Daily Archives: June 4, 2023

1. Mars livestream: ESA to beam first ever live view from the red planet  Business Insider
2. First time ever Mars livestream a chance "to get as close as it's currently possible" to the red planet  CBS News
3. Live from Mars! European probe beams Red Planet views to Earth in 1st-ever video feat  Space.com

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Mars livestream: ESA to beam first ever live view from the red planet - Business Insider

For years, there's been talk of one day mankind living on Mars.

And in recent times, with the likes of Elon Musk seemingly on a one-man crusade to get there first, it looks like it might happen fairly soon.

But according to one of the most recent studies into the viability of human life on the Red Planet, it might not be as easy as you'd think.

Yep, research carried out by team at UCLA looked to answer two key questions - the first being around the impact of particle radiation and whether it would pose too grave a threat to human life.

The second was whether the timing of a mission to Mars could protect astronauts and the spacecraft from radiation?

To answer both questions, the scientists used geophysical models of particle radiation for a solar cycle and models of how radiation could affect both human passengers and a spacecraft.

Now, the good news is that the answers to their two questions were 'no' and 'yes', respectively.

According to the scientists' calculations, the spacecraft should provide enough protection during the round trip to and from Mars for the astronauts.

However, if the material the spacecraft is built with is too thick, then it could actually increase the amount of secondary radiation.

They also noted that this would largely be dependent on the timing of the mission as well.

Researchers claimed the best time to leave Earth would be when the solar activity is at its peak.

This is because during the 'solar maximum' the most dangerous particles are deflected, thus shielding the astronauts from the worst of it.

On the other hand, the bad news is that experts recommended humans should spend no longer than four years on any mission to the planet.

According to the study, which was published in the Advancing Earth and Science Journal, beyond this point, the levels of radiation become unsafe.

It reads: "Our calculations clearly demonstrate that the best time for launching a human space flight to Mars is during the solar maximum, as it is possible to shield from Solar Energetic Particles.

"Our simulations show that an increase in shielding creates an increase in secondary radiation produced by the most energetic GCR, which results in a higher dose, introducing a limit to a mission duration.

"We estimate that a potential mission to Mars should not exceed approximately four years.

"This study shows that space radiation imposes strict limitations and presents technological difficulties for the human mission to Mars, such a mission is still viable."

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Mars declared unsafe for humans to live as no one can survive for longer than four years - UNILAD

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SAN FRANCISCO When the first astronauts venture to Mars in the future, the crew will need access to healthy, fresh food but there are no cosmic grocery stores along the way. And the round trip to the red planet is expected to take about three years.

Food is one of the many challenges NASA faces before sending humans into deep space, but it's a big one. Nutritious food that also stimulates the appetite is necessary to keep astronauts healthy, and freeze-dried options won't be enough.

This demand for nutrition is part of why NASA and the Canadian Space Agency began the Deep Space Food Challenge, an open call to experts around the world to develop technologies for keeping astronauts fed and healthy on long-term space missions.

The competition led the Astra Gastronomy team at Nonfiction, a design and innovation firm based in San Francisco, to develop the Space Culinary Lab. The compact kitchen-style system includes stations for growing algae and leafy greens, blending creamy coffee and even grilling meat.

"The idea here is to create a space kitchen," said Phnam Bagley, cofounder of Nonfiction. "You get to prepare the food that you want however you want it. Bringing that level of agency to astronauts is where designers like us start."

The Space Culinary Lab made it through the first phase of the Deep Space Food Challenge in October 2021. Despite not being selected during phase two, the design showcases some of the technology that could be used not only in space but also in resource-challenged environments such as refugee camps and food deserts on Earth.

The heart of the design is to bring "a bit of humanity to space," with mix and match options so astronauts aren't exhausted with the same flavors and textures as their taste buds become dull in space, Bagley said.

The lab provides ways the astronauts can also keep up a strong appetite to prevent weight loss and have access to fresh options to maintain optimal nutrition, which is crucial for their health as the crew ventures far from Earth.

The culinary lab is configured so the rounded design could slot into an existing spacecraft and would require few resources and little effort from the astronauts. The different modules included in the design are called munch, sizzle, yum and snap.

