Posted on by Matt Williams

How Can We Live on Mars?

The Dragn Crew capsule is more than a modernized Apollo capsule. It will land softly and at least on Earth will be reusable while Musk and SpaceX dream of landing Falcon Crew on Mars. (Photo Credits: SpaceX)

Why live on Earth when you can live on Mars? Well, strictly speaking, you can’t. Mars is a completely hostile environment to human life, combining extreme cold with an unbreathable atmosphere and intense radiation. And while it is understood that the planet once had an atmosphere and lots of water, that was billions of years ago!

And yet, if we want to expand into the Solar System, we’ll need to learn how to live on other planets. And Mars is prime real-estate, compared to a lot of other bodies. So despite it being a challenge, given the right methods and technology, it is possible we could one day live on Mars. Here’s how we’ll do it.

Reasons To Go:

Let’s face it, humanity wants (and needs) to go Mars, and for several reasons.  For one, there’s the spirit of exploration, setting foot on a new world and exploring the next great frontier – like the Apollo astronauts did in the late 60s and early 70s.

Artist illustration of a Mars Colony. Image credit: NASA
Artist illustration of a Mars Colony. Image credit: NASA

We also need to go there if we want to create a backup location for humanity, in the event that life on Earth becomes untenable due to things like Climate Change. We could also go there to search for additional resources like water, precious metals, or additional croplands in case we can no longer feed ourselves.

In that respect, Mars is the next, natural destination. There’s also a little local support, as Mars does provide us some raw materials. The regolith, the material which covers the surface, could be used to make concrete, and there are cave systems which could be converted into underground habitats to protect citizens from the radiation.

Elon Musk has stated that the goal of SpaceX is to help humans get to Mars, and they’re designing rockets, landers and equipment to support that. Musk would like to build a Mars colony with about 1 million people. Which is a good choice, as its probably the second most habitable place in our Solar System. Real estate should be pretty cheap, but the commute is a bit much.

And then there’s the great vistas to think about. Mars is beautiful, after a fashion. It looks like a nice desert planet with winds, clouds, and ancient river beds. But maybe, just maybe, the best reason to go there is because it’s hard! There’s something to be said about setting a goal and achieving it, especially when it requires so much hard work and sacrifice.

Reasons NOT To Go:

Yeah, Mars is pretty great… if you’re not made of meat and don’t need to breathe oxygen. Otherwise, it’s incredibly hostile. It’s not much more habitable than the cold vacuum of space. First, there’s no air on Mars. So if you were dropped on the surface, the view would be spectacular. Then you’d quickly pass out, and expire a couple minutes later from a lack of oxygen.

There’s also virtually no air pressure, and temperatures are incredibly cold. And of course, there’s the constant radiation streaming from space. You also might want to note that the soil is toxic, so using it for planting would first require that it be put through a decontamination process.

A post-processed mosaic of MSL Mastcam images from Sol 582 (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Edit by Jason Major)
Afternoon on Mars (MSL Mastcam mosaic)(NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Edit by Jason Major)

Assuming we can deal with those issues, there’s also the major problem of having limited access to spare parts and medical supplies. You can’t just go down to the store when you’re on Mars if your kidney gives out or if your sonic screwdriver breaks.

There will need to be a constant stream of supplies coming from Earth until the Martian economy is built up enough to support itself. And shipping from Earth will be very expensive, which will mean long period between supply drops.

One more big unknown is what the low gravity will do to the human body over months and years. At 40% of Earth normal, the long-term effects are not something we currently have any information on. Will it shorten our lifespan or lengthen it? We just don’t know.

There’s a long list of these types of problems. If we intend to live on Mars, and stay there permanently, we’ll be leaning pretty hard on our technology to keep us alive, never mind making us comfortable!

Possible Solutions:

In order to survive the lack of air pressure and the cold, humans will need pressurized and heated habitats. Martians, the terrestrial kind, will also need a spacesuit whenever they go outside. Every hour they spend outside will add to their radiation exposure, not to mention all the complications that exposure to radiation brings.

Artist's concept of a habitat for a Mars colony. Credit: NASA
Artist’s concept of a habitat for a Mars colony. Credit: NASA

For the long term, we’ll need to figure out how to extract water from underground supplies, and use that to generate breathable air and rocket fuel. And once we’ve reduced the risk of suffocation or dying of dehydration, we’ll need to consider food sources, as we’ll be outside the delivery area of everyone except Planet Express. Care packages could be shipped up from Earth, but that’s going to come with a hefty price tag.

We’ll need to produce our own food too, since we can’t possible hope to ship it all in on a regular basis. Interestingly, although toxic, Martian soil can be used to grow plants once you supplement it and remove some of the harsher chemicals. NASA’s extensive experience in hydroponics will help.

To thrive on Mars, the brave adventurers may want to change themselves, or possibly their offspring. This could lead to genetic engineering to help future generations adapt to the low gravity, higher radiation and lower air pressure. And why stop at humans? Human colonists could also adapt their plants and animals to live there as well.

Finally, to take things to the next level, humanity could make a few planetary renovations. Basically, we could change Mars itself through the process of terraforming. To do this, we’ll need to release megatons of greenhouse gasses to warm the planet, unleashing the frozen water reserves. Perhaps we’ll crash a few hundred comets into the planet to deliver water and other chemicals too.

An artist's conception of future Mars astronauts. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
An artist’s conception of future Mars astronauts. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

This might take thousands, or even millions of years. And the price tag will be, for lack of a better word, astronomical! Still, the technology required to do all this is within our current means, and the process could restore Mars to a place where we could live on it even without a spacesuit.

And even though we may not have all the particulars worked out just yet, there is something to be said about a challenge. As history has shown, there is little better than a seemingly insurmountable challenge to bring out the best in all of us, and to make what seems like an impossible dream a reality.

To quote the late, great John F. Kennedy, who addressed the people of the United States back when they was embarking on a similarly difficult mission:

We choose to go to the Moon! … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win

What do you think? Would you be part of the Mars terraforming expedition? Tell us in the comments below.

