Daily Archives: May 13, 2024

Pippa Funnell and MCS Maverick. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Its always remarkable just how many people pitch up to watch Sunday mornings early final horse inspection at the MARS Badminton Horse Trials. Unfazed by an unsociable waking hour, nor by the unique kind of fatigue that sets in after a long day of walking around a cross-country course and breathlessly following the action, they arrive in droves, packing the stands, sprawling across the grass, and, really, really unnervingly, spontaneously bursting into loud laughter.

Our best guess is that they were all equipped with Badminton Radio earpieces, which must have been broadcasting heretofore unheard levels of sass, but for those us without the radio on the go, it was a bit like this: a rider and their horse would appear, grim-faced with determination after a long evening of icing and maintenance and very little sleep, probably nursing a zesty little hangover from last nights lakeside party. They would square up to meet the ground jury, comprised of president Sandy Phillips, Christian Steiner, and JaneHamlin, and, once given the nod, theyd step forward to begin their presentation. And then, the laughter would begin, rippling through the crowd and swiftly gaining in decibels, while the person on show no doubt felt a shiver of panic that perhaps theyd tucked their skirt into the back of their knickers after a quick trip to the loo. In all, a weird sort of experience for everybody, frankly.

Harry Mutch and HD Bronze. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But it wasnt all laughs at the front facade of Badminton House. Two horses were sent to the holding box throughout the course of proceedings, and neither will proceed to showjumping:Nicky Hill andMGH Bingo Boy, who delivered the best round of their partnership yesterday to climb from 53rd to 13th place, opted to withdraw from the box, whileHarry Mutch andHD Bronze, who were thrilled to log their first five-star clear round and sat 29th overnight, re-presented but were not accepted into the competition.

Nicky Hill and MGH Bingo Boy. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

Our field is further thinned by two withdrawals ahead of the horse inspection. Those came from yesterdays pathfinders,Tom Jackson andFarndon, who were 14th overnight, andHelen Martin andAndreas, who were 37th. Tom will now ride just one horse today 2022 Burghley runner-upCapels Hollow Drift, with whom he sits eighth.

That gives us a final field of 37 horses and riders to tackle Phillip Kelvin Bywaters showjumping track. The first seventeen of these will jump from 11.30 a.m. (6.30 a.m. EST) in the main arena, while the top twenty will head to battle from 2.55 p.m. (9.55 a.m. EST), following a parade of competitors and a band display over lunch.

Its going to be a particularly exciting day in the office, because much of our top ten is peppered with horses with varying showjumping form. Overnight leadersTim Price andVitaliare on two-phase score of 31.7, giving them just a 1.3 penalty margin over second-placedWilliam Fox-Pitt andGrafennacht thats three seconds in hand, but nothing more. William, for his part, has a rail in hand over third-placed five-star debutant and one-horse riderLucy Lattaand herRCA PatronSaint, who became overnight superstars after producing the fastest round of the day yesterday. Fourth-placedEmily King andValmy Biatsare 6.3 penalties away from the lead, which translates in real-world terms to a rail and six seconds, but theyre the best-rated jumpers at the business end of the field, and our pals at EquiRatings tell us that William has the highest win chance today. That would certainly be a poignant finish: William has floated the idea that this may be his last Badminton, and finishing on a victory would be extraordinarily sweet. Hes previously won here twice, in 2004 and 2015, and hes the rider with the most five-star wins in eventing history, with fourteen to his credit so far.

William Fox-Pitt and Grafennacht. Photo by Tilly Berendt.

But will it be that simple? After all, Grafennacht had three rails down here last year, though the ground conditions were more testing and horses were certainly more tired on the final day than they can feasibly be expected to be today. Leaders Tim and Vitali are achingly familiar with the three-rail round, too theyve done just that in all four of their previous five-stars, and at the Tokyo Olympics, but have been hard at work jumping in Spain over the winter. Lucy Latta had three rails apiece in three of her five FEI runs last season; in the other two, she hadone rail. But her sole FEI run this season before Badminton saw her jump clear, and shes spent five weeks this spring based with her cousin and coach Esib Power, who has show jumped at the top level alongside her own five-star eventing career, so we could be about to see the result of that intensive boot camp in action. Emily and Valmy have had just one rail in an FEI class since Pau in 2022, but that rail did come at a five-star: they tipped it at Burghley last season.

