is a strong indicator for the presence of smoke and other aerosols originating from a power plant or agricultural activities. When the polluted clouds are identified, the A-Train’s Aqua satellite can be called into use. Using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument, the size of ice crystals in polluted and unpolluted clouds can be measured. Next up is NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite that can measure the amount of precipitation (rain) from polluted and unpolluted clouds.

Through this combination of satellites, scientists are able to link pollution with clouds with precipitation. This is only one example of the flexibility behind collaborations such as A-Train, so cloud science can only go from strength to strength.

Source: Physorg.com

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Why the Phoenix Landing Site is Perfect

Permafrost on Mars (top) compared to Earth (bottom). Image credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Phoenix’s landing site may look flat and uninteresting. But actually, the site is perfect, and is exactly what the Phoenix science team was hoping for. You see, Phoenix is actually more interested in what is below the surface. From one of the first images sent back by Phoenix, a view of Mars’ surface at this site reveals a landscape familiar to polar scientists on Earth: a pattern of interlocking polygon shapes that form in permafrost that freezes and thaws seasonally. These polygon patterns were seen in orbital pictures taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as other spacecraft, and these polygon shapes are part of the evidence that Mars’ polar regions harbor large quantities of frozen water.

This pair of images above shows the similarities between the surface of Mars where Phoenix landed (top) and permafrost on northeastern Spitsbergen, Svalbard (bottom) an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of mainland Europe, about midway between Norway and the North Pole. The polygon patterns in the permafrost form when the upper parts of the ground thaw and refreeze from season to season. The ground contracts in the winter cold, creating small spaces that fill with melted water in the summer. When winter returns and the water freezes, it acts like a wedge, enlarging the cracks.


The Phoenix landing site with polygon shapes visible from orbit via MRO.

The only difference in these photos is the Earth image shows water on the surface, and on Mars, water couldn’t pool on the surface because the low atmospheric pressure would cause any water that might bubble to the surface to sublimate. But the thaw/freeze process could presumably occur beneath Mars’ surface with far less water.

And why is this so interesting? On Earth, permafrost, glaciers, and other frozen environments can preserve organic molecules, bacteria, and fungi for hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years. The Phoenix spacecraft has scientific instruments that will dig into the frozen ground of the Martian Arctic, vaporize the soil sample, and analyze the chemistry of the vapors. Scientists hope to learn whether ice just below the surface ever thaws and whether some chemical ingredients of life are preserved in the icy soil.

That’s why Phoenix’s landing site is perfect.

Original News Source: NASA Earth Observatory

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Another HiRISE Stunner: The Full Descent Image

I hope you’re not tired of seeing HiRISE images of Phoenix, but this one shows the grandeur of Mars compared to the tininess of our spacecraft. Remember the close-up image of Phoenix descending to Mars’ surface with its parachute? Well, the HiRISE folks were holding back on us. Above is the jaw-dropping full image, with the inset being the close-up of Phoenix! What an amazing vista, and our little Phoenix is just a tiny pixel or two in the entire image. That the imaging team found Phoenix in this photo is incredible. And no, Phoenix is not heading into the crater, as it appears. The lander is actually about 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) in front of the crater. This is just so amazing.

Tell me when you’ve had enough of these images, but I’m saying, “Keep ’em coming!”

I love HiRISE even more.

BTW, the crater is informally called “Heimdall,” and is about 10 km (6 miles) wide.

Original Source: JPL Phoenix News

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

HiRISE Does It Again; Captures Phoenix On Mars’ Surface

The HiRISE Camera Imaging Team for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter keeps outdoing themselves. First, they imaged Mars’ surface in such fine detail to help choose a safe yet interesting landing site for Phoenix. Then they beat the odds and actually captured Phoenix during its descent to Mars surface, which is completely incredible. And now, in very short order they’ve located and imaged Phoenix and all its accoutrements sitting on Mars north polar region. The parachute (lower left) is easy to identify because it is especially bright and the backshell is still attached to the parachute cords. The double dark marking at right is consistent with disturbance of the ground from impact and bouncing of the heat shield, which fell from a height of about 10 kilometers. The last object (upper left) is the Phoenix Lander whose two solar panels on either side of the lander are clearly visible.