We have written many interesting articles about Mars here at Universe Today. Here’s How Do We Colonize Mars?, Mars Colony Will Have to Wait, Solar Power is Best for Mars Colonies, and Elon Musk is Sending Humans to Mars in 2024.

For more information, check out NASA’s Journey to Mars, and NASA Quest’s Mars Colony Project.

Astronomy Cast also has episodes on the subject, like Episode 52: Mars, and Episode 95: Humans to Mars, Part 2: Colonists.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

What Is The Difference Between Asteroids and Meteorites?

Various meteorites from 2008 TC3. Credit: P. Jenniskens, et. al. Click image for full description

Asteroids, meteors, and meteorites … It might be fair to say these rocks from space inspire both wonder and fear among us Earthlings. But knowing a bit more about each of them and how they differ may eliminate some potential misgivings. While all these rocks originate from space, they have different names depending their location — i.e. whether they are hurtling through space or hurtling through the atmosphere and impacting Earth’s surface.

In simplest terms here are the definitions:

Asteroid: a large rocky body in space, in orbit around the Sun.

Meteoroid: much smaller rocks or particles in orbit around the Sun.

Meteor: If a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes, it becomes a meteor, which is often called a shooting star.

Meteorite: If a small asteroid or large meteoroid survives its fiery passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and lands on Earth’s surface, it is then called a meteorite.

Another related term is bolide, which is a very bright meteor that often explodes in the atmosphere. This can also be called a fireball.

Let’s look at each in more detail:

Asteroids

An artists impression of an asteroid belt. Credit: NASA
An artists impression of an asteroid belt. Credit: NASA

Asteroids are found mainly in the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. Sometimes their orbits get perturbed or altered and some asteroids end up coming closer to the Sun, and therefore closer to Earth. In addition to the asteroid belt, however, there have been recent discussions among astronomers about the potential existence of large number asteroids in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. You can read a paper about this concept here, and a good article discussing the topic here.

The asteroid Vesta as seen by the Dawn spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA
The asteroid Vesta as seen by the Dawn spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA

Asteroids are sometimes referred to as minor planets or planetoids, but in general, they are rocky bodies that do not have an atmosphere. However, a few have their own moons. Our Solar System contains millions of asteroids, many of which are thought to be the shattered remnants of planetesimals – bodies within the young Sun’s solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets.

The size of what classifies as an asteroid is not extremely well defined, as an asteroid can range from a few meters wide – like a boulder — to objects that are hundreds of kilometers in diameter. The largest asteroid is asteroid Ceres at about 952 km (592 miles) in diameter, and Ceres is so large that it is also categorized as a dwarf planet.

Most asteroids are made of rock, but as we explore and learn more about them we know that some are composed of metal, mostly nickel and iron. According to NASA, a small portion of the asteroid population may be burned-out comets whose ices have evaporated away and been blown off into space. Recently, astronomers have discovered some asteroids that mimic comets in that gas and dust are emanating from them, and as we mentioned earlier, there appears to be a large number of bodies with asteroid-like compositions but comet-like orbits.

How Often Do Asteroids Hit Earth?

Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. Image credit: NASA.
Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona. Image credit: NASA.

While we know that some asteroids pass very close to Earth’s orbit around the Sun, we’ve been lucky in the history of humanity that we haven’t had a large asteroid hit Earth in the past several thousand years. It wasn’t until satellite imagery of Earth became widely available that scientists were able to see evidence of past asteroid impacts.

One of the more famous impact craters on Earth is Meteor Crater in Arizona in the US, which was made by an impact about 50,000 years ago. But there are about 175 known impact around the world – a few are quite large, like Vredefort Crater in South Africa which has an estimated radius of 190 kilometers (118 miles), making it the world’s largest known impact structure on Earth. Another notable impact site is off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and is believed to be a record of the event that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. You can see images of some of the most impressive Earth impact craters here.

These days, asteroid impacts are less of a threat. NASA estimates that about once a year an automobile-sized asteroid enters Earth’s atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball and disintegrates before ever reaching the surface. Studies of Earth’s history indicate that about once every 5,000 years or so on average an object the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage. Once every few million years on average an object large enough to cause regional or global disaster impacts Earth. You can find more information about the frequency of impacts in this article from NASA.


Meteors, Meteoroids and Bolides

A bright meteor from September 21, 1994. Credit: John Chumack.
A bright meteor from September 21, 1994. Credit: John Chumack.

Space debris smaller than an asteroid are called meteoroids. A meteoroid is a piece of interplanetary matter that is smaller than an asteroid and frequently are only millimeters in size. Most meteoroids that enter the Earth’s atmosphere are so small that they vaporize completely and never reach the planet’s surface. When they burn up during their descent, they create a beautiful trail of light known as a meteor, sometimes called a shooting star.

Mostly these are harmless, but larger meteors that explode in the atmosphere – sometimes called bolides — can create shockwaves, which can cause problems. In February 2013 a meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia shattered windows with its air blast. This meteoroid or bolide was estimated to be 18 meters (59 feet) in diameter. In 1908, a rocky meteoroid less than 100 meters in diameter is believed to have entered the atmosphere over the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908 and the resulting shockwave knocked down trees for hundreds of square kilometers

How often is Earth hit by meteroids?

Chelyabinsk fireball recorded by a dashcam from Kamensk-Uralsky north of Chelyabinsk where it was still dawn.
Chelyabinsk fireball recorded by a dashcam from Kamensk-Uralsky north of Chelyabinsk where it was still dawn.

Because of the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013, astronomers have acquired more information about the frequency of larger meteors that hit Earth, and there is now a growing consensus that the Earth gets hit by bigger space rocks more often than we previously thought. You can read more about that concept here.