The very best five-stars are the ones that throw up new stories and great leaps up the leaderboard on each day of competition. Yesterday was one of those days, and we suspect today may well be one of them, too. Keep it locked onto EN for live updates throughout todays competition, and a full report of everything that went down, with insights from the riders, once weve crowned our 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials champion. Until then: Go Eventing.

The top ten after cross-country at the 2024 MARS Badminton Horse Trials.

MARS Badminton Horse Trials [Website] [Entries] [Timetable] [Tickets] [Radio Badminton] [Timing & Scoring] [Livestream] [Cross Country Course] [ENs Coverage]

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One Horse Spun and Three Withdrawals at MARS Badminton Final Horse Inspection - Eventing Nation

This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera onboard NASAs Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4180 (2024-05-10 03:55:37 UTC). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Curiosity team successfully navigated a complex terrain to position the rover on the south side of Pinnacle Ridge, facing a decision to either explore this area further or continue along the Gediz Vallis channel. After extensive discussion, the decision was made to proceed along the channel, conducting various scientific observations and environmental monitoring along the way.

We planned quite a drive on Wednesday, with lots of twists and turns over very bumpy terrain, so the team was delighted to learn everything completed as planned when we received our downlink at ~4 am Pacific Time on Friday morning! The successful drive means Curiosity is now parked on the south side of Pinnacle Ridge, the final area of upper Gediz Vallis ridge that we planned to investigate before we cross Gediz Vallis channel. We visited the north side of Pinnacle Ridge last week and collected all sorts of data that tell us a lot about the composition and textures of the rocks that form the ridge.

We had a big decision to make Friday morning: Now that we can see the south side of Pinnacle Ridge is traversable, should we drive onto it to get additional contact science data on the Gediz Vallis ridge rocks, or should we continue to drive along Gediz Vallis channel towards our planned channel crossing spot? Driving onto Pinnacle Ridge at this location could give us an opportunity to learn more about the materials that make up the ridge and the role of water in this area, but it could also take several sols and not tell us much more than what we already learned from our investigation on the north face of Pinnacle Ridge.

My role today was Long Term Planner, which meant I had to lead the teams discussion to talk through the pros and cons of this decision, and (ideally) help the group come to a consensus. We talked a lot about how the rocks we could see from our current location compared with the rocks we already investigated on the north side, and ultimately the ~25 scientists who were on the tactical operations planning group today came to a consensus decision that wed rather move on then spend more time here.

So today were going to collect lots of Mastcam observations and then continue to make our way up and along the channel, heading ~23 meters to the southwest. Before driving away well also take the opportunity to do some contact science on the rocks at our feet, doing a DRT followed by APXS and MAHLI observations on the target named Boyden Cave, APXS and MAHLI observations on a nearby (dusty) target named Royal Arches, and finally a MAHLI only target of a cool nearby rock named Quarry Peak. Well also collect two ChemCam LIBS observations of Otter Lake, a target very close to Royal Arches, and another nearby rock named Nevada Falls. A suite of environmental monitoring observations will round out the plan.

I really love operations days like today. We came in this morning with a completely new Martian vista to admire, and then we had to work together as a team to make a quick decision about what to do next. I think the pace of this decision making, the ability to talk through tough choices with a group of really smart, passionate people, and the realization that these decisions are guiding the course of a one-ton vehicle on an entirely different planet is one of the coolest ways to spend a morning.

Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Reached the South Side of Pinnacle Ridge What's Next? - SciTechDaily

Were headed toward a Jupiter and Mars conjunction in August. Start watching the 2 planets now. For an especially dramatic scene, look during the early morning hours of July 30 and 31. The crescent moon joins Mars, Jupiter, the Pleiades, Aldebaran and the Hyades. Chart by John Jardine Goss/ EarthSky. Heading toward a Jupiter and Mars conjunction

Mars will sideswipe Jupiter in a conjunction, culminating on August 14, 2024. You can start watching the two neighboring planets now, as they pull together in the morning sky. By mid-July, Mars will enter the constellation Taurus, where Jupiter is currently hanging out.

