Category Archives: Mars

Thousands of volcanic events known as "super-eruptions" occurred on Mars 4 billion years ago for a half-billion years according to NASA scientists. Each of the giant eruptions catapulted the equivalent of 400 million Olympic-size swimming pools of gas and molten rock toward the sky, creating a thick ash cloud thousands of miles long.

The eruptions would have been astonishingly powerful, NASA said. The most recent comparable event on earth was the eruption of the Toba Caldera Complex 75,000 years ago in Northern Sumatra, which led to a 10-year global volcanic winter.

NASA said Sept. 15 that a team found evidence that a region of northern Mars called Arabia Terra experienced thousands of volcanic eruptions that sent water vapor, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide high into the planet's atmosphere.

Patrick Whelley, a geologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the Arabia Terra analysis, said: "Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the sun and made the atmosphere colder."

"Modelers of the Martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes," said Whelley.

After a super-eruption, a volcano collapses into a giant hole called a caldera, which stretches across dozens of miles.

"Seven calderas in Arabia Terra were the first giveaways that the region may once have hosted volcanoes capable of super-eruptions," NASA said in a statement.

The calderas were initially mistaken for craters created by asteroid impacts, but scientists proposed instead in 2013 that the "craters" were actually calderas.

"[I]nstead of looking for volcanoes themselves, we looked for the ash because you can't hide that evidence," Whelley said.

Using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Whelley's team re-evaluated studies that suggested mineral deposits on the surface of Arabia Terra were the products of volcanic eruptions.

Alexandra Matiella Novak, a volcanologist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, said the pieces fit: "[W]e picked it up at that point and said, 'OK, well these are minerals that are associated with altered volcanic ash, which has already been documented.' Now we're going to look at how the minerals are distributed to see if they follow the pattern we would expect to see from super-eruptions."

The team identified minerals on the Martian surface by analyzing the light emitted by chemical compounds that they contained. Then they scanned canyons and craters hundreds of thousands of miles from the calderas to learn whether wind had carried volcanic ash there.

The result was a three-dimensional image of Arabia Terra, layering mineral data over the topographic maps of canyons and craters.

They found the mineral-rich deposits of ash were very well-preserved.

Jacob Richardson, a geologist at NASA Goddard who worked with Whelley and Novak, said: "That's when I realized this isn't a fluke; this is a real signal. We're actually seeing what was predicted, and that was the most exciting moment for me."

The NASA team calculated that it would have taken thousands of eruptions to produce the amount of minerals they found. They said they were baffled that so many super volcanoes were concentrated in one region of Mars. They sparsely dot across the planet.

"It's possible that super-eruptive volcanoes were concentrated in regions on Earth but have been eroded physically and chemically or moved around the globe as continents shifted due to plate tectonics," NASA said.

This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.

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VIDEO: How a Super Volcano Apocalypse Tore Apart the Surface of Mars - Newsweek

Mars is a relatively quiet and uneventful place today, but topographical evidence suggests the planet had a violent past. A recent NASA study found that the Arabia Terra region of northern Mars was once home to thousands of massively explosive supervolcanoes, which produce the biggest eruptions known to science.

Earth is home to a handful of supervolcanoes, such as Lake Taupo in New Zealand, the Yellowstone Caldera in the U.S., and Mount Merapi in Indonesia, to name a few. Supervolcanic eruptions are rare: The last one erupted in Sumatra, Indonesia, about 76,000 years ago.

But NASAs new research suggests supervolcanic eruptions might not be so rare if you look back far enough in a planets history. In Mars vegetation-free, ocean-free barrenness, evidence of such ancient events remains visible today.

Scientists initially thought that the massive basins observed in Arabia Terra were asteroid impact craters, but some evidence suggested otherwise. For example, the basins werent as round as craters tend to be, and very deep floors and benches of rocks against their walls suggested some sections had collapsed.

In 2013, scientists proposed that seven of these basins were actually calderas depressions left behind after supervolcanic eruptions and they calculated the amount of ash that would have been dispersed by such eruptions.

Other researchers were also intrigued by the hypothesis, proposing that the volcanic minerals could be found on the surface of Arabia Terra. Another team calculated the likely trajectory of the ash ejected from the super volcanoes. They surmised the ash would travel eastward, downwind, where it would thin out as it traveled away from the center of the calderas.

Patrick Whelley, a NASA geologist and lead author of the recent study, said he and his colleagues had read that [2013] paper and were interested in following up, but instead of looking for volcanoes themselves, we looked for the ash, because you cant hide that evidence.

Fortunately, NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had already been gathering data on ash deposits on the Martian surface. Coauthor and geologist Alexandra Matiella Nova said, So we picked it up at that point and said, OK, well these are minerals that are associated with altered volcanic ash, which has already been documented, so now were going to look at how the minerals are distributed to see if they follow the pattern we would expect to see from super eruptions.

Layering ash data over images from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, the team assembled 3D topographical maps of Arabia Terra that revealed the supