Daily Archives: July 27, 2022

The mysterious discovery of a concentrated chunk of rare mineral quartz in the Gale Crater region of Mars by the Curiosity rover in 2016 has finally been explained by researchers.

A team of planetary scientists from Rice University, NASA's Johnson Space Center, and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) believe that the concentrated chunk of tridymite was spewed into the Gale Crater by a volcano when it was still filled with water as long as 1 billion years ago.

The new scenario suggests the Red Planet has a more interesting and complex volcanic history than previously believed.

Related: Rock samples from NASA's Curiosity Mars rover contain key ingredient of life

Tridymite, which is extremely rare on Earth, is a type of quartz a form of silica generated under extreme temperatures and low pressures, and just how it arrived in an ancient lake bed has troubled researchers for years.

"The discovery of tridymite in a mudstone in Gale Crater is one of the most surprising observations that the Curiosity rover has made in 10 years of exploring Mars, Rice University professor and team member Kirsten Siebach, said in a statement (opens in new tab). "Tridymite is usually associated with quartz-forming, explosive, evolved volcanic systems on Earth, but we found it in the bottom of an ancient lake on Mars, where most of the volcanoes are very primitive."

To solve this mystery, Siebach and her colleagues looked at data concerning tridymite formation on Earth. They also considered models of volcanism on the Red Planet, its volcanic materials, as well as sedimentary evidence collected from the Gale Crater where the Curiosity rover touched down in August 2012.

This allowed them to devise a new scenario that suggests that Martian magma had sat for longer than usual in a chamber below a volcano. This allowed it to at least partially cool a process called fractional crystallization (opens in new tab) and boosted the magma's silicon concentration.

A massive eruption then spewed ash containing this extra silicon in the form of tridymite to the lake that would eventually become the Gale crater, as well as its surrounding rivers. This volcanic ash was then broken down by the water in the ancient lake which also helped to sort the minerals the ash contained.

This would have concentrated the tridymite making consistent with the 2016 Curiosity discovery. The scenario put forward by the researchers would also help explain other aspects of the sample such as its opaline silicates and its reduced concentrations of aluminum oxide.

"It's actually a straightforward evolution of other volcanic rocks we found in the crater," Siebach said. "We argue that because we only saw this mineral once, and it was highly concentrated in a single layer, the volcano probably erupted at the same time the lake was there. Although the specific sample we analyzed was not exclusively volcanic ash, it was ash that had been weathered and sorted by water."

The findings also have wider implications for the geological history of Mars. It means that the Red Planet must have undergone extreme and explosive volcanism over 3 billion years ago. This would have been at a time when Mars was changing from a wet and warm world to the dry and barren planet we are familiar with today.

"There's ample evidence of basaltic volcanic eruptions on Mars, but this is a more evolved chemistry," Siebach concluded. "This work suggests that Mars may have a more complex and intriguing volcanic history than we would have imagined before Curiosity."

The team's findings were published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters. (opens in new tab)

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Explosive volcanism on Mars deposited rare mineral into Gale Crater, NASA rover finds - Space.com

A group of researchers spent 15 studying the unique microbial ecosystems within Hawaiis lava tubes, geothermal caves and fumaroles, stinky sulfurous openings in the Earths crust near volcanoes. And theyve found amazing diversity between sites while continually discovering this new microbial dark matter, previously unidentified microbes, along the way. These discoveries may indicate the variety of microbes here on Earth, but they also give an extra glimmer of hope to those anxious to find evidence that life was once tucked away on Mars.

The recent Islands Within Islands study published in Frontiers investigated the lava caves and tubes of Hawaii, finding a high level of microbial diversity. In the study, 70 samples were collected from lava tubes and geothermal sites on Hawaii between 2006 and 2009 and again between 2017 and 2019. Researchers found the evolutionary development of microbes was higher in sites from older lava flows than younger flows.

Lava caves and tubes form when molten lava on the surface cools and crusts over, while the lava beneath continues to flow. The pockets left behind form into caves and tubes. Temperature and humidity often vary less in these spaces than above ground. High microbial diversity is found in these types of caves the world over, but especially in Hawaii, considered a biodiversity hotspot that offers a spectrum of environmental conditions.

Research opportunities in Hawaii abound, with the microbial dark matter aplenty, giving researchers the opportunity to continue exploring a largely unknown world. And that unknown world has researchers also thinking of Mars.

Volcanic systems in Hawaii are geologically like those on ancient Mars, which had active volcanoes and fumaroles, the studys authors write. With these geological similarities, Hawaiian volcanic environments can provide some insight into the possibility of life on Mars in its ancient past and how microbial communities could survive today on Mars in lava caves.

By studying the older Hawaiian lava caves, up to 800 years old, the team of researchers from across the country, including the University of Hawaii, believe they can see how the colonies of microbes grow more complex over time.

This paper brought together scientists who have worked in Hawaiian lava caves for decades, and it reveals the novelty and complexity of bacterial communities in places most people think of as too hostile for life, Stuart Donachie, University of Hawaii Mnoa professor and study co-author, says in a news release. Our results underscore that remarkable microbial diversity and novelty exist in Hawaii. Were now building on our findings by exploring how bacteria cultivated from these caves function in conditions that mimic those believed to have occurred on Mars, and long ago on Earth.

As scientific knowledge of microbes in Hawaii continues to advance, it becomes more apparent that studying microbes in the natural world is the best opportunity for understanding their development on our planet. And it hints at life having potential beyond Earth.

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These Hawaiian Microbes Could Have Something In Common With Life on Mars - Popular Mechanics

Forecasters saw it coming a few days in advance: Winds were increasing, dust was kicking up across the landscape, and visibility was dropping. Flights would have to be canceled...another flight delay in a year full of them.

Except this time, the disruption was on Mars. The flight delay was for NASAs Ingenuity helicopter, which in January 2022 became the first aircraft grounded by a dust storm on another planet (image above).

Both Mars and Earth are regularly battered by dust storms of various sizes. And although there are some similarities between the eventsnow including flight cancellationsthere are also some key differences.

On Earth, one third of the land area is covered in sand and dust, whereas the rest is anchored by plant life, ice, water, and human settlements. The largest dust storms arise from vast deserts such as the Sahara (shown below), the Gobi, and the Arabian Peninsula. They also can kick up in the Outback, Patagonia, the southwestern U.S. and Mexico, or regions experiencing severe drought. According to scientists estimates, 20 to 40 million tons of dust are floating in Earths atmosphere on any given day, and anywhere from 1 to 3 billion tons of dust are lofted and deposited back to Earth each year (equivalent to 10,000 to 30,000 fully loaded aircraft carriers).

On Mars, dust devils and storms can arise just about anywhere because the planet is dry and dusty nearly everywhere we have looked. Billions of years of weatheringprobably from ancient water and more recently by perpetual sand-blasting from wind-driven stormshave created a planet covered in grit and dust. The particles are very small and slightly electrostatic, so they stick to surfaces the way foam packing peanuts do on Earth.

On both Earth and Mars, dust storms can severely degrade air quality while clogging engines and gears. On Earth, planes can be grounded by airborne dust because it can damage jet engines and scour windshields, while also reducing visibility for pilots. On Mars, a major dust storm in June 2018 ended the mission of NASAs 15-year-old Opportunity rover. So much dust was aloft for so long that the rovers solar panels could not harvest enough sunlight to recharge the batteries.

Earthly dust is typically picked up by weather fronts and storms, with differences in temperatures, atmospheric pressure, and moisture content accelerating the air flow across the landscape. Strong winds move across dry lands and pick up loose grains of mineral dust, sometimes lofting it hundreds to thousands of feet into the atmosphere and carrying it tens to thousands of miles downwind. (The photo below, shot from the International Space Station, shows a storm over North Africa in 2014.) But the dust does not rise above the tropopausethe natural pressure barrier between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Even if dust gets that high, gravity and precipitation bring it back down to the surface. All of this usually occurs in a matter of hours to days.

Mars, however, has no tropopause. NASA aerosol scientist Ralph Kahn, who studied planetary atmospheres before focusing on Earth, explained that without this lid-like barrier (created by stratospheric ozone on Earth) and without precipitation to bring it down, Martian dust can rise higher into the atmosphere.

Martian winds mostly arise from differences in the way the surface is heated by sunlight between hemispheres, between day and night, and between elevated and depressed surfaces. These variations in heating lead to rising plumes of air on local scales (making dust devils) and spur the horizontal flow of winds on regional scales.

Though probably not as potent as the stormiest winds on Earth, the winds on Mars are strong enough to spin up everything from dust devils (shown in the animations below) to vast, sunlight-blocking plumes. Contrary to some movie fiction, the storms are unlikely to be potent enough to blow over vehicles and people. This is because the Martian atmosphere is thinnerabout 1 percent of the density (pressure) of Earths atmosphere at the surfaceso similar winds do not exert as much force on the Red Planet.

Dust is the key to the Martian climate, said Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist from the Space Science Institute who studies aerosols and has been involved with NASAs Mars program going back to the days of Pathfinder. Dust is moved by the weather, but then the dust sustains that weather. It stores and moves energy around Mars the way water can move energy around on Earth.

Once it is aloft, Mars dust tends to stay in the air a long timesometimes for weeks to months. Gravity is weakerabout one third of what it is on Earthand the thinner atmosphere means there is less drag. And once it is started, a dust storm on Mars can sometimes feed itself. Dust in the Martian atmosphere absorbs sunlight, which warms the air around it. This accentuates the heating differences between the surface and the air and between one part of the surface and anotherboth of which can cause more vertical and horizontal air flow.

The impacts are cumulative and dramatic, Lemmon said, so a lot of dust accumulates in the sky. The image above from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows a thick plume of dust over Utopia Planitia in November 2007.

Every year, Mars has a few moderately big dust storms that cover continent-sized areas and last for several weeks. And every so often, for reasons scientists cannot yet explain, Martian dust storms can build upon themselves until they engulf the entire planet. (The 2018 global dust event is shown below.) These massive, planetary-scale storms seem to occur about every three to four Mars years (six to eight Earth years). There is nothing comparable on Earth, Kahn noted.

One of the ways to gauge the intensity of dust storms on Earth is through aerosol optical depth (AOD), a measure of how much light is absorbed or reflected by particles of dust, natural aerosols, or pollutants in the air. According to Kahn, a clear day on Earth has an AOD of 0.1 to 0.2 in mid-visible light. When the AOD is 1.0, the intensity of sunlight at the surface drops by two thirds. A really thick smoke or dust plume might have an AOD of 7.0 or higher, which is why daytime can start to feel like night when the sky is full of particles from major wildfires or dust storms.

According to Lemmon, when the Opportunity rover stopped working during a global dust storm in 2018, the AOD on Mars was somewhere between 9 and 11. Similar global dust events also occurred in 2007 and 2001.

Dust storms typically grow largest on Mars in the southern hemisphere summer (northern hemisphere winter). Unlike seasons on Earth (which are a function of the tilt of the axis), the Red Planet is significantly closer to the Sun during its southern hemisphere summer. This leads to more heating of the surface and more dust getting lofted into the atmosphere than at other times of the year.

With southern summer now setting in, we might expect more flight delays in the coming months on Mars.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images by NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS and Perseverance Mars rover animations by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. Astronaut photograph ISS040-E-90343 was acquired on September 8, 2014, with a Nikon D3S digital camera using an 80 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. Story by Michael Carlowicz, with reporting from Katy Mersmann, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

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Dusty Differences Between Mars and Earth - nasa.gov

Between now and August 12, fans can visit starburst.com/WFAto enter for a chance to win an exclusive "Work From AnywAIRS" essentials kit, complete with the following inflated necessities: STARBURST Airs Gummies, a FUNBOY Rainbow Chaise Lounger, FUNBOY electric air pump, collapsible water bottle and work notebook.

"While people have acclimated to a multitude of different work environments over the last two years, we know that repetitive routines can set in wherever you are even during the beautiful summer months," said Justin Hollyn-Taub, Senior Director, Mars Wrigley. "To help combat the mundane, we're excited to give fans the chance to win a kit that pairs our inflated-with-flavor gummies with other inflated summer essentials to help add some levity to the workday. STARBURST prides itself on being able to infuse moments of childlike wonder into the world around us, and our STARBURST Airs Gummies do just that thanks to their soft and squishy texture."

Putting its "Work from AnywAIRS" mantra into practice, STARBURST will also be popping up poolside in New York City with a "SummAIRS Workday" event on Wednesday, August 3, giving local fans a chance to ditch their typical office set-ups and work from an inflated rooftop oasis. People can sign up for a designated timeslot hereto enjoy a change of scenery and an afternoon of inflated workday fun, complete with FUNBOY inflatables, craft coffee drinks, light bites, focus-centric beats and, of course, STARBURST Airs Gummies as an afternoon treat.

STARBURST Airs are the first-of-its-kind aerated gummi candy that features a unique, inflated and squishy texture, with all of the iconic juicy flavor of original STARBURST. STARBURST Airs are available in Original flavors, including strawberry, lemon, orange and cherry, and Sour Tropical, which includes sour kiwi, strawberry, pineapple, passion fruit and mango. These soft and airy gummies are available in 4.3oz PEG bags at retailers nationwide now.

For more information about the STARBURST "Work From AnywAIRS" kits and to view the full giveaway rules, visit starburst.com/wfa. For more information about STARBURST Airs and to keep up with the latest news, visit STARBUST on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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Across our diverse and expanding portfolio of quality confectionery, food, and pet care products and services, we employ 140,000+ dedicated Associates. With almost $45 billion in annual sales, we produce some of the world's best-loved brands including Ben's Original, CESAR, Cocoavia, DOVE, EXTRA, KIND, M&M's, SNICKERS, PEDIGREE, ROYAL CANIN, and WHISKAS. We are creating a better world for pets through our global network of pet hospitals and diagnostic services including AniCura, BANFIELD, BLUEPEARL, Linnaeus and VCA using cutting edge technology to develop breakthrough programs in genetic health screening and DNA testing.

For more information about Mars, please visit http://www.mars.com. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

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Mars Inflates Flavor And Fun Into Workdays With Limited-Edition STARBURST "Work From AnywAIRS" Kits - PR Newswire

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Scientists released the first pieces of the multispectral maps made by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) June 29, 2022, according toNational Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

NASAsMars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been mapping minerals on the red planet for the last 16 years with the help of CRISM.

Anyone can access these maps from NASAs Planetary Data System website.It has managed to map 86 per cent of Mars surface with its multispectral mode, detecting nearly all of the minerals on the surface.

CRISM is a visible-infrared spectrometer whose primary goal is to look for mineralogical evidence for past water on the surface and subsurface of Mars.

The coverage goal for the multispectral mode was 80 per cent, owing to the limited lifetime of the coolers needed by its infrared detector. But it has managed to exceed that goal.

The hyper spectral mode, which uses the wavelengths from the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) detector, doesnt require cryogenic cooling and has attained more than 99 per cent coverage.

For the first Mars year of MROs mission, every other orbit was restricted to nadir pointing (placingdirectly below a particular location). This was done to allow early rapid accumulation of multispectral mapping data. Subsequently, we eliminated that restriction, Scott Murchie, the principal investigator for CRISM, told Down To Earth.

We did give preferences to those regions that were known to have the most diverse mineralogy, he added.

The data gathered by CRISM over the last 16 years is invaluable for numerous research avenues and missions to Martian surface.

For example, NASAs Mars 2020 mission, which saw the Perseverance rover land on the surface of Mars, heavily relied on data gathered by CRISM.

NASA used a community-based process in which anyone could propose a landing site for MarsScience Laboratory (MSL) on Mars, Murchie elaborated.

The cryocoolers onboard the MRO completed their life cycles in 2017. Since then, the scientists working on CRISM have been focusing on building coverage in the VNIR hyperspectral map.

They are now focused on correcting the two sets of mapping data for differences in illumination and atmospheric conditions and releasing them to NASAs Planetary Data System.

Readily available and accessible data will help planetary scientists, geologists, and meteorologists conduct research. It will also increase the prospects of humanity understanding the universe more easily.

When asked which discovery made by CRISM excited him the most, Murchie said:

That would have to be the discovery that the Jezero crater preserves a habitable environment. Cutting-edge analyses of CRISM data is used to select sites within the crater for collecting the rock samples.

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NASA releases first pieces of the multispectral maps of Mars - Down To Earth Magazine

Tom Mueller is a self-described race car guy. Upon retiring from his role as CTO of Propulsion at SpaceX in November 2020, he mostly wanted to go racing and ride dirt bikes and travel, he said in a recent interview. Mueller, who is 61, was putting behind him a storied career: While at SpaceX, he led the development of the Merlin rocket engine, which powers the Falcon 9 rocket, and the Draco engines that power the Dragon spacecraft.

Retirement was the plan but plans dont always work out as intended.

As soon as he retired, Mueller, who is widely considered one of the leading experts of propulsion alive today, started sketching up a small thruster. That thruster now has a name, Rigel, after the blue supergiant in the constellation Orion. Its become a cornerstone of Muellers new startup, Impulse Space, which he founded in September 2021. With the new venture, Mueller wants Impulse to be the go-to option for cost-effective, efficient in-space transportation.

It was going to be just for fun and not too serious, but then some ex-SpaceX people started talking [to me] and wanted to help and all of the sudden it became real, he said. Now its full on.

The Rigel thruster firing in the Mojave. image Credits:Impulse Space

Full on might be an understatement. Impulse has raised a notable amount of money for such a young space startup, including a $20 million seed round led by Peter Thiels Founders Fund and a subsequent $10 million investment from VC firm Lux Capital. Given Muellers resume, he didnt have to search very hard or at all for people willing to put their cash behind his ideas.

Somebody asked me, How long after you incorporated Impulse did it take for investors to want to give you money? And I said, Well actually, I incorporated Impulse because I had investors tell me they wanted to fund me, Mueller said.

Nor has Impulse had too much trouble finding talent. The startup has now grown to around 40 people, with many on the technical leadership team, such as Kevin Miller, VP of Propulsion, George Ketigian, VP of Integration, and Paul Seebacher, VP of Manufacturing, with prior experience at SpaceX. Impulses COO, Barry Matsumori, also had a nearly four-year stint at SpaceX as the SVP of Sales and Business Development.

Impulse made the ambitious announcement earlier this month that it would be attempting a Mars mission with Relativity Space. The two companies, neither of which have yet to send their respective technologies to orbit, want to launch as soon as 2024. It was Relativitys idea, Mueller said. He recounted how Zach Dunn, Relativitys SVP of Engineering and Manufacturing and former SpaceX-er, approached Mueller about the mission. (Mueller and Dunn go way back, with Mueller hiring him for an internship at SpaceX.)

[Dunn] goes, Are you in? I just thought it was the coolest thing. It was kind of scary super scary, super hard, but I think were the right guys to do it. I actually feel better if Im kind of scared.

The agreement between Impulse and Relativity is through 2029. If they dont make the 2024 launch date, theyll have another opportunity when the stars (literally) next align, in 2026. Relativity will be providing the launch vehicle, its heavy-lift Terran R rocket, while Impulse will be building a Mars cruise vehicle spacecraft, entry capsule and lander.

If all goes to plan, the Mars mission will not be Impulses first mission. The company wants to fly an orbital transport vehicle late next year and is at work in the meantime running tests on the Rigel engine, making and testing valves, the avionics suite and more. And while Mars will likely be the most challenging mission on Impulses docket, Mueller has shown he is not the type to be cowed by a challenge.