This video from the B612 Foundation shows a visualization of the location of 26 space rocks that hit Earth between 2000 and 2013, each releasing energy equivalent to some of our most powerful nuclear weapons. The B612 foundation says that a Hiroshima-scale asteroid explosion happens in our atmosphere on average once a year, but many are not detected because they explode high in the atmosphere, or because most of the Earth’s surface is water and even a large percentage of land is fairly uninhabited by humans.

Estimates vary of how much cosmic dust and meteors enter Earth’s atmosphere each day, but range anywhere from 5 to 300 metric tons. Satellite observations suggest that 100-300 metric tons of cosmic dust enter the atmosphere each day. This figure comes from the rate of accumulation in polar ice cores and deep-sea sediments of rare elements linked to cosmic dust, such as iridium and osmium.

But other measurements – which includes meteor radar observations, laser observations and measurements by high altitude aircraft — indicate that the input could be as low as 5 metric ton per day. Read more about this here.

For a documented list of bolide events, you can check out this page from JPL.

Meteorite

A stunning slice of the Glorieta pallasite meteorite cut thin enough to allow light to shine through its many olivine crystals. Credit: Mike Miller
A stunning slice of the Glorieta pallasite meteorite cut thin enough to allow light to shine through its many olivine crystals. Credit: Mike Miller

If any part of a meteoroid survives the fall through the atmosphere and lands on Earth, it is called a meteorite. Although the vast majority of meteorites are very small, their size can range from about a fraction of a gram (the size of a pebble) to 100 kilograms (220 lbs) or more (the size of a huge, life-destroying boulder). Meteorites smaller than 2mm are classified as micrometeorites.

Meteorites have traditionally been divided into three broad categories, depending on their structure, chemical and isotopic composition and mineralogy. Stony meteorites are rocks, mainly composed of silicate minerals; iron meteorites that are largely composed of metallic iron-nickel; and, stony-iron meteorites that contain large amounts of both metallic and rocky material.

Meteorites have also been found on the Moon and Mars and conversely, scientists have traced the origination of the meteorites found here on Earth to four other bodies: the Moon, Mars, the asteroid 4 Vesta, and the comet Wild 2. Meteorites are the source of a great deal of the knowledge that we have have about the composition of other celestial bodies.

How Often Do Meteorites Hit Earth?

On Feb. 28, 2009, Peter Jenniskens (SETI/NASA), finds his first 2008TC3 meteorite after an 18-mile long journey. "It was an incredible feeling," Jenniskens said. The African Nubian Desert meteorite of Oct 7, 2008 was the first asteroid whose impact with Earth was predicted while still in space approaching Earth. 2008TC3 and Chelyabinsk are part of the released data set. (Credit: NASA/SETI/P.Jenniskens)
On Feb. 28, 2009, Peter Jenniskens (SETI/NASA), finds his first 2008TC3 meteorite after an 18-mile long journey. “It was an incredible feeling,” Jenniskens said. The African Nubian Desert meteorite of Oct 7, 2008 was the first asteroid whose impact with Earth was predicted while still in space approaching Earth. 2008TC3 and Chelyabinsk are part of the released data set. (Credit: NASA/SETI/P.Jenniskens)

According to the Planetary Science Institute, it is estimated that probably 500 meteorites reach the surface of the Earth each year, but less than 10 are recovered. This is because most fall into water (oceans, seas or lakes) or land in remote areas of the Earth that are not accessible, or are just not seen to fall.

You can read more about meteorites that were found from the Chelyabinsk meteor here.

Summary

In short, the difference between asteroids and meteors all comes down to a question of location. Asteroids are always found in space. Once it enters an atmosphere, it becomes a meteor, and then a meteorite after it hits the ground. Each are made of the same basic materials – minerals and rock – and each originated in space. The main difference is where they are when they are being observed.

We have many great articles on the subject of asteroids and meteorites here at Universe Today, such as this general information article on asteroids, this article and infographic about the difference between comets, asteroids and meteors, and these articles that deal with Ceres and Vesta. And here are some recent articles about the Chelyabinsk meteor that landed in Russia, as well as a 2 billion-year old Martian meteorite that contains evidence of water on Mars.

There is some good information on a NASA page as well as some great information here on Universe Today and Astronomy Cast.

Sources:
JPL’s Near Earth Asteroid Office
Planetary Science Institute
NASA: Asteroids
NASA: Meteors

Posted on by Ken Kremer

The Martian Curiosity Looks Back on 1000 Sols of Exploration on the Red Planet

NASA’s Martian Curiosity rover looks backs to 1000 Sols of science and exploration on the surface of the Red Planet. Robot wheel tracks lead back through valley dunes. Gale Crater rim seen in the distant hazy background. Sol 997 (May 28, 2015) navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com Featured on APOD on June 13, 2015

Looking back 1000 Sols on the Red Planet
NASA’s Martian Curiosity rover looks backs to 1000 Sols of science and exploration on the surface of the Red Planet. Robot wheel tracks lead back through valley dunes. Gale Crater rim seen in the distant hazy background. Sol 997 (May 28, 2015) navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Featured on APOD on June 13, 2015
Story updated[/caption]

The Martian Curiosity celebrates 1000 Sols on Mars!

Marking the occasion with utter glee, the car sized robot snapped a cool mosaic view (above) looking back to 1000 Sols of high impact exploration and discovery on the Red Planet, showing her wheel tracks leading back through valley dunes from the foothills of humongous Mount Sharp and across the alien surface floor and out to the distant rim of the Gale Crater landing site she descended to nearly three years ago in August 2012.

“A thousand thanks to the best team a rover could have. Celebrating 1,000 sols. Here’s to the Martian days ahead!” the robot tweeted.

But at 1K sols she’s not content to just bask in the Martian sunshine during the history making event. Rather, she is as always hard at work, reaching out with the high tech robotic arm and inspecting intriguing rock outcrops spread out all around her.

Check out Curiosity’s current workspace, looking back and hard at work in our new photo mosaics herein created by the imaging team of Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer. They are also featured at NBC News – here – and Alive Space Images (in Italian) – here and here.

