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Need to get away from it all? If you have a background in medicine, computers or engineering and can speak a little Russian and English, this might be just what you are looking for. The European Space Agency and the Russian Institute of Medical and Biological Problems are still looking for volunteers to participate in a 520-day simulation of an expedition to Mars. The institute announced last week the opening of registration, but haven’t yet gotten enough applicants. The nearly two-year experiment will simulate all aspects of a journey to the Red Planet, with a 250-day outward trip, a 30-day stay on its surface, and a 240-day return flight.
Basic requirements: age 25-50, higher education, knowledge of the Russian and English languages ensuring professional and household communication, and a citizen of Russia or ESA member countries.
This full-up simulation follows an earlier 14-day experiment in November 2007, and a 105-day simulation of a mission to Mars this year that ended in July. That mission involved four Russians and two members of the European Space Agency, who spent over three months hunkered down together in a lab that simulated life on board a spaceship. A warm-up 105-day mission took place in 2009, with participants from Germany and France and four Russians living together in cramped conditions. Credit: ESA
But now comes the real test. The mission is slated to begin mid-2010 and the participants will live and work in a sealed facility in Moscow, Russia, to investigate the psychological and medical aspects of a long-duration space mission, focusing on the effect that isolation has on the human subjects. Similar to reality TV, the six participants will be filmed throughout their stay.
Scientists will also test various life-support, communications and scientific equipment.
The crew will grow their own vegetables in a special lab, sleep in capsule-sized rooms and will only leave the facility during their 30-day trip to Mars “surface.” They will stick to a rigid daily regime of work, rest and exercise, and follow the same diet as crews aboard the International Space Station.
The participants will be paid, although the amount isn’t specified. For the 105-day mission, each participant was paid 15,500 Euros ($20,000).
Missions to Mars poster. Click for larger version.
If you enjoyed the zoomable poster of 50 year of space exploration, you’ll probably also like this new poster of Mars missions. It’s basically a bar graph, with missions to Mars as listed chronologically, and the mission result is coded by how close the corresponding bar reaches to Mars. The poster also lists a few of the upcoming missions as well. Cool!
Mackinac on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/ colorization by Stuart Atkinson
[/caption] Mackinac on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL/ colorization by Stuart Atkinson
Opportunity must be driving down Meteorite Alley on Mars. The rover has come across still another meteorite, the third space rock it has found the past few months, and fourth overall since 2005. This one is called Mackinac, which continues the “island” theme by which the science team has dubbed the meteorites. Block Island was found in July 2009, and Opportunity came upon Shelter Island the end of September (around sol 2020 for the rover). Mackinac was found on sol 2034 (Oct 13), and it looks very similar in composition to the two earlier meteorites. Opportunity analyzed the Block Island and found it was made of iron and nickel.
The image above was color calibrated by Stu Atkinson, who hangs out at UnmannedSpaceflight.com. You can find all the raw images Opportunity has sent back to Earth here, and raw images from Spirit here. But you can also follow Opportunity in other ways….
You can keep track of Opportunity’s travels through Meridiani Planum on its way to Endeavour Crater at one of Stu’s blogs, Road to Endeavour. But — and this is very fun — you can also follow Oppy on Google Mars, and see where it has found the meteorites. Tesheiner on UMSF regularly updates a route map, pinpointing the spots where the rover stops. Just go to Google Mars (download Google Earth and Mars here if you don’t have it yet), open up Google Mars, then click on this link, download and open, and you’ll be transported to Opportunity’s location on Mars. Extreme, extreme cool.
Now, you’ll notice that region of Google Mars doesn’t have high-resolution imagery yet. They’re working on it. In the meantime, though, if you want to see a great mosaic of the terrain that Opportunity is traveling through, check out this image below created by Ken Kremer, also of UMSF. This is from Sol 2010 showing Nereus Crater and dunes on the Road to Endeavour, where Oppy was just prior to discovering Shelter Island. The crater is about 10 meters across. Ken created this mosaic from raw images from the Cornell Pancam raw images, stitching multiple images together and calibrating the color. Beautiful! Click the image for a larger version over at Spaceflightnow.com. This image is also the Oct. 19 Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Thanks to Stu, Tesheiner and Ken for sharing their incredible Martian handiwork!