But a bonus planetary conjunction occurs on July 15, when Mars is about half a degree from Uranus. Use binoculars to zero in on reddish Mars, then spot Uranus right beside it. You may be able to make it out as a bluish-green disk. The two are not far from the misty Pleiades star cluster.

Then Mars will pull away from Uranus and get a bit closer to the Pleiades as it makes a beeline toward Jupiter. Just to make it even more interesting, the crescent moon enters the scene on July 30.

On that date, bright Jupiter, red Mars, the bright star Aldebaran, the pretty Pleiades and the V-shaped Hyades star cluster will create quite a scene. Theyll all be in the eastern sky two hours before sunrise. Then, the next morning, the moon as an even thinner crescent hangs a bit farther northeast of the celestial grouping.

The closest pairing of this planetary duo comes on the morning of August 14. The bright gas giant Jupiter will get a visit from rocky red Mars. Then, the little planet appears less than the width of a full moon from Jupiter. Of course, thats just where they appear on our skys dome. In reality, the two remain more than 300 million miles (500 million km) apart.

Using just your unaided eyes, the bright, white light of Jupiter will contrast nicely with the somewhat dimmer and distinctly redder shine of Mars. In binoculars, Jupiters moons will add to the view. And itll be a great event for telescope owners and astrophotographers to capture both planets in one view and thoroughly examine these remarkably different worlds.

For a precise view from your location, visit Stellarium.

The following charts all come from Guy Ottewell. Youll find charts like these for 2024 in his Astronomical Calendar.

Heres a heliocentric view of the solar system from above for July and August when Mars and Jupiter will appear close together in the morning sky.

Guy Ottewell explains heliocentric charts.

Bottom line: Start watching on July mornings for the upcoming Jupiter and Mars conjunction. The neighboring planets will get closer and closer in the constellation Taurus, culminating on August 14, 2024.

I can sometimes see the moon in the daytime was a cosmic revelation that John Jardine Goss first discovered through personal observations at age 6. It shook his young concept of the universe and launched his interest in astronomy and stargazing, a fascination he still holds today. John is past president of the Astronomical League, the largest U.S. federation of astronomical societies, with over 20,000 members. He's earned the title of Master Observer and has authored the celestial observing guides Exploring the Starry Realm and Carpe Lunam. John also writes a monthly stargazing column, Roanoke Skies, for the Roanoke Times, and a bimonthly column, Skywatch, for Blue Ridge Country magazine. He has contributed to Sky and Telescope magazine, the IDA Nightscape, the Astronomical Leagues Reflector magazine, and the RASC Observers Handbook.

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 in Wisconsin.

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Get ready for the Jupiter and Mars conjunction before dawn - EarthSky

We already know that water has existed on the surface of Mars but for how long? Curiosity has been searching for evidence for the long term presence of water on Mars and now, a team of researchers think they have found it. The rover has been exploring the Gale Crater and found it contains high concentrations of Manganese. The mineral doesnt form easily on Mars so the team think it may have formed as deposits in an ancient lake. It is interesting too that life on Earth helps the formation of Manganese so its presence on Mars is a mystery.

The Mars Curiosity Rover was launched in November 2011. It arrived on 6 August 2012 in the Gale Crater region of Mars. Its purpose was to explore the geology of the area, climatic conditions and the potential for habitability for future explorers. We have seen stunning images from the surface of Mars thanks to Curiosity and our understanding of Mars both past and present has been improved as a result of its work.

A paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research : Planets has reported on findings using the ChemCam instrument on board Curiosity. The papers lead author Patrick Gasda from the Los Alamos National Laboratorys Space Science and Application group announced the findings of high levels of manganese in rocks from the base of the crater. It is thought that the Gale Crater is an ancient lake so this poses interesting questions as to its origin.

On Earth, biological processes are fundamental to the formation of materials like manganese oxide with photosynthesis producing atmospheric oxygen. There are also microbes that act as a catalyst to the oxidisation of manganese. The problem is that there is no such sign other life on Mars so the process that led to the formation of oxygen in the ancient Martian atmosphere is unclear. If we cannot understand the formation of oxygen, then we struggle to understand how manganese oxide might form. Perhaps something relating to large bodies of surface water could be responsible.