Curiosity rover at work for 1000 Sols on Mars. This composite multi sol photo mosaic shows outstretched robotic arm inspecting intriguing rock outcrops. The APXS spectrometer is investigating a target called ‘Ronan’ on the Stimson overlying outcrop. Navcam camera raw images taken from sols 997 to 1000 are stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Curiosity rover at work for 1000 Sols on Mars
This composite multi sol photo mosaic shows outstretched robotic arm inspecting intriguing rock outcrops. The APXS spectrometer is investigating a target called ‘Ronan’ on the Stimson overlying outcrop. Navcam camera raw images taken from sols 997 to 1000 are stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

The raw images for the look back mosaic were taken after she arrived at her current location on Martian Sol 997, or Earth’s Day May 28, 2015.

The Curiosity Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover officially celebrated 1000 Martian Sols on May 31, 2015 since she safely touched down on the crater floor on August 5, 2012 following the nail-biting and unprecedented sky crane maneuver that delivered her with pinpoint precision to a landing site nearby Mount Sharp.

“An MSL landmark day. We have reached 1000 sols on Mars. Looking back the remarkable thing is how few serious problems there have been,” says team member Professor John Bridges of the University of Leicester, England, in an update.

Exploring the sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, which towers 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Martian sky, form the primary destination and goal of her scientific expedition.

The six wheeled robot and her team of handlers back on Earth, are eeking out every last drop of science before she and all of Earth’s entire Martian invasion fleet enter solar conjunction, when Mars is behind the sun and little or no communications will be possible for most of the month of June. Activities will be limited per safety protocols.

“However, there is one issue even Curiosity can’t avoid – Conjunction. For much of June, Mars will be obscured from Earth by the Sun. Few science operations,” explains Bridges.

Curiosity rover rolls across Mars at the foothills of Mount Sharp, seen in the background, in this mosaic of images taken on April 11, 2015 (Sol 952). Navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Curiosity rover rolls across Mars at the foothills of Mount Sharp, seen in the background, in this mosaic of images taken on April 11, 2015 (Sol 952). Navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

NASA’s long-lived Opportunity rover labors on the opposite side of Mars.

After a short drive Curiosity arrived at her current location at “Marias Pass” on Sol 997, where she will stay stationary during the conjunction period out of an abundance of caution.

“A short bump on Sol 997 put Curiosity in a great position to investigate a few different rock units in Marias Pass, using the instruments on the rover’s arm,” wrote MSL and USGS mission scientist Ken Herkenhoff in an update.

She also reached within an eyelash of 10.6 kilometers (6.6 mi) of total driving.

“The 2.5 m drive brings our total odometry to 10,599 m,” noted Herkenoff.

Along the way she discovered the chemical ingredient minerals necessary to support life, as well as low levels of some organic molecules and some traces of methane, and and ample evidence for lakes and streams of liquid water.

“Curiosity is now parked for the next few weeks. But we are parked in front of a beautiful outcrop that shows the contact between the underlying Pahrump unit and the overlying Stimson unit.”

Our arm photo mosaic herein shows the seven foot (2 m) long robotic arm and its APXS spectrometer deployed at the target called “Ronan”, which is part of the overlying Stimson outcrop unit.

The rover is also using the ChemCam, MastCam and MAHLI cameras and spectrometers and other instruments to characterize the outcrop and its texture and composition in detail.

The robotic arm will be stowed during the June conjunction period.

Curiosity arrived at the Pahrump Hills at the base of Mount Sharp back in September 2014. Since then she has conducted an intensive investigation of the rocks and a trio of drilling operations to elucidate how this area fits in context with Mount Sharp and the habitable region discovered on the crater floor at Yellowknife Bay back in the spring of 2013.

In recent weeks, Curiosity has been driving up hills with slopes of as much as 21 degrees, higher than ever before, on an exciting journey endeavoring to slowly ascend up to the lower layers of Mount Sharp.

The current Martian outcrop area under investigation is a place where two distinctive geologic types of bedrock meet and where pale rock meets darker overlying rock.

“Such contacts can reveal clues about how the environmental conditions that produced one type of rock were related to the conditions that produced the other,” says NASA.

“The rover science team wants to examine an outcrop that contains the contact between the pale rock unit the mission analyzed lower on Mount Sharp and a darker, bedded rock unit that the mission has not yet examined up close.”

The team is also scouting around for the presence of mineral veins, like those recently discovered at the “Garden City” outcrop, that formed in the past during periods of flowing liquid water that could be favorable for microbial life forms if they ever existed.

Curiosity investigates a beautiful outcrop of scientifically enticing dark and light mineral veins at ”Garden City” outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp at current location on Mars. This photo mosaic was stitched from Mastcam color camera raw images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Curiosity investigates a beautiful outcrop of scientifically enticing dark and light mineral veins at ”Garden City” outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp at current location on Mars. This photo mosaic was stitched from Mastcam color camera raw images. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

Because there’s a plethora of treacherous dunes, the team has had to monitor operations carefully and alter the route on occasion to maintain safe operations.

Curiosity has already accomplished her primary objective of discovering a habitable zone on the Red Planet that contains the minerals necessary to support microbial life in the ancient past when Mars was far wetter and warmer billions of years ago.

This March 6, 2015 (Sol 917), mosaic of images from the Navcam camera on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the position in which the rover held its arm for several days after a transient short circuit triggered onboard fault-protection programming to halt arm activities on Feb. 27, 2015, Sol 911. The rover team chose to hold the arm in the same position for several days of tests to diagnose the underlying cause of the Sol 911 event. Navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
This March 6, 2015 (Sol 917), mosaic of images from the Navcam camera on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover shows the position in which the rover held its arm for several days after a transient short circuit triggered onboard fault-protection programming to halt arm activities on Feb. 27, 2015, Sol 911. The rover team chose to hold the arm in the same position for several days of tests to diagnose the underlying cause of the Sol 911 event. Navcam camera raw images stitched and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals over 5.1 miles (8.4 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012.