Opportunity mosaic from Sol 2010 showing Nereus Crater and dunes on the Road to Endeavour Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Spaceflight Now/Ken Kremer. Used by permission. Click image for larger version. Opportunity mosaic from Sol 2010 showing Nereus Crater and dunes on the Road to Endeavour Crater. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Spaceflight Now/Ken Kremer. Used by permission. Click image for larger version
Sand dunes on Mars from MRO's HiRISE camera. Credit: NASA/JPL University of Arizona
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I see the Bad Astronomer has beat me to the punch by posting this image before I could. But what an amazing and gorgeous image of dunes on Mars! However, my initial thought when I saw this on the HiRISE webpage was perhaps this was the first long-awaited look at Phil’s tattoo. Seriously, doesn’t this look like it could be body art? The dunes even have a Phil-like flesh color. But this wonderful image was taken by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. There is a great database of dune images gathered for the US Geological Survey on the HiRISE website, and below, take a gander at more lovely dune images:
Click on each image to learn more from the HiRISE website.
More Martian dunes from HiRISE.Russell Crater dunes. Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Dunes in the Western Nereidum Montes. Credit: NASA/JPL University of ArizonaSand dunes. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaDark dunes. Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Image from Opportunity's Panoramic camera on sol 2029. Credit: NASA/JPL, colorized and annoted by Stu Atkinson
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Oh no! Hopefully the same folks who went nuts over the Bigfoot on Mars don’t see this one! Could there really be a dragon on Mars? Relax, its just a shadow from Opportunity’s camera mast, distorted by the unusual and bumpy fusion crust surface of the Shelter Island meteorite that the Mars rover has been studying the past few days. But it seems rather fitting: “Here Be Dragons” is a phrase used to denote unexplored territories, and that is certainly where Oppy and Spirit are in their explorations of Mars.
Thanks to Stu Atkinson for the colorized version of this rover image.
Noctis Labyrinthus on Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona . Click for larger version.
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My description of this image: “Holy moly — what a gorgeous shot!” NASA’s description of this image: “Layers in the lower portion of two neighboring buttes within the Noctis Labyrinthus formation on Mars are visible in this image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.”
Absolutely beautiful. Click the image for access to larger versions. ‘Nuf said.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is testing a new robotic lunar lander test bed that will aid in the development of a new generation of multi-use landers for future robotic space exploration. Image Credit: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham
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The best way to study the new-found water on the Moon would be with in-situ instruments. Since humans won’t be making any lunar landings for at least a decade, the next best option is robotic spacecraft. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center is developing and testing a new robotic lander to explore not only the Moon, but also asteroids and Mars. This design is definitely next generation: it’s bigger than any lander yet and MSFC is currently testing the all-important final of reaching the destination: landing.
“Specifically, what we are doing at Marshall is identifying the terminal – or the final – phase of landing, and designing a robotic lander to meet those needs,” said Brian Mulac, a test engineer at Marshall, quoted in an article in the Huntsville Times. “That last part is the highest risk of setting down on the moon.”
Of course, parachutes can’t be used for landing on the Moon or asteroids, since neither destination has an atmosphere, so thrusters are key for landing.
Large, oval-shaped tanks on the craft are used to store fuel for thrusters. Thrusters guide the lander, controlling the vehicle’s altitude and speed for landing. An additional thruster on this test vehicle, above, offsets the effect of Earth’s gravity so that the other thrusters can operate as they would in a lunar environment.
Just in case the tests don’t go as planned, a huge net is place under the lander to catch the vehicle and avoid damaging it.
As the saying goes, it’s not the fall that’s dangerous, but the sudden stop.
MRO took these images of a fresh, 6-meter-wide (20-foot-wide) crater on Mars on Oct. 18, 2008, (left) and on Jan. 14, 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
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Images of recent impact craters taken by the HiRISE Camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed sub-surface water ice halfway between the north pole and the equator on Mars. While the Phoenix lander imaged subsurface ice where the top layer of soil had been disturbed at the landing site near the north pole, these new images – taken in quick succession, detecting how the ice sublimated away — are the first to show evidence of water ice at much lower latitudes. Surprisingly, the white ice may be made from 99 percent pure water.
“We knew there was ice below the surface at high latitudes of Mars, but we find that it extends far closer to the equator than you would think, based on Mars’ climate today,” said Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, a member of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera.
“The other surprising discovery is that ice exposed at the bottom of these meteorite impact craters is so pure,” Byrne said. “The thinking before was that ice accumulates below the surface between soil grains, so there would be a 50-50 mix of dirt and ice. We were able to figure out, given how long it took that ice to fade from view, that the mixture is about one percent dirt and 99 percent ice.”
Scientists used several instruments on MRO to take a series of images, detecting and confirming highly pure, bright ice exposed in new craters, ranging from 1.5 feet to 8 feet deep, at five different Martian sites. Earlier and later HiRISE images of a fresh meteorite crater 12 meters, or 40 feet, across located within Arcadia Planitia on Mars show how water ice excavated at the crater faded with time. The images, each 35 meters, or 115 feet across, were taken in November 2008 and January 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
The images here were taken of the Arcadia Planitia region, located northwest of the Tharsis region in the northern lowlands, at 40-60° North and 150-180° West. The before and after HiRISE images show a fresh meteorite crater 12 meters, or 40 feet, and reveal how water ice excavated at the crater faded with time. The images, each 35 meters, or 115 feet across, were taken in November 2008 and January 2009.
The discovery of these “white” impact craters began in August 2008, the orbiter’s Context camera team examined their images for any dark spots or other changes that weren’t visible in earlier images of the same area. Meteorites usually leave dark marks when they crash into dust-covered Mars terrain.
The HiRISE team followed up in September 2008 by taking high-resolution images of the dark spots.
“We saw something very unusual when we followed up on the first of these impact craters,” Byrne said, “and that was this bright blue material poking up from the bottom of the crater. It looked a lot like water ice. And sure enough, when we started monitoring this material, it faded away like you’d expect water ice to fade, because water ice is unstable on Mars’ surface and turns directly into water vapor in the atmosphere.”
A few days later in September 2008, the orbiter’s “CRISM” team used their Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and got the spectral signature of water ice exposed in one of the impact craters, further clinching the discovery. The HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this image of a new, 8-meter (26-foot)-diameter meteorite impact crater in the topographically flat, dark plains within Vastitas Borealis, Mars, on November 1, 2008. The crater was made sometime after Jan. 26, 2008. Bright water ice was excavated by, and now surrounds, the crater. This entire image is 50 meters (164 feet) across. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
“All of this had to happen very quickly because 200 days after we first saw the ice, it was gone, it was the color of dirt,” Byrne said. “If we had taken HiRISE images just a few months later, we wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual. This discovery would have just passed us by.”
How far water ice extends toward the equator depends largely on how much water has been available in the Martian atmosphere in the recent past, Byrne said: “The ice is a relic of a more humid climate not very long ago, perhaps just several thousand years ago.” This map shows five locations where fresh impact cratering has excavated water ice from just beneath the surface of Mars (sites 1 through 5) and the Viking Lander 2 landing site (VL2), in the context of color coding to indicate estimated depth to ice. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
While Phoenix’s discovery of sub-surface ice was not totally unexpected, finding highly pure ice far closer to the equator because of random meteor impacts was unexpected, he said.
There are several theories about how a layer of such pure ice could have formed beneath Mars surface. Byrne said he thinks that one of the most promising ideas is that this ice on Mars formed in the same way that pure ice lenses form beneath the surface of the Earth.
“That’s where you have very thin films of liquid water around ice grains and soil grains and they migrate around to form clear ice lenses on top of the ice table, even at temperatures well below zero. This process is called ‘frost heave’ on Earth, and it’s considered a nuisance in most places because it cracks up roads and tilts walls and destroys foundations of houses.
“But on Mars it would be of great interest if we could discover a process that involved liquid water in today’s climate, and not just in some of the warmest areas of the planet but in some of the coldest areas of the planet in the high latitude regions,” Byrne said.
Should Mars really be black? Credit: NASA/Mars Simulation Laboratory
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Is Mars red due to rocks being rusted by the water that once flooded the red planet? And is the only explanation for the hematite found by Mars orbiters and studied by the Mars Exploration rovers is that water once was present in volumes on Mars? Not necessarily, says a new study. Research done by Dr. Jonathan Merrison at the Aarhus Mars Simulation Laboratory in Denmark shows that the red dust that covers Mars may be formed by ongoing grinding of surface rocks. Liquid water need not have played any significant role in the red dust formation process.
“Mars should really look black, between its white polar caps, because most of the rocks at mid-latitudes are basalt,” said Merrison. “For decades we assumed that the reddish regions on Mars are related to the water-rich early history of the planet and that, at least in some areas, water-bearing heavily oxidized iron minerals are present.”
Fine red dust covers Mars’s surface and is even present in Mars’s atmosphere, dominating the weather and sometimes becoming so thick that it plunges the planet into darkness. Even though dust is ubiquitous, we do not fully understand its physical, chemical and geological properties.