Snap provides a refreshing wall of green within the otherwise sterile environment of a spacecraft, where the astronauts can tend to microgreens grown without soil such as baby bok choy and butter greens. Pink lights provide the proper wavelength that accelerates the growth of the greens, and timed spritzes furnish the exposed roots with water and nutrients.

While the greens deliver extra flavor and healthy nutrients to a meal, there's a psychological side to tending to the plants as well.

Astronauts living for six months or longer aboard the International Space Station have shared how growing, harvesting and eating fresh produce has improved their mood and brought out their nurturing sides as they incorporated caring for plants into their routines.

The culinary lab's munch module offers another nutrition boost by growing microalgae in a bioreactor. The algae can be collected, dehydrated and mixed with fruit powders, spices, vinegar, oats and peanut butter for a tasty and nutritious snack.

Microalgae could help protect the astronauts as they leave the shielding effects of low Earth orbit and venture into the harsh radiation environment of deep space, Bagley said.

Rehydrated meats are something astronauts rely on as a source of protein. To make them more palatable, Nonfiction included sizzle as part of the culinary lab. The tiny microwave drawer, which resembles a convection oven, has glass plates and laser technology. Bagley demonstrated brushing a piece of rehydrated chicken with a blend of maple syrup and soy sauce, a combination that is "shelf stable and delicious," she said.

As the meat warms, the "marinade" helps it caramelize, and a laser draws grill marks on the meat. (You can also draw your name or even a rendering of the "Mona Lisa" if it amuses you, Bagley said.) Sizzle can be used to warm and "grill" vegetables, tofu and tortillas as well.

Since astronauts struggle to sleep properly in space, they might also be relying on extra caffeine on the long journey to Mars. That's where the yum module comes in handy. The creaming machine uses a steel probe to emulsify water and oil-based ingredients to create lattes, chocolate ganache and mayonnaise in a self-contained way.

The futuristic space food prepared using the culinary lab was available for a taste test at Nonfiction during CNN's visit in March, including space coffee and algae mixed with different flavors.

The algae, rolled into balls or cubes after being blended with ingredients in a silicon pouch, can stay fresh for two to three days.

Two types of nutritional algae balls were on hand one savory and one fruity. The end result resembled a snack for a long hiking trip, but it was surprisingly delicious and didn't have an algae aftertaste.

Bagley and others at Nonfiction, including Mark Alexander, Mardis Bagley, Nadia Kutyreva and Fifile Nguyen, have tasted multiple flavor combinations to get the balance right.

"I think we've realized that if we put too many ingredients together, it confuses the flavor profile, and then the algae flavor comes back," Bagley said. "We use two or three ingredients at once."

One mix blended peanut butter, oats, onion powder and vinegar with the algae for a strong, savory flavor with a pleasant, sour finish. But the favorite was the fruity algae, which mixed in powders from freeze-dried strawberries, cherries and other fruits. The fruit powders masked the algae flavor and made it taste more like a slightly sweet treat without added sugars.

Then, coffee powder, hot water, ghee, coconut oil and lecithin were blended with the emulsifying probe to create a foamy brew.

"The mechanism agitates the liquids together," Bagley said, "and creates this super creamy hot beverage, which is very satisfying in the morning."

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How astronauts heading to Mars could enjoy fresh produce and grill meat - KSL.com

Taking a picture of Mars is not easy.

Once light bounces off the planet, it can take between 3 to 22 minutes to travel to Earth so there aren't truly "live" images of Mars.

But on Friday afternoon, the European Space Agency offered the closest thing: the first "livestream" of Mars on YouTube, which posted pictures of the planet every 50 seconds as they beamed down directly from the camera mounted on the agency's Mars Express orbiter. The livestream was about an hour long.

In this handout image supplied by the European Space Agency on July 16, 2008, the Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is pictured from ESA's Mars Express. ESA/Getty Images hide caption

In this handout image supplied by the European Space Agency on July 16, 2008, the Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars, is pictured from ESA's Mars Express.

"Normally, we see images from Mars and know that they were taken days before. I'm excited to see Mars as it is now as close to a martian 'now' as we can possibly get!" James Godfrey, the spacecraft operations manager at the ESA's mission control center, said in a statement.