As of today, Sol 1001, June 1, 2015, she has taken over 246,000 amazing images.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

Posted on by Ken Kremer

NASA’s Journey to Mars Ramps Up with InSight, Key Tests Pave Path to 2016 Lander Launch

NASA's InSight Mars lander spacecraft in a Lockheed Martin clean room near Denver. As part of a series of deployment tests, the spacecraft was commanded to deploy its solar arrays in the clean room to test and verify the exact process that it will use on the surface of Mars. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

NASA’s ‘Journey to Mars’ is ramping up significantly with ‘InSight’ – as the agency’s next Red Planet lander has now been assembled into its flight configuration and begun a comprehensive series of rigorous and critical environmental stress tests that will pave the path to launch in 2016 on a mission to unlock the riddles of the Martian core.

The countdown clock is ticking relentlessly and in less than nine months time, NASA’s InSight Mars lander is slated to blastoff in March 2016.

InSight, which stands for Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is a stationary lander. It will join NASA’s surface science exploration fleet currently comprising of the Curiosity and Opportunity missions which by contrast are mobile rovers.

But before it will even be allowed to get to the launch pad, the Red Planet explorer must first prove its mettle and show that it can operate in and survive the harsh and unforgiving rigors of the space environment via a battery of prelaunch tests. That’s an absolute requirement in order for it to successfully carry out its unprecedented mission to investigate Mars deep interior structure.

InSight’s purpose is to elucidate the nature of the Martian core, measure heat flow and sense for “Marsquakes.” These completely new research findings will radically advance our understanding of the early history of all rocky planets, including Earth and could reveal how they formed and evolved.

“Today, our robotic scientific explorers are paving the way, making great progress on the journey to Mars,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, in a statement.

“Together, humans and robotics will pioneer Mars and the solar system.”

The science deck of NASA's InSight lander is being turned over in this April 29, 2015, photo from InSight assembly and testing operations inside a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. The large circular component on the deck is the protective covering to be placed over InSight's seismometer after the seismometer is placed directly onto the Martian ground. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin
The science deck of NASA’s InSight lander is being turned over in this April 29, 2015, photo from InSight assembly and testing operations inside a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver. The large circular component on the deck is the protective covering to be placed over InSight’s seismometer after the seismometer is placed directly onto the Martian ground. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Lockheed Martin

The launch window for InSight opens on March 4 and runs through March 30, 2016.

InSight will launch atop a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

InSight counts as NASA’s first ever interplanetary mission to launch from California.

The car sized probe will touch down near the Martian equator about six months later in the fall of 2016.

The prime contractor for InSight is Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver, Co and the engineering and technical team recently finished assembling the lander into its final configuration.

So now the time has begun to start the shakedown that literally involve “shaking and baking and zapping” the spacecraft to prove its ready and able to meet the March 2016 launch deadline.

During the next seven months of environmental testing at Lockheed’s Denver facility, “the lander will be exposed to extreme temperatures, vacuum conditions of nearly zero air pressure simulating interplanetary space, and a battery of other tests.”

“The assembly of InSight went very well and now it’s time to see how it performs,” said Stu Spath, InSight program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, in a statement.

“The environmental testing regimen is designed to wring out any issues with the spacecraft so we can resolve them while it’s here on Earth. This phase takes nearly as long as assembly, but we want to make sure we deliver a vehicle to NASA that will perform as expected in extreme environments.”

The first test involves “a thermal vacuum test in the spacecraft’s “cruise” configuration, which will be used during its seven-month journey to Mars. In the cruise configuration, the lander is stowed inside an aeroshell capsule and the spacecraft’s cruise stage – for power, communications, course corrections and other functions on the way to Mars — is fastened to the capsule.”

After the vacuum test, InSight will be subjected to a series of tests simulating the vibrations of launch, separation and deployment shock, as well as checking for electronic interference between different parts of the spacecraft and compatibility testing.

Finally, a second thermal vacuum test will expose the probe “to the temperatures and atmospheric pressures it will experience as it operates on the Martian surface.”

The $425 million InSight mission is expected to operate for about two years on the Martian surface.

Artist rendition of NASA’s Mars InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Lander. InSight is based on the proven Phoenix Mars spacecraft and lander design with state-of-the-art avionics from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) missions. Credit: JPL/NASA
Artist rendition of NASA’s Mars InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) Lander. InSight is based on the proven Phoenix Mars spacecraft and lander design with state-of-the-art avionics from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) missions. Credit: JPL/NASA

InSight is an international science mission and a near duplicate of NASA’s successful Phoenix Mars landing spacecraft, Bruce Banerdt, InSight Principal Investigator of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, told Universe Today.

“InSight is essentially built from scratch, but nearly build-to-print from the Phoenix design,” Banerdt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena , Calif, told me. The team can keep costs down by re-using the blueprints pioneered by Phoenix instead of creating an entirely new spacecraft.

3 Footpads of Phoenix Mars Lander atop Martian Ice. NASA’s Mars InSight spacecraft design is based on the successful 2008 Phoenix lander. This mosaic shows Phoenix touchdown atop Martian ice. Phoenix thrusters blasted away Martian soil and exposed water ice. InSight carries instruments to peer deep into the Red Planet and investigate the nature and size of the mysterious Martian core. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo/NASA/JPL/UA/Max Planck Institute
3 Footpads of Phoenix Mars Lander atop Martian Ice. NASA’s Mars InSight spacecraft design is based on the successful 2008 Phoenix lander. This mosaic shows Phoenix touchdown atop Martian ice. Phoenix thrusters blasted away Martian soil and exposed water ice. InSight carries instruments to peer deep into the Red Planet and investigate the nature and size of the mysterious Martian core. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo/NASA/JPL/UA/Max Planck Institute

It is funded by NASA’s Discovery Program as well as several European national space agency’s and countries. Germany and France are providing InSight’s two main science instruments; HP3 and SEIS through the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt. or German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES).