The ChemCam instrument on Curiosity uses a laser to generate small amounts of plasma on the surface of Martian rocks. Light is then collected to enable the composition of the rock to be identified. The team studied sand, silts and muds, the former being more porous than the latter. The majority of the manganese found in the sands is thought to have been the result of ground water percolation. On Earth the manganese is oxidised by atmospheric oxygen in a process that is accelerated by microbes.

We still dont have all the answers but but the study has revealed yet again, to an environment that was once suitable for life. That environment seems similar to many places on Earth that also display rich manganese deposits.

Source : New findings point to an Earth-like environment on ancient Marsh

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These Rocks Formed in an Ancient Lake on Mars - Universe Today

The annual Humans to Mars Summit is underway now, bringing together members of the international space community to discuss a common goal of establishing a sustainable and permanent human presence on the Red Planet, and you can watch it live online.

Attendees are gathering in Washington, D.C. for the 2024 Humans to Mars Summit (H2M), hosted by the nonprofit organization Explore Mars. The conference, which people can attend both in-person and online, begins on Tuesday (May 7), kicking off with a panel on the innovation that will make it possible to get people to the moon and Mars.Panel discussions will run through 5 p.m. ET each day.

"Over the past decade, H2M has been and remains the most successful conference focused on a sustainable human presence on Mars," Chris Carberry, Explore Mars' CEO, said in a statement for this year's registration, which can be found online here. "This year we are restructuring the event to maximize the in-person as well as the online experience of the week's events."

Related: How long does it take to get to Mars?

The H2M summit, taking place at the Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University, features a list of speakers talking about accomplishments in space exploration, plans to launch astronauts to the Red Planet by the mid-2030s, and the challenges that may be faced in achieving that goal.

"As we stand on the brink of a new era of interplanetary exploration, the 2024 Humans to Mars Summit is not merely an event," J.R. Edwards, Explore Mars' president, said in the statement. "We know that exploration and our instinctive curiosity for what lies beyond drives discovery, innovation [and] new technologies and improves life on Earth."

The summit agenda features speakers from various space industries, including NASA, the European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Lockheed Martin, Collins Aerospace, the Planetary Society, Virgin Galactic and Raytheon Technologies. The summit will be attended by students, innovators, authors and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) professionals.

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Registration for both days costs $495 plus a $30.09 booking fee, while registration for a single day costs $300 plus a $19.27 fee. Students can attend the two-day summit for $125.00 plus a $9.55 fee. There are additional events available for pre-registration at varying costs, including the Great Scotch Whisky Taste-Off, a coffee networking session, book signings, a visit to Capitol Hill and the closing ceremony. And those who are unable to attend can watch a recap of the events on ExploreMars' YouTube channel.

"It is imperative that we achieve a shared vision and consensus among all stakeholders, ensuring that our journey to Mars embodies the very tenets of equality, diversity, and sustainability that ExploreMars.Org holds dear," Edwards said. "This summit represents a commitment, a promise that, as we take these monumental steps, we do so responsibly, ensuring a brighter and more inclusive future for all of humanity."

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The 2024 Humans to Mars Summit is happening now. Here's how to watch live. - Space.com

The Science of Siblings is a series exploring the ways our siblings can influence us, from our money and our mental health all the way down to our very molecules. We'll be sharing these stories over the coming weeks.

Ask which planet in the solar system is Earth's closest sibling, and many people might point to Mars. It orbits nearby, just a little farther from the Sun. It was born at the same time and with the same stuff as Earth. And it is thought to have once had rivers and lakes, even oceans. NASA has sent rovers to its surface to help us learn whether the 'red planet' could have once hosted life.

But there are planetary scientists who would tell you to look in the other direction, to a planet that's far less explored but is actually closer to Earth in size, looks, composition and actual distance ... that is, toward Venus.

Scientists who study Venus affectionately call themselves Venusians. They like to refer to Venus as Earth's twin.

Martha Gilmore is a proud Venusian and a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Wesleyan University. She says that in the past, our planet would not have looked so different from its two neighbors.

"If you were an alien visiting our solar system 4 billion years ago, you would see three rocky planets, each of which had oceans," Gilmore says.