To give you a sense of scale of what you’re seeing, the solar panels are about 5.5 meters (about 18 feet) across, and about 22 pixels in this image. The parachute and lander are about 300 meters, roughly 1,000 feet, apart. All seen and imaged by MRO from orbit. Amazing.

I love HiRISE.

In other Phoenix news, the commands to activate the robotic arm will be sent Wednesday morning via communications with, appropriately enough, MRO.

See below for close-ups and the entire image without the inserts.

All these images were acquired about 22 hours after Phoenix landed at about 3:00PM local time on the surface. The rest of the HiRISE observation shows a cloud free day for Phoenix Lander operations.

Close up of the Phoenix lander.

Parachute and backshell.

Source: HiRISE

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

The Wizard Takes Off Without Dorothy: Skydiver’s Balloon Leaves Him Behind

We can only imagine the disappointment skydiver Michel Fournier must have felt watching his helium balloon take off without him, a la Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz.” Today, Fournier was going to attempt a record setting skydiving leap from 130,000 feet (40,000 meters), about three times higher than commercial airplanes fly. But the helium balloon he was going to use to soar to the stratosphere detached from the capsule that would have carried him heavenward. Reportedly, the balloon cost at least $200,000 USD and Fournier, 64, was said to have already exhausted his finances. The former paratrooper had planned to make the attempt Monday, but had to postpone his plans because of weather conditions. What a bummer.

The balloon was inflated on the ground at the airport in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. The balloon detached and drifted away into the sky without the capsule.

Fournier appeared disappointed as he left the capsule and walked to the hanger.

Attempts in 2002 and 2003 ended when wind gusts shredded his balloon before it even became airborne.

Fournier’s jump would have broken the record for the fastest and longest free fall, the highest parachute jump and the highest balloon flight. He also hoped to bring back data that will help astronauts and others survive in the highest of altitudes.

An army of technicians, data crunchers, balloon and weather specialists arrived recently in North Battleford, a city of 14,000 near the Saskatchewan-Alberta line, for the attempt.

Fournier had planned to make the jump in his native France, but the government denied him permission because it believed the project was too dangerous. He then came to North Battleford, an agricultural and transportation hub northwest of Saskatoon.

Original News Source: PhysOrg

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Solar Blast Seen in Unprecedented Detail (Video)

Periodically our sun blasts streams of hot, ionized gas into the solar system. These eruptions, called coronal mass ejections or CMEs pose a potential threat to astronauts or satellites if aimed at Earth. On April 9, the Sun erupted with a CME, and because the eruption was located on the edge or limb of the sun, it was observed in unprecedented detail by a fleet of spacecraft, revealing new features that are predicted by computer models but are otherwise difficult to see, even for specialized sun-watching spacecraft. From these observations, astronomers have been able to create an animation of this spectacular event.

When a CME occurs, usually spacecraft watching the event need to protect themselves from the bright X-ray solar flare associate with a CME. However, since the April 9 CME occurred on the edge or limb of the Sun as viewed from Earth, the solar flare was hidden from view, which allowed spacecraft to take longer exposures and uncover fainter structures than usual.

“Observations like this are very rare,” said Smithsonian astronomer Ed DeLuca.

Using the Smithsonian-developed X-ray Telescope (XRT) aboard the Japanese Hinode sun-watching satellite, astronomers saw a spiral (helical) magnetic structure unwind as it left the Sun during the CME. Such unwinding can release energy as the magnetic field goes from a more twisted to a less twisted configuration, thereby helping to power the eruption.