“The seismometer (SEIS, stands for Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure) is from France (built by CNES and IPGP) and the heat flow probe (HP3, stands for Heat Flow and Physical Properties Probe) is from Germany (built by DLR),” Banerdt explained.

SEIS and HP3 are stationed on the lander deck. They will each be picked up and deployed by a robotic arm similar to that flown on Phoenix with some modifications.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Rover Team Honors Pioneering Lindbergh Flight at Mars Mountaintop Crater

Martian Reminder of a Pioneering Flight. Names related to the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic have been informally assigned to a crater NASA's Opportunity Mars rover is studying. This false-color view of the "Spirit of St. Louis Crater" and the "Lindbergh Mound" inside it comes from Opportunity's panoramic camera. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

Martian Reminder of a Pioneering Flight. Names related to the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic have been informally assigned to a crater NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover is studying. This false-color view of the “Spirit of St. Louis Crater” and the “Lindbergh Mound” inside it comes from Opportunity’s panoramic camera. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.
See additional Opportunity photo mosaics below [/caption]

The science team leading NASA’s long-lived Opportunity rover mission is honoring the pioneering solo nonstop trans-Atlantic flight of aviator Charles Lindbergh by assigning key features of the Mars mountain top crater area the rover is now exploring with names related to the historic flight.

Opportunity is now studying an elongated crater called “Spirit of St. Louis” and an unparalleled rock spire within the crater called “Lindbergh Mound” which are named in honor of Lindbergh himself and his plane – the Spirit of Saint Louis.

“Spirit of Saint Louis” crater is quite special in many ways related not just to history but also to science and exploration – that very reasons behind Lindbergh’s flight and Opportunity’s astounding mission to the Red Planet.

The team is ecstatic that the 11 year old rover Opportunity has reached “Spirit of St. Louis Crater” because its serves as the gateway to the alien terrain of “Marathon Valley” holding caches of water altered minerals that formed under environmental conditions conducive to support Martian microbial life forms, if they ever existed.

The crater, rock spire and several features in and near it are shown in several recent panoramic mosaics, above and below, created by the rover team and separately by the image processing team of Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo.

Opportunity’s view (annotated) on the day the NASA rover exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of Mars on March 24, 2015, Sol 3968 with features named in honor of Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. Rover stands at Spirit of Saint Louis Crater near mountaintop at Marathon Valley overlook and Martian cliffs at Endeavour crater holding deposits of water altered clay minerals. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3968 (March 24, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Opportunity’s view (annotated) on the day the NASA rover exceeded the distance of a marathon on the surface of Mars on March 24, 2015, Sol 3968 with features named in honor of Charles Lindbergh’s historic solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. Rover stands at Spirit of Saint Louis Crater near mountaintop at Marathon Valley overlook and Martian cliffs at Endeavour crater holding deposits of water altered clay minerals. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3968 (March 24, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com

Marathon Valley and Spirit of St. Louis Crater are located just a few hundred meters south of a Mars mountain summit at a majestic spot called Cape Tribulation. It lies along a marvelous ridgeline along the western rim of Endeavour crater, which spans some 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter.

“What’s the connection between St. Louis and the Spirit of St. Louis? Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris, but he named his aircraft for the St. Louis citizens who purchased it for him,” says Prof. Ray Arvidson, the rover Deputy Principal Investigator of Washington University in St. Louis.

The raw images for the mosaics were taken in March and April 2015 using the robots mast mounted pancam and navcam cameras. The mosaics are shown in false color and colorized versions, annotated and unannotated.

Charles Lindbergh embarked in May 1927 on his history making flight from New York to Paris in the airplane he named Spirit of St. Louis, the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.

Opportunity at Spirit of Saint Louis crater scanning into Marathon Valley and Endeavour crater from current location on Mars in April 2015 in this photo mosaic. The crater, featuring an odd mound of rocks now named Lingbergh Mound, is the gateway to Marathon Valley and exposures of water altered clay minerals. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3987 (April 12, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Opportunity at Spirit of Saint Louis crater scanning into Marathon Valley and Endeavour crater from current location on Mars in April 2015 in this photo mosaic. The crater, featuring an odd mound of rocks now named Lingbergh Mound, is the gateway to Marathon Valley and exposures of water altered clay minerals. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3987 (April 12, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

The shallow Spirit of St. Louis Crater is about 110 feet (34 meters) long and about 80 feet (24 meters) wide, with a floor slightly darker than surrounding terrain, says NASA.

Lindbergh Mound dominates the crater measuring about 7 to 10 feet (2 to 3 meters) tall, rising higher than the crater’s rim.

The annotations also include features named to recognize the financial backing for the flight from St. Louis residents including Harold M. Bixby and Harry M. Knight. The plane’s designer was Donald A. Hall.

Opportunity arrives at Spirit of Saint Louis crater and peers into Marathon Valley and Endeavour crater from current location on Mars as of April 3, 2015 in this photo mosaic. The crater, featuring an odd mound of rocks now named Lingbergh Mound, is the gateway to Marathon Valley and exposures of water altered clay minerals. This pancam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3973 (March 29, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo
Opportunity arrives at Spirit of Saint Louis crater and peers into Marathon Valley and Endeavour crater from current location on Mars as of April 3, 2015 in this photo mosaic. The crater, featuring an odd mound of rocks now named Lingbergh Mound, is the gateway to Marathon Valley and exposures of water altered clay minerals. This pancam camera photo mosaic was assembled from images taken on Sol 3973 (March 29, 2015) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

Among other features named are Roosevelt Field, the spot on New York’s Long Island from which Lindbergh took off, and Marathon Monument, where the rover completed a her first marathon distance runners drive on Mars. The team picked a distinctive outcrop, Marathon Monument, to mark the finish line, said NASA officials.