Those planets Earth, Mars, and Venus look very different from each other today. Earth is a temperate, blue-green marble transformed by living things. Meanwhile, its siblings have migrated to two extremes: Mars is a dry, cold, dusty planet with a paper-thin atmosphere, and Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, covered in a thick atmosphere that quickly destroys even nonliving visitors from Earth.

That's not an exaggeration: Ten probes that have made it to the Venusian surface; none of them have lasted more than two hours. Venus experiences temperatures over 800 degrees Fahrenheit and pressures that are more than 75 times that of what we experience on Earth.

So what happened to those ancient oceans on our two closest planets and why is the surface of Venus such a harsh environment today?

Temperature and pressure are what set Venus apart from Earth. Gilmore says these differences stem from a couple of factors: distance from the sun, and the internal heat of the planet itself.

All planets are born with a certain amount of heat from when they were created, says Gilmore, who explains this phenomenon to her students using a holiday dinner.

"It's like Thanksgiving. You have a hot potato, you know, baked potato and you've got peas and you want to eat that potato, but it's too hot. But the peas, they're ready to go because they have radiated out their heat because they're small."

Mars is a smaller potato, so it lost its heat faster. Venus and Earth were similarly sized spuds, so they should have cooled at the same rate.

But other than internal heat, there was something else keeping Venus warm: the sun. Because Venus sits much closer to the sun, it receives more of its energy. And that extra bit of energy, delivered over billions of years, is a big reason that Venus's atmosphere became far more intense than what we experience on Earth.

Atmospheres act like "cozy blankets," Gilmore says. On Earth, for example, the atmosphere helps keep the planet habitable by shielding life from radiation and also keeps the surface at temperatures that we humans can live in. And to have a stable atmosphere, a planet needs a few things: volcanism, sufficient mass, and oceans.

"You have to be hot enough, big enough to have volcanism," says Gilmore, because volcanoes are powered by a planet's internal heat. Those volcanoes pump out the gasses that make up an atmosphere. But once that atmosphere is in place, a planet has to also be big enough that its gravity can actually "hold on to [that] blanket."

While Mars started out similar to Venus and Earth, its smaller size meant that its gravity wasn't strong enough to hold onto the small amount of atmosphere it had developed when it had oceans in its early life. And as Mars cooled down its volcanic activity slowed down ... and eventually stopped.

The problem is, planets actually need volcanoes to constantly replenish their atmospheres, because those atmospheres are constantly being lost to space, Gilmore explains.

"At the top of our atmosphere right now, there are all kinds of nasty rays that are eroding the atmosphere away, like cosmic rays and solar rays," she says.

So Mars's atmosphere was slowly eaten away becoming so thin that water could no longer remain liquid on the surface. Some of it escaped to space, and some of it ended up frozen in ice.

Meanwhile, Venus was so close to the sun that its oceans boiled away. Volcanoes also continued to pump out stuff like carbon dioxide which is a potent greenhouse gas.

Earth's atmosphere also has carbon dioxide, but our oceans help moderate its heat-trapping effects by sucking up excess carbon and eventually turning it into rock. That's why it's so crucial to take care of our oceans, Gilmore says.

"Once you get rid of an ocean, you turn off the major mechanism to store carbon dioxide in rock," Gilmore says. "And therefore, it just stays in the atmosphere. And the greenhouse effect takes over, and you get a super, super hot blanket."

The runaway greenhouse effect that makes Venus uninhabitable to life as we know it on Earth is something scientists worry about when studying the effects of climate change. Currently humans pump out 100 times more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than volcanoes do annually.

Studying Venus could give scientists insights of what a world looks like when there are no carbon sinks left. But it also happens to be the closest 'Earth-like' planet that researchers know of.

Hundreds of planets found outside of our solar system are Earth-sized and may be habitable. But these planets are so far away that sending spacecraft to investigate them will not be feasible for many generations.

Venus, Gilmore says, is much closer by. It's somewhere that we visited before, and can visit again. Earth is scientists' first data point on what a habitable planet can look like but Venus's past could give us a glimpse of another planet that was once habitable before it was altered forever.