Much of Muellers vision for Impulse is premised on launch becoming extremely low cost, and as a result, there being a lot of payloads in space that need to be moved around. He likened fully reusable heavy-lift rockets like Starship, Terran R and Rocket Labs Neutron to the internet in the early 90s. People dont know really what its going to do or what its all about or what the real killer apps are, he said.

Terran R will have a 20,000-kilogram payload capacity and Neutron will be capable of sending 13,000-kilograms to orbit. If SpaceX can pull it off, each Starship launch will be able to carry a staggering 100-150 tons. The possibilities that could arise from such a paradigm-shift in launch are hard to even conceive.

I think that were going be surprised how much is going to change in space to be able to put so much cargo up at so low cost, Mueller added.

Relativity CEO Tim Ellis and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk have each separately talked about a vision for the future of humanity as one that is multiplanetary in numerous public statements, Musk has summed up his mission as one to extend the light of consciousness in the cosmos and Mueller is clearly on board to go to the Red Planet. But he said hes also motivated by things slightly closer to home.

He pointed to the moon and the potential for a lunar and cis-lunar economy to help offload the resources of Earth. There are many valuable elements present on and below the Moons surface, as well as water and ice. Myriad startups, as well as the worlds major space agencies, have started eyeing up ways to exploit those resources. Mueller said he wanted to help build a future where heavy industry and power generation, two sectors that are notable for their carbon emissions, can move into space.

Thats like my noble goal, he said. It may not happen in my lifetime, but I think helping establish a low-cost reliable transportation network in space can help get it started.

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SpaceXs CTO of propulsion retired. Now he wants to go to Mars. - TechCrunch

NASA has shared a unique image of the surface of Mars with blue ripples all over it. The image reveals the secret behind winds on the red planet.

On Monday, July 25, NASA shared a stunning Mars image. It displayed the surface of the red planet with sand dunes that form small hilly crests. However, the top of the crests were covered in a blue colour, giving it an appearance of blue ripples moving over the sand dunes of Mars. The space agency revealed that the blue tinge did not come naturally in the Mars photo. NASA says the colour was added by it. But it was not added as a fancy filter to make the image look cool. There is an important scientific reason behind it. Scientists have been studying the wind movements on the red planet and this photo elaborates on how the wind systems work there. Read on to know the secrets of the wind revealed by this Mars photo.

It should be noted that just a month ago, the NASA Mars Rover reported dust carrying whirlwinds known as dust devils on Mars. It was an intriguing find that such dust storms not only got as large as 4 square kilometers, but also occurred multiple times a day. Now, expanding upon its knowledge of the wind system on the red planet, NASA researchers decided to use these blue ripples to understand how the wind moves.

The image was taken near the center of Gamboa Crater. It explained in the post accompanying the image, There are tiny ripples on the tops of the dunes, only several feet from crest-to-crest. These merge into larger mega-ripples about 30 feet apart that radiate outward from the dunes. The larger, brighter formations that are roughly parallel are called "Transverse Aeolian Ridges" (TAR). These TAR are covered with very coarse sand.

The TAR explains the wind feature of the planet. On the right side the ripples appear in blue-green color while on the left side, it appears in bright blue. This happens because the wind is blowing faster on the left side of the image and the TAR appears in bright color. On the right side, the slower moving wind gives it an ocean green color.

All of these different features can indicate which way the wind was blowing when they formed. Being able to study such variety so close together allows us to see their relationships and compare and contrast features to examine what they are made of and how they formed, the NASA post added.

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NASA shares stunning image of Blue Ripples on Mars, reveals wind mystery - HT Tech

More than 100,000 Husqvarna robots are preparing to sing the traditional Happy Birthday song to NASAs Mars Curiosity Rover robot in the weirdest birthday party ever.

Husqvarna says its robots will shout at the top of their voices or whatever it is they use to communicate from Earth to Mars, which is a distance of more than 174 million km, in an effort to get through to the loneliest robot in the universe, according to the company.

It generally takes about 5 to 20 minutes for a radio signal to travel the distance between Mars and Earth, depending on planet positions.

Husqvarna says its doing this because its noticed that, while the Mars Curiosity Rovers first birthday was celebrated, its subsequent nine birthdays have gone largely unnoticed.