“The science team for the rover picks crater names from a list of “vessels of exploration,” including ships of sail and spacecraft as well as aircraft. As long as the rover remains in the crater, names for interesting features will drawn from a list of names related to this famous flight,” according to a NASA statement.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer

11 Year Traverse Map for NASA’s Opportunity rover from 2004 to 2015. This map shows the entire path the rover has driven during 11 years and three months and a marathon runners distance on Mars for over 4000 Sols, or Martian days, since landing inside Eagle Crater on Jan 24, 2004 -to current location just past the Cape Tribulation summit at the western rim of Endeavour Crater at Marathon Valley. Rover surpassed Marathon distance on Sol 3968 and marked 11th Martian anniversary on Sol 3911. Opportunity discovered clay minerals at Esperance – indicative of a habitable zone - and is searching for more on the road ahead at Marathon Valley. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
11 Year Traverse Map for NASA’s Opportunity rover from 2004 to 2015. This map shows the entire path the rover has driven during 11 years and three months and a marathon runners distance on Mars for over 4000 Sols, or Martian days, since landing inside Eagle Crater on Jan 24, 2004 -to current location just past the Cape Tribulation summit at the western rim of Endeavour Crater at Marathon Valley. Rover surpassed Marathon distance on Sol 3968 and marked 11th Martian anniversary on Sol 3911. Opportunity discovered clay minerals at Esperance – indicative of a habitable zone – and is searching for more on the road ahead at Marathon Valley. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ASU/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
Posted on by Bob King

What Makes Mars Sunsets Different from Earth’s?

Sunset photographed from Gale Crater by the Mars Curiosity rover on April 15, 2015. The four images shown in sequence here were taken over a span of 6 minutes, 51 seconds using the left eye of the rover's Mastcam. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Even robots can’t tear their eyes from a beautiful sunset. NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover pointed its high resolution mast camera at the setting Sun to capture this 4-image sequence on April 15 at the conclusion of the mission’s 956th Martian day. While it resembles an earthly sunset, closer inspection reveals alien oddities.

A day on Mars lasts 24 hours and 39 minutes, so sunrise and sunset follow nearly the same rhythm as they do on Earth. When we eventually establish a base there, astronauts should be able to adjust to the planet’s day-night rhythm with relative ease. Jet lag would be worse.

But sunsets and sunrises offer a different palette of colors than they would on Earth. For starters, the Sun only radiates the equivalent of a partly cloudy afternoon’s worth of light. That’s because Mars’ average distance from the Sun is 141.6 million miles or about half again Earth’s distance. Increased distance reduces the intensity of sunlight.

Not only that, but the solar disk shrinks from the familiar 0.5° across we see from Earth to 0.35° at Mars. Here on the home planet, your little finger extended at arm’s length would cover the equivalent of two Suns. On Mars it would be three!

Wide view of sunset over Gusev Crater taken by NASA's Spirit Rover in 2005. Both blue aureole and pink sky are seen. Because of the fine nature of Martian dust, it can scatter blue light coming from the Sun forward towards the observer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Wide view of sunset over Gusev Crater taken by NASA’s Spirit Rover in 2005. Both blue aureole and pink sky are seen. Because of the fine nature of Martian dust, it can scatter blue light coming from the Sun forward towards the observer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What about color? Dust and other fine particles in the atmosphere scatter the blues and greens from the setting or rising Sun to color it yellow, orange and red. When these tints are reflected off clouds, sunset colors are amplified and spread about the sky, making us reach for that camera phone to capture the glory.

Things are a little different on Mars. The ever-present fine dust in the Martian atmosphere absorbs blue light and scatters the warmer colors, coloring the sky well away from the Sun a familiar ruddy hue. At the same time, dust particles in the Sun’s direction scatter blue light forward to create a cool, blue aureole near the setting Sun. If you were standing on Mars, you’d only notice the blue glow when the Sun was near the horizon, the time when its light passes through the greatest depth of atmosphere and dust.

This was the first sunset observed in color by Curiosity. The color has been calibrated and white-balanced to remove camera artifacts. Mastcam sees color much the way the human eye does, although it's a little less sensitive to blue. The Sun's disk itself appears pink because all the cooler colors have been scattered away, similar to why the Sun on Earth appears orange or red when near the horizon. Notice the rocky ridge in the foreground. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.
This was the first sunset observed in color by Curiosity. The color has been calibrated and white-balanced to remove camera artifacts. Mastcam sees color much the way the human eye does, although it’s a little less sensitive to blue. The Sun’s disk itself appears pink because all the cooler colors have been scattered away, similar to why the Sun on Earth appears orange or red when near the horizon. Notice the individual rocks poking up from the ridge in the foreground. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.

On Earth, blue light from the Sun is scattered by air molecules and spreads around the sky to create a blue canopy. Mars has less the 1% of Earth’s atmosphere, so we only notice the blue when looking through the greatest thickness of the Martian air (and dust) around the time of sunset and sunrise.


Sunset on Mars photographed by the Opportunity Rover released earlier this year

The video above of the setting Sun was made using stills taken by Opportunity, NASA’s “other” rover that’s been trekking across the Martian landscape for more than 10 years now. You can see a bit of pink in the Sun just before it sets as in the Curiosity photos, but there’s something else going on, too. Or not going on.

Sunrise of Lake Superior. Atmospheric refraction - bending of the Sun's light - flattens the disk into an oval shape. Credit: Lyle Anderson
Sunrise of Lake Superior. Atmospheric refraction – bending of the Sun’s light – flattens the disk into an oval shape. Credit: Lyle Anderson

When the Sun sets or rises on Earth, it’s squashed like a melon due to atmospheric refraction. Much thicker air adjacent to the horizon bends the Sun’s light upward, pushing the bottom of the solar disk into the top half which is less affected by refraction because it’s slightly higher. Once the Sun rises high enough, so we’re looking at it through less atmosphere, refraction diminishes and it becomes a circle again.

I’ve looked at both the Opportunity sunset and Curiosity sunset videos many times, and as far as I can tell, the Sun’s shape doesn’t change. At least it’s not noticeable to the casual eye. I bet you can guess why — the air is too thin to for refraction to make much of a difference.