In 50-second intervals, the camera panned across Mars, showing a side of the planet entering night, as well as some clouds billowing out on the corner.

The livestream celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Mars Express mission, which launched in 2003 to better understand the planet, as well as search for traces of water.

There are only a few examples of "live" footage in space, including the famous Apollo missions showing astronauts walk on the moon's surface, as well as the DART and LCROSS missions where NASA intentionally crashed spacecrafts into asteroids and the moon, respectively, the ESA said in a news release.

"These missions were all pretty close to home and others farther away sent perhaps an image or two in near real-time," the ESA said. "When it comes to a lengthy livestream from deep space, this is a first."

Most observations and data gathered by spacecrafts are beamed down to Earth a few hours or even days later which isn't generally an issue for scientists.

In fact, though the speed of light can make livestreams difficult, in other cases, it has been a boon for scientific discovery.

Take the Euclid mission. The telescope will capture light that has been traveling for 10 billion years, allowing scientists to see 10 billion years into the past, the ESA said.

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Here is the first livestream from Mars a rare, almost real-time look ... - NPR

Science & Exploration

02/06/2023 10079 views 153 likes

A new mosaic of Mars marks 20 years since the launch of ESA's Mars Express, and reveals the planets colour and composition in spectacular detail.

The mosaic was created using data from Mars Expresss High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC).

HRSC normally photographs Marss surface from an altitude of about 300 km the closest the spacecraft gets to Mars in its elliptical orbit with the resulting images covering areas about 50 km across. However, the mosaic presented here uses a slightly different approach. To view the planet more widely, HRSC gathered 90 images at higher altitudes (of 4000 to 10 000 km), thus capturing areas of around 2500 km wide. These images were then put together to form a full global view.

Such large-scale images are typically obtained to observe weather patterns on Mars but even in the absence of atmospheric phenomena they offer wonderful views of the planets surface.

This new view highlights variation across Marss surface by enhancing local colour and contrast.

Thanks to its nine imaging channels, HRSC can visualise Mars not only in three dimensions but also in colour. However, the ever-changing opacity of the martian atmosphere makes it difficult to determine accurate surface colours from orbit. Dust scatters and reflects light, causing colours to shift between images and creating a patchwork-like effect when assembling a mosaic.

Until now, suppressing this effect during image processing has reduced variations in colour between different parts of Mars. But to create this mosaic, the HRSC team instead colour-referenced each constituent image to a colour model derived fromhigh-altitude observations, allowing them to preserve colour variations and reveal a far richer colour view of Mars than has been seen before.

While beautiful in its own right, the mosaic also provides fascinating information about Marss composition, revealing an unprecedented variety and detail of colours across its surface.

Mars is famous for its reddish colour, which is caused by high levels of oxidised iron. However, large parts of the planet appear to be rather dark and blue-toned here. These are grey-black basaltic sands of volcanic origin that form far-reaching, dark layers of sand across Mars. They pile up as they move in the wind, creating imposing sand dunes and dune fields within impact craters.

Material weathered by water, on the other hand, tends to look lighter. The two most common water-weathered minerals on Mars, clay and sulphate minerals, appear particularly bright on such colour composites; their presence was established by the OMEGA spectrometer on Mars Express. The presence of these minerals signals that liquid water existed on Mars for a long time, weathering and altering rock over time to form significant clay deposits such as Mawrth Vallis (a former outflow channel not shown in this view but previously observed by HRSC).

Sulphate minerals are visible here within the Valles Marineris canyon system, as seen most clearly in the annotated image. Here, however, they are covered by a thin veneer of dark sand, but their impressive colour variations can be seen on closer look. Unlike clay deposits, sulphate minerals indicate more acidic environmental conditions that would be less friendly to life.

Mars Express launched and has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003 20 years ago! The orbiter is imaging Mars surface, mapping its minerals, identifying the composition and circulation of its tenuous atmosphere, probing beneath its crust, and exploring how various phenomena interact in the martian environment.

The spacecrafts HRSC, the camera responsible for these images, has revealed much about Mars diverse surface features in the past 20 years. Its images show everything fromwind-sculpted ridges and groovesto sinkholes on the flanks of colossal volcanoes toimpact craters, tectonic faults, river channels and ancient lava pools.