Hours later, XRT revealed an inflow of material toward a feature that appears as a bright line—actually an object known as a current sheet seen edge-on. A current sheet is a thin, electrified sheet of gas where oppositely directed magnetic field lines annihilate one another in a process known as magnetic reconnection. The extended observations from XRT show that magnetic fields flow in toward the current sheet for many hours after the eruption, progressing first toward the sheet and then down to the sun’s surface.

The astronomers were able to create an animation of the event.

They also determined that the temperature of the current sheet is between 5 and 18 million degrees Fahrenheit, which matches previous measurements higher up in the corona by the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer on the SOHO spacecraft.

Astronomers study these explosions in hope of being able to predict them and provide “space weather” forecasts.

Original News Source: Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

China Launches Second Olympic Satellite; Will Help Earthquake Zone

Fengyun-3 launched on a Long March-4C rocket from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in the Shanxi province (chinanews.com)

China is stepping up its preparations for this year’s Olympics to be held in the Chinese capital, Beijing. Concern is growing for the start of the games this summer as early August is known to be a wet period in the region. More advanced weather satellites are therefore being sent into orbit to aid the forecasting effort. This is good timing for improved weather satellite technology as the earthquake-striken Sichuan province recovery effort has been hampered by poor weather conditions. Aid and search operations will greatly benefit from better weather forecasting…

At 11:02 Beijing Time (03:02 GMT) today, one of the most advanced weather satellites to be sent into space by China was launched from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province. The satellite, called Fengyun-3, was launched by a Long March-4C carrier rocket. The ascent took 27 minutes from launch to orbital insertion.

This is the next generation in weather satellite technology for the nation. Fengyun-3 is carrying three-dimensional sensors that will measure the dynamics in the Earth’s atmosphere and climate. It will also monitor Polar Regions and ocean conditions. The sensors can measure temperature changes of 0.1F and has a spatial resolution of 250 meters (0.15 miles). This is a vast improvement on the resolution of its predecessors of only 1 kilometer (0.62 miles).

“The 250-m resolution images will be of vital significance for censoring global climate changes and possible subsequent natural disasters.” – Gao Huoshan, general director of the FY-3 research team.

Gao also describes Fengyun-3 as a key contributor to acquiring geographical data for aviation, navigation, agriculture, forestry and oceanography research. This impressive 2,295 kg (5,060 lb) satellite will be used extensively to aid weather predictions for the Olympics and will help disaster zones (such as the recent sequence of major earthquakes in the Sichuan province).

This is another Chinese success in space as the proud nation pushes for more development of homemade satellite technology. Since US rules barred the export of satellite components to China, there is a sense of urgency to develop their own direction in space. US rules do not seem to be restricting Chinese aspirations in space, China is planning for a manned Moon mission to launch soon after 2017.

Sources: China Daily, Physorg.com

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Astronomers Image Dying Supergiant Star

Image: NASA, Spitzer Satellite, SAGE Team

For the first time, a team of astronomers has taken a close-up image of an individual dying supergiant star, WHO G64, in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light years distant. Researchers have been trying for decades to look closely at how aging stars lose a considerable amount of their mass before they go supernova. But this is difficult because of the great distances. However, by combining two 8.2m telescopes in Chile as an interferometer, they achieved the resolving power of a 60-m telescope. With this super-sharp view, they discovered that the dying supergiant star is developing a thick dust torus around it. They estimated that the star had an initial mass of about 25 times the mass of our sun. But now, the star is shedding material so rapidly that it has already lost 10 – 40% of its initial mass and is speeding toward its final fate as a supernova.

When a star becomes older, it ejects a huge amount of material and gets embedded in a thick envelope, in which a variety of molecules and dust form. Even with the world’s largest optical telescopes with 8 – 10m diameters, it is still difficult to take a close-up shot of aging stars closest to Earth, let alone those outside our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

Using two or more telescopes combined as an “interferometer” provides a way to achieve much higher resolving power than an individual telescope alone. The ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) in Chile is one of the largest interferometers, combining two or three 8.2m telescopes. A team of researchers at Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) and the European Southern Observatory (ESO) these instruments at mid-infrared wavelengths, which is ideal for observing the thermal radiation from the dust envelope heated by the star.