Twilights linger longer on the Red Planet as well because dust lofted high into the stratosphere by storms continues to reflect the Sun’s light for two hours or more after sundown.

So you can see that sunset phenomena on Mars are different from ours because of the unique qualities of its atmosphere. I trust someone alive today will be the first human to see and photograph a Martian sunset. Hope I’m still around when that awesome pic pops up on Twitter.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – May 15, 2015: Finding, Studying and Visiting Other Worlds!

Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)

Guests:
Jolene Creighton (@jolene723 / fromquarkstoquasars.com)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein / briankoberlein.com)
Dave Dickinson (@astroguyz / www.astroguyz.com)
Morgan Rehnberg (cosmicchatter.org / @MorganRehnberg )
Alessondra Springmann (@sondy)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – May 15, 2015: Finding, Studying and Visiting Other Worlds!”

Posted on by Bob King

Does the Red Planet Have Green Auroras?

A map of MAVEN's Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) auroral detections in December 2014 overlaid on Mars’ surface. The map shows that the aurora was widespread in the northern hemisphere, not tied to any geographic location. The aurora was detected in all observations during a 5-day period. Credits: University of Colorado

Martian auroras will never best the visual splendor of those we see on Earth, but have no doubt. The Red Planet still has what it takes to throw an auroral bash. Witness the latest news from NASA’s MAVEN atmospheric probe. 

In December 2014, it detected widespread auroras across Mars’ northern hemisphere dubbed the “Christmas Lights”. If a similar display happened on Earth, northern lights would have been visible from as far south as Florida.

“It really is amazing,” says Nick Schneider who leads MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument team at the University of Colorado.  “Auroras on Mars appear to be more wide ranging than we ever imagined.”

A beautiful curtain of rays spread across the northern sky just last night (May 12) as seen from Duluth, Minn. Aurora colors on Earth are caused by the excitation of nitrogen and oxygen atoms from high-speed particles from the solar wind. Oxygen is responsible for most of the aurora's greens and reds. Credit: Bob King
A beautiful curtain of auroral rays spreads across the northern sky last night (May 12) as seen from Duluth, Minn. Aurora colors on Earth are caused by the excitation of nitrogen and oxygen atoms by high-speed particles in the solar wind. Oxygen in particular is responsible for most of the aurora’s greens and reds. Credit: Bob King

Study the map and you’ll see the purple arcs extend to south of 30° north latitude. So what would Martian auroras look like to the human eye? Would we see an arcade of nested arcs if we faced east or west from 30°N? Well, er, yes, if you could see into the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. Mars’ atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide, so most of the auroral emissions occur when high speed solar wind particles ionize CO2 molecules and carbon monoxide to produce UV light. Perhaps properly suited-up bees, which can see ultraviolet, would be abuzz at the sight.

High-speed particles from the Sun, mostly electrons, strike oxygen and nitrogen atoms in Earth's upper atmosphere. Credit: NASA
High-speed particles from the Sun, mostly electrons, strike oxygen and nitrogen atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere. As they return to their “relaxed” state, they emit light in characteristic colors. Credit: NASA

That’s not the end of the story however. Martian air does contain 0.13% oxygen, the element that puts the green and red in Earth’s auroras. The “Christmas Lights” penetrated deeply into Mars’ atmosphere, reaching an altitude of just 62 miles (100 km) above its surface. Here, the air is relatively thicker and richer in oxygen than higher up, so maybe, just maybe Christmas came in green wrapping.

Mars has magnetized rocks in its crust that create localized, patchy magnetic fields (left). In the illustration at right, we see how those fields extend into space above the rocks. At their tops, auroras can form. Credit: NASA
Mars has magnetized rocks in its crust that create localized, patchy magnetic fields (left). In the illustration at right, we see how those fields extend into space above the rocks. At their “peaks”, auroras can form. Credit: NASA

Nick Schneider, who leads MAVEN’s Imaging Ultraviolet Spectrograph (IUVS) instrument team, isn’t certain but thinks it’s possible that a diffuse green glow could appear in Mars’ sky during particularly energetic solar storms.

A magnetosphere is that area of space, around a planet, that is controlled by the planet's magnetic field. The shape of the Earth's magnetosphere is the direct result of being blasted by solar wind, compressed on its sunward side and elongated on the night-side, the magnetotail. Credits: NASA
Earth’s  magnetosphere, an area of space that’s controlled by the planet’s magnetic field, guides solar wind electrons and protons along magnetic field lines into the atmosphere in the polar regions  to create auroras. The planet’s field is created by electric currents generated in its outer nickel-iron core.
Credits: NASA

While the solar wind produces auroras at both Earth and Mars, they originate in radically different ways. At Earth, we’re ensconced in a protective planet-wide magnetic field. Charged particles from the Sun are guided to the Earth’s poles by following a multi-lane freeway of  global magnetic field lines.  Mars has no such organized, planet-wide field. Instead, there are many locally magnetic regions. Particles arriving from the Sun go where the magnetism takes them.

“The particles seem to precipitate into the atmosphere anywhere they want,” says Schneider. “Magnetic fields in the solar wind drape across Mars, even into the atmosphere, and the charged particles just follow those field lines down into the atmosphere.”

Maybe one day, NASA or one of the other space agencies will send a lander with a camera that can shoot long time exposures at night. We’ll call it the “Go Green” initiative.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – May 8, 2015: Emily Rice & Brian Levine from Astronomy on Tap

Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain)
Special Guest: Emily Rice & Brian Levine from Astronomy on Tap

Guests:
Jolene Creighton (@jolene723 / fromquarkstoquasars.com)
Charles Black (@charlesblack / sen.com/charles-black)
Brian Koberlein (@briankoberlein)
Dave Dickinson (@astroguyz / www.astroguyz.com)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – May 8, 2015: Emily Rice & Brian Levine from Astronomy on Tap”