More from the Science of Siblings series:

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Venus looked a lot like Earth when they first formed - NPR

The conquest of other worlds is one of the most cherished dreams of mankind. The new invention will help bring us closer to our cosmic goal faster. Now NASA is cooperating with a company that is developing power engines capable of delivering people to Mars in a relatively short time two months instead of nine.

A potentially revolutionary propulsion system is being developed by Howe Industries, an Arizona-based company. To achieve high speeds in a shorter period of time, an pulsed plasma rocket will use nuclear fission the release of energy from atoms splitting apart to create plasma packets for thrust.

In fact, the engine creates a controlled plasma jet that will help accelerate the rocket in space to significantly faster speeds than those currently produced by traditional chemical engines. Using a plasma propulsion system, the spacecraft can potentially generate up to 10 tons of thrust with a specific impulse of 5,000 seconds, which ensures extremely high fuel efficiency.

It sounds pretty revolutionary. However, this is not an entirely new concept. NASA has already developed a similar concept, known as PuFF, in 2018. But the pulsed plasma rocket, according to NASA, has a simpler design and is quite affordable.

The Space Agency claims that the high efficiency of the power plant can make it possible to carry out a manned mission to Mars within two months. Today, with the help of conventional propulsion systems, the journey to Mars takes nine months. The less time people can spend on space travel, the better: shorter periods of exposure to cosmic radiation and microgravity can help mitigate their effects on the human body. The pulsed plasma rocket will also be capable of carrying much heavier spacecraft, which can then be equipped with protection from galactic cosmic radiation for the crew on board.

The new propulsion system has the potential to revolutionize manned spaceflight, helping people get to Mars much faster.

Earlier we talked about how an astrophysicist criticized Elon Musks idea to colonize Mars.

According to gizmodo.com

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A journey to Mars in just two months: a revolutionary rocket engine is invented - The Universe. Space. Tech

If you're looking for some chess Entertainment, we have The Real Thing. Chess.com is excited to announce our newest bot, Phoenix lead singer Thomas Mars! You can challenge the new bot by going to our Play Computer page. But bewareThomas' bot is On Fire, so you better be ready to face his Funky Squaredance!

Play Against Thomas Mars

The singer recently sat down with IM Levy Rozman at the Marshall Chess Club in New York to play and talk about chess, music, and Phoenix:

A prominent figure in the French indie pop scene, Thomas is also an avid chess player. "My family would play a lot of chess. We were not that good, but it was a social thing," Thomas said. "I would play with my older brother, my dad, my sister... My mom was very competitive."

However, Thomas' passion was truly ignited during the 2020 pandemic. The singer found in ches a new and safe activity to spend time with his loved ones. "I played every day with my dad, just to stay in touch... I started to play everywhere, like when I was commuting, on airplanes, and stuff."

I played every day with my dad, just to stay in touch... I started to play everywhere. Thomas Mars

Phoenix is going on tour in Europe this May to celebrate the 15th anniversary of one of their most successful albums, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. This is the perfect opportunity for you to crank the album's two most popular songs, Lisztomania and 1901, while trying to checkmate the new bot!

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New Thomas Mars Chess Bot On Chess.com - Chess.com

Astrobiology is the field of science that studies the origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the Universe. In practice, this means sending robotic missions beyond Earth to analyze the atmospheres, surfaces, and chemistry of extraterrestrial worlds. At present, all of our astrobiology missions are focused on Mars, as it is considered the most Earth-like environment beyond our planet. While several missions will be destined for the outer Solar System to investigate Ocean Worlds for evidence of life (Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Enceladus), our efforts to find life beyond Earth will remain predominantly on Mars.

If and when these efforts succeed, it will have drastic implications for future missions to Mars. Not only will great care need to be taken to protect Martian life from contamination by Earth organisms, but precautions must be taken to prevent the same from happening to Earth (aka. Planetary Protection). In a recent study, a team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, recommends that legal or normative frameworks be adopted now to ensure that future missions do not threaten sites where evidence of life (past or present) might be found.

The study was led by Clare Fletcher, a Ph.D. student with the Australian Centre for Astrobiology (ACA) and Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre at UNSW. She was joined by Professor Martin Van Kranendonk, a researcher with the ACA and the head of the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University, and Professor Carol Oliver of the School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences at UNSW. Their research paper, Exogeoconservation of Mars, appeared on April 21st in Space Policy.