The mission has been immensely productive in its two decades of life, creating a far fuller and more accurate understanding of our planetary neighbour than ever before. It was initially planned to last for one martian year, or around 687 Earth days, but has continued to meet and exceed its objectives. As the mission has been extended until at least the end of 2026, we can anticipate many more beautiful and insightful snapshots of Mars in the years to come.

The missions High Resolution Stereo Camera(HRSC) was developed and is operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fr Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).

The development of the colour model method and processing of the mosaic was performed by Greg Michael of the HRSC team at Freie Universitt Berlin. The acquisition and planning of the high-altitude images were the responsibility of the camera operations team at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at Berlin-Adlershof. On publication of the upcoming scientific paper on the mosaic, the georeferenced dataset will be made available through the ESA guest storage facility.

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20 years of Mars Express: Mars as never seen before - European Space Agency

Mars is sweeping right into the middle of a starry cosmic beehive that outshines its dim constellation of Cancer, the Crab tonight.

The Beehive Cluster (referred to officially as Messier 44 or M44), is a swarm of at least 1,000 loosely bound stars about 600 light-years from Earth. This cluster will receive a visit from the Red Planet on Friday (June 2), offering a great opportunity for skywatchers and astrophotographers alike.

Mars is now crossing the Beehive Cluster and will be closest to its center at nightfall tonight (June 2). From New York City, the duo will be visible at 9:15 p.m. ET (0115 GMT) when it reaches an altitude of 30 degrees above the horizon to the west, according to In The Sky. (For reference, the width of your fist held out at arm's length corresponds to about ten degrees in the sky.) Both Mars and the Beehive Cluster will set at 12:07 a.m. ET on June 3 (0407 GMT), which is about three hours and 46 minutes after sunset. By the time Saturday evening (June 3) rolls in, Mars will have moved past the cluster's boundaries.

If conditions aren't right in your area to see this spectacle tonight, no need to worry: The Virtual Telescope Project will a host a free telescope livestream of Mars and the Beehive Cluster beginning at 4 p.m. ET (2000 GMT). Watch it here courtesy of the Project.

Related: Night sky, June 2023: What you can see tonight [maps]

The Beehive Cluster, whose stars are only 600 million years old, is the nearest such open cluster to Earth and spans 1.6 degrees in the night sky, about the width of three full moons.

With an unaided eye, the cluster is seen as a faint cloud or a celestial mist, which is how French astronomer Charles Messier described it in his famous 18th century catalog of 110 unusual deep-sky objects one of which is M44.

In 2012, NASA's now-retired Kepler Space Telescope had for the first time found two Jupiter-like planets closely orbiting sun-like stars in the Beehive Cluster. Among other potential planets that Kepler had cataloged while observing the cluster, astronomers confirmed the identity of six additional planets in 2016.

Tonight, the Beehive Cluster shines at a magnitude of 3.1 and will be a speckled background for Mars's visit, which at magnitude 1.6 will be sailing through the cluster as a brighter orange-red dot in the night sky.

Binocular-equipped stargazers can resolve up to 20 stars of the young Beehive Cluster, while a telescope will be able to get hundreds more into focus, according to Binoculars Sky.

If you are hoping to catch a look at Mars or the Beehive Cluster up close, our guides to thebest telescopesandbest binocularsare a great place to start.

And you're looking to snap photos of this event or the night sky in general, check out our guide onhow to photograph the planets, as well as ourbest cameras for astrophotographyandbest lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you snap an image of Mars in the Beehive Cluster and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

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See Mars buzz the dense stars of the Beehive Cluster tonight - Space.com

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity had its handlers sweating bullets about two months ago.

The little chopper failed to check in with the mission team for about six days in early April, Ingenuity chief engineer Travis Brown wrote in an update on May 26.

This was not a cause for concern at first. Since January of this year, when winter set in at Ingenuity's digs the floor of Mars' Jezero Crater the solar-powered chopper "had unfortunately been drifting in and out of nighttime survival mode (having enough power to avoid overnight brownouts)," Brown wrote in the update.