“For the first time we could take a close-up view of an individual star outside our Galaxy, and this is an important first step to understand how dying stars in other galaxies differ from their counterparts in our Milky Way”, says Keiichi Ohnaka at the MPIfR. “We discovered that the dying supergiant star WOH G64 is surrounded by a thick dust torus which sort of looks like a thick bagel by comparing it with detailed theoretical modeling.” The diameter of the supergiant star is as large as the orbit of Saturn in the solar system. The dimensions of the whole torus are considerably larger: the inner edge of the torus is at 120 AU (“Astronomical Units”, corresponding to the distance of the Earth from the sun), the total size of the torus reaches almost one light year.

In the next few thousand or ten thousand years, WHO G64 will explode as a supernova. Judging from its mass of WOH G64, it will become visible to the unaided eye in the southern hemisphere. The supernova explosion will blow away most of the mass of WOH G64, which will then be recycled as the building blocks for stars of the next generation.

Original News Source: Max Plank Institute

Posted on by Ian O'Neill

Life Found a Mile Below Terrestrial Seabed; Implications For Life on Mars

Prokaryotes are found in very extreme places (Cyanosite)

We all know how hard life can be, but spare a thought for the microbes recently discovered 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) below the seabed off the coast of Canada. The living conditions are cramped, the environment is a searing 100°C (212F), and yet these hardy cells appear to be thriving. In the midst of the historic landing of Phoenix in the arctic wastes of Mars yesterday, the interest in finding life on the Red Planet has, yet again, reached fever pitch. Although Phoenix isn’t built to look for life, it is assessing the Martian surface water content for signs that it may (or may have been able to) support life. This new discovery of life so deep below the Earth’s surface may set some new limits on just how extreme life can be on other planets…

Off the Newfoundland coastline, scientists have burrowed far below the seabed. Smashing the previous record for subterranean life, this new discovery has found one of the most basic forms of terrestrial life living a mile deep (the previous record held at 842 meters, or 0.5 miles). As I’m no biologist, I’ll leave it to the Reuters news source to describe as to what was found:

Prokaryotes are microbes lacking nuclei, comprising archaea and some types of bacteria. The lack of cell nuclei distinguishes them from eukayrotes, or all animal and plant life. – Reuters

These prokaryote specimens were scooped from sediments dating 111 million years old. At these depths, the sediment is subjected to temperatures from 60-100°C (140-212F), and John Parks, professor at the University of Wales (UK), belives that this type of microbe can live even deeper. He believes more prokaryotes could be discovered up to 4 km (2.5 miles) below the seabed. This leads to the question as to whether life on other planets may not be found on the surface, but deep inside their crust.

“If there is a substantial subsurface biosphere on earth there could also be substantial biospheres on other planets. Just taking a scoop from the surface of Mars is not going to tell you whether there is life on Mars or not.” – Prof. John Parks

This obviously relates to the attempts made by previous Mars landers to analyse the surface for extraterrestrial microbes. However, a lot of information can be gained by analysing the surface composition for the materials required by life (as we know it) to survive. The Phoenix lander for instance was not designed for life hunting in mind, but it was designed to analyse the top layer of regolith for water content and evidence that liquid water may have once flowed in recent Mars history. Now we have extended our limit on where life may thrive, missions to Mars will need to burrow deeper into the surface, or we’ll simply have to wait till we can do it ourselves.

It is not clear where these subterranean microbes get their energy from. Sunlight probably isn’t a factor; methane and heat from volcanic vents seem more obvious candidates.

There is a problem associated with finding life this deep. It complicates possible plans to bury carbon dioxide emissions deep underground to slow the effects of climate change. It is a completely untouched ecosystem, dumping our waste could have serious consequences for these colonies of microbes. However, it might take some convincing as the U.N. Climate Panel has announced that carbon dioxide burial may be the key tool in the future to prevent this greenhouse gas from escaping into the atmosphere.

Source: Reuters