Now, on its 10th birthday, the Mars Curiosity Rover is set to get a shout out from Husqvarnas robots, most of which will be the companys Automower, a robotic mower which itself looks somewhat spaceship-like in its design.

Husqvarna says this initiative derives from its long history of engineering and innovation, where robotic lawn mowers have played an important role in the companys success.

With technology based on the Automower robotic mowers existing alarm signal, Husqvarna used the integration platform IFTTT to enable the mowers to sing Happy Birthday.

Husqvarna has been working with IoT and external third-party solutions for years, for example Google Home, Amazon Alexa and IFTTT.

Bjrn Mannefred, robotics software manager at Husqvarna, says: For us this is a way to pay homage to the great engineering work of NASA, and that of our extensive team of robotic experts, by letting our robotic mowers celebrate a fellow robot.

Nobody should have to sing Happy Birthday to themselves, right?

Automower owners of the 405X, 415X and 435X AWD models that have the latest firmware installed will be notified about the update through the Husqvarna Automower Connect app where they have the opportunity to opt in and join the choir pre-event.

If they accept and follow the necessary steps, Automower robotic mower will automatically sing at 12, 3 and 6 pm (local time) on August 5th, as a fitting homage to Curiositys 10-year anniversary on Mars.

To learn more and get step-by-step instructions to participate, visit http://www.husqvarna.com/happybirthday.

Husqvarna is also demonstrating a choir of its robotic mowers singing Happy Birthday, as shown in the video below.

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100,000 Husqvarna robots prepare to sing 'Happy Birthday' to NASA's Mars robot - Robotics and Automation News

In the early morning on July 30 and 31, 2022, use binoculars to focus on Mars, and youll spot Uranus in the same field of view. Mars shines relatively bright and red. Uranus appears as a dim greenish light. This view is for the Northern Hemisphere. Chart via John Jardine Goss.Mars and Uranus in one binocular field of view

On July 30 and 31, 2022, before the sun rises and while the sky is still fairly dark, grab a pair of binoculars and head out under the stars. If youve never spotted Uranus before, nows your chance.

The elusive 7th planet from the sun is dim, shining at magnitude 5.8. Sure, some people can spot objects of magnitude 6 with their eye alone. But unless you have a lot of experience, very dark skies and great eyesight, youll want a pair of binoculars to see Uranus.

Uranus is a challenge to observe because its just one point of light floating against the background stars of similar brightness. But on July 30 and 31, you have a not-so-secret weapon on your side: Mars. Mars shines bright at magnitude 0.2 and has a reddish glow. Look high above the southeastern horizon to spot it, then use binoculars to focus on Uranus hiding in the dark depths nearby.

Uranus will be to the upper left of Mars for Northern Hemisphere observers. Its the brightest point of light close to Mars. (If youre in the Southern Hemisphere, Uranus will be the brightest point of light in binoculars thats just below Mars.)

Uranus and Mars are about 2 degrees apart on the morning of July 30. Theyre a bit closer around 1 1/2 degrees apart on July 31. In reality, the planets are quite far apart. They average about 17.69 astronomical units (AU) from each other. Thats about 1.6 billion miles or 2.6 billion kilometers.

For more great observing events in the coming weeks, visit EarthSkys night sky guide

Bottom line: Use Mars to spot the elusive 7th planet, Uranus. A pair of binoculars will help you see the faint outer planet.

Kelly Kizer Whitt has been a science writer specializing in astronomy for more than two decades. She began her career at Astronomy Magazine, and she has made regular contributions to AstronomyToday and the Sierra Club, among other outlets. Her childrens picture book, Solar System Forecast, was published in 2012. She has also written a young adult dystopian novel titled A Different Sky. When she is not reading or writing about astronomy and staring up at the stars, she enjoys traveling to the national parks, creating crossword puzzles, running, tennis, and paddleboarding. Kelly lives with her family in Wisconsin.

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Uranus and Mars conjunction on July 30 and 31 - EarthSky