Merrison and his team have been working on getting accurate measurements of the composition and mineralogy of Mars in order to understand the structure and evolution of the near-surface environment and its interaction with the atmosphere, as well as in searching for potential habitats on Mars.
In their recent laboratory study, the scientists at the Mars Simulation Laboratory have pioneered a novel technique to simulate the sand transport on Mars. They hermetically sealed sand (quartz) t samples in glass flasks and mechanically “tumbled” them for several months, turning each flask ten million times. After gently tumbling pure quartz sand for seven months, almost 10% of the sand had been reduced to dust. When scientists added powdered magnetite, an iron oxide present in Martian basalt, to the flasks they were surprised to see it getting redder as the flasks were tumbled. Colors map percentages of hematite in the surface materials in Meridiani Planum on Mars from 5 percent (aqua) to 25 percent (red). Opportunity landed within the black oval. MER scientists say the rocks there had once been drenched in water. Credit: NASA
“Reddish-orange material deposits, which resemble mineral mantles known as desert varnish, started appearing on the tumbled flasks. Subsequent analysis of the flask material and dust has shown that the magnetite was transformed into the red mineral hematite, through a completely mechanical process without the presence of water at any stage of this process,” said Dr. Merrison.
The scientists suspect that, as the quartz sand grains are tumbled around they get quickly eroded and an alteration of minerals through contact ensues. How exactly this happens need to be further investigated through more experimental and analytical work. What is clear though is that the first experiments show that this process occurs not only in air but also in a dried carbon dioxide atmosphere, that is, in conditions that perfectly resemble those occurring on Mars. It may also imply that the reddish Martian dust is geologically recent.
Scientists worldwide, aided by new missions and improved instrumentation reaching the planet, will continue developing new improved computer models and Earth-bound simulators to try to pierce through the red planet’s mysteries.
“By simulating the conditions and developing accurate analogues of the Martian environment, we will certainly gain a deeper understanding of its dusty nature. In particular, developing better analogues of the Martian surface and atmosphere is vital in interpreting observations made on Mars by landers as well as pioneering the next generation of experiments to be flown,” said Dr Merrison.
Merrison presented his findings at the European Planetary Science Congress last week.
The Telltale instrument on the Phoenix lander. Credit: University of Aarhus.
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On board the plucky little Phoenix Mars lander was an even pluckier and littler device called the Telltale. It measured, for the first time, wind speeds and directions at the Mars polar region. Scientists have now been able to summarize the results from the Telltale, and presented their findings at the European Planetary Science Conference in Potsdam, Germany. They shared some unexpected new findings about the weather on Mars.
“Telltale has given us a wealth of information about the local Martian wind velocities and directions. At the Phoenix landing site, we were able to see meteorological changes caused by interactions between the dynamic north pole, where there are ever changing evaporation processes, and the Martian atmosphere,” said Dr. Haraldur Gunnlaugsson. Artists rendition of Phoenix on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL
As you recall, Phoenix landed in the North polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008 and operated successfully for about 5 Earth months, or 151 Martian sols. The Telltale device consisted of a lightweight tube suspended on top of a meteorological mast, roughly two meters above the local surface. The device had to be sensitive enough to detect very light breezes, but also be able to withstand the violent vibrations during the mission launch. After landing on Mars, Phoenix’s onboard camera continuously imaged the deflection of the tube in the wind, taking more than 7,500 images during the mission.
The astronomers/meteorologists found the wind speeds and directions varied as the seasons changed. Easterly winds of approximately 15-20 kilometers per hour prevailed during the Martian mid-summer, but when autumn approached, the winds increased and switched to come predominantly from the West. While these winds appeared to be dominated by turbulence, the highest wind speeds recorded of up to nearly 60 kilometers per hour coincided with the passing of weather systems, when also the number of dust devils increased by an order of magnitude.
Mars is typically a rather windy place and learning more about the planet’s climatic conditions will contribute to the understanding of the Martian water cycle and the identification of areas on the red planet that could sustain life. Local wind measurements by the Telltale instrument, amended with daily images of the whole northern hemisphere by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, have allowed astronomers to gain much deeper information on weather systems on Mars.
“We’ve seen some unexpected night-time temperature fluctuations and are starting to understand the possible ways dust is put into suspension in the Martian atmosphere. For example, we could see that some of the dust storms on Mars do not require the existence of high winds,” said Dr Gunnlaugsson.