The search for life on Mars can be traced to the late 19th and early 20th centuries when Percival Lowell made extensive observations from his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Inspired by Schiaparellis illustrations of the Martian surface (which featured linear features he called canali), Lowell recorded what he also believed were canals and spent many years searching for other indications of infrastructure and an advanced civilization.During the ensuing decades, observatories worldwide observed Mars closely, looking for indications of life and similarities with Earth.

However, it was not until the Space Age that the first robotic probes flew past Mars, gathering data directly from its atmosphere and taking close-up images of the surface. These revealed a planet with a thin atmosphere composed predominantly of carbon dioxide and a frigid surface that did not appear hospitable to life. However, it was the Viking 1 and 2 missions, which landed on Mars in 1976, that forever dispelled the myth of a Martian civilization. But as Fletcher told Universe Today via email, the possibility of extant life has not been completely abandoned:

Its my personal belief that it is unlikely we will find evidence of extant (current) life on Mars, as opposed to evidence of past life on Mars. If we were to find extant life on Mars that could be proven to be endemic to Mars and not contamination from Earth, some think it might be found underground in lava tubes, for example, and some think the ice caps or any possible source of liquid water might be suitable places.

Ironically, it was the same missions that discredited the notion of there being life on Mars that revealed evidence that water once flowed on its surface. Thanks to the many orbiter, lander, and rover missions sent to Mars since the turn of the century, scientists theorize that this period coincided with the Noachian Era (ca. 4.1 3.7 billion years ago). According to the most recent fossilized evidence, it was also during this period that life first appeared on Earth (in the form of single-celled bacteria).

Our current astrobiology efforts on behalf of NASA and other space agencies are focused on Mars precisely for this reason: to determine if life emerged on Mars billions of years ago and whether or not it co-evolved with life on Earth. This includes the proposed Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission that will retrieve the drill samples obtained by the Perseverance rover in the Jezero Crater and return them to Earth for analysis. In addition, NASA and China plan to send crewed missions to Mars by 2040 and 2033 (respectively), including astrobiology studies.

These activities could threaten the very abodes where evidence of past life could be found or (worse) still exists. Human activities might threaten sites like this in part due to possible microbial contamination, said Fletcher. Evidence of life (past and extant) also has greater scientific value when in its palaeoenvironmental context, so any human activities that might damage the evidence of life and/or its surrounding environmental context pose a risk. This could be something innocuous, like debris falling in the wrong spot, or something more serious, like driving over possibly significant outcrops with a rover.

Conservation measures must be developed and implemented before additional missions are sent to Mars. Given humanitys impact on Earths natural environment and our attempts to mitigate this through conservation efforts. In particular, there have been numerous cases where scientific studies were conducted without regard for the heritage value of the site and where damage was done because of a lack of proper measures. These lessons, says Fletcher, could inform future scientific efforts on Mars:

Its important that we learn from what has been considered damaging on Earth and take this into consideration when exploring Mars. If a site is damaged beyond being able to be studied in the future, then we limit what can actually be learned from a site. When considering Mars missions cost billions of dollars and are to meet specific scientific goals, limiting the information being learned from a site is incredibly detrimental. My recommendations are that of my paper: interdisciplinary cooperation, drawing on experience and knowledge from Earth, creating norms and a code of practice (part of my PhD work), and working towards creating legislation for these issues.

The need for exogeoconservation is paramount at this juncture. In addition to Mars, multiple astrobiology missions will travel to the outer Solar System this decade to search for evidence of life on icy moons like Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Enceladus. This includes the ESAs JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission, currently en route to Ganymede, and NASAs Europa Clipper and Dragonfly missions that will launch for Europa and Titan in October 2024 and 2028 (respectively). Therefore, the ability to search for extant or past life without damaging its natural environment is an ethical and scientific necessity.

I hope this paper is very much a starting point for anyone working in Mars science and exploration, as well as anyone thinking about space policy and exogeoconservation, said Fletcher. My goal was to start drawing attention to these issues, and that way start a generation of researchers and practitioners focused on exogeoconservation of Mars.

Further Reading: Space Policy

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We Need to Consider Conservation Efforts on Mars - Universe Today