This led to uncertainty in Ingenuity's daily wakeup time, which made it harder to hail the chopper and to plan out its activities. In addition, during this stretch, a rocky outcrop created a "communications shadow" between Ingenuity and its robotic partner, the Perseverance rover, which relays commands to and from the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) rotorcraft.

Related: Facts about the Mars helicopter Ingenuity, 1st aircraft to fly on Red Planet

But when the life-hunting, sample-collecting Perseverance came back into communications range "and the helicopter was still nowhere to be found, the situation began to generate some unease," wrote Brown, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

"Poor telecom performance was seen as a plausible explanation, but there were reasons to doubt it," he added. "In more than 700 sols operating the helicopter on Mars, not once had we ever experienced a total radio blackout. Even in the worst communications environments, we had always seen some indication of activity."

One sol, or Martian day, is slightly longer than an Earth day, lasting about 24 hours and 40 minutes.

The Ingenuity blackout began on sol 755, or April 5. It finally ended on sol 761, when the mission team spotted a signal during the helicopter's expected wakeup window. A second signal at the same time on sol 762 "confirmed that the helicopter was indeed alive, which came as a welcome relief for the team," Brown wrote.

Ingenuity conducted its 50th flight on Mars the very next day sol 763, or April 13. It reached a maximum altitude of 59 feet (18 meters) on that sortie, higher than it had ever gone before.

"It would be an understatement to say that the helicopter team was relieved to see the successful flight telemetry in the sol 763 downlink the following morning," Brown wrote.

Ingenuity flew again on April 22 but has stayed ground-bound since then.

Summer will soon return to Jezero Crater, but the communications issues may persist beyond the change of seasons, according to Brown. That's because there's a large amount of Martian dust on Ingenuity's solar panels, which will likely keep the chopper in its current "transitional power state" for a while yet.

"This means that, much to the chagrin of her team, we are not yet done playing this high-stakes game of hide and seek with the playful little helicopter," Brown wrote.

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity went silent for 6 'agonizing' days in April - Space.com

This image was taken by ChemCam RMI onboard NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 3843. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL. Download image

Earth planning date: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

What do you do when you are driving through challenging terrain? Well, hit a new record! Tosol we have passed the 30 kilometer mark! Thats a Mars rover milestone only the NASA Opportunity rover has reached so far. That was around June 2011 and just over 2610 sols into the mission with Opportunity on its way between Victoria and Endeavour Crater. At Endeavour crater Opportunity had driven a marathon on Mars remember Marathon Valley? You can see the stunning panorama here. Way to go Curiosity!

Driving is especially difficult for Curiosity and the rover drivers right now. One of us remarked they wouldnt want to walk through there, let alone drive, but our rover drivers did an excellent job not only getting us to the next stop, but also parking the rover with all wheels safely on the ground so that we could use the arm. If you want to get an impression on how big of a challenge that was, here is an image from the navigation cameras to illustrate it. And we are making best use of the opportunity investigating target Cujubim after using the DRT. There is a three spot APXS raster on the target and of course MAHLI documentation. In addition, MAHLI looks at the target Cumbal to further document the interesting sedimentary structures all around us.

For the image above, though, I picked a Remote Micro-Imager (RMI) image to illustrate some of those interesting things: it shows the sedimentary structures, all the laminae, but also the nodules within, which will tell us a full story of how those rocks formed, one lamina at a time, and then there must have been another watery event forming the nodules.

In todays plan we have two more RMIs looking into the distance to discern more of those sedimentary structures. ChemCam also keeps its laser busy on two bedrock targets, both also with nodules, which have the target names Cariacau and Crique Yolande, and there will be an AEGIS after the drive. Mastcam has two multispectral observations, one on the DRT spot, and one on target Crique Rubin. Mastcam further images targets Cariacau and Paleomeu River, and another target in front of the rover both to further document all the interesting features around us. In addition, the environmental theme group conducts the regular atmospheric monitoring, and of course, DAN looks for water in the underground and MARDI takes an image after the drive. And now, raise a glass (or cup) with your favourite beverage to wish the rover well navigating all the boulders ahead!

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Sols 3845-3847: 30 Kilometers and Counting! NASA Mars ... - NASA Mars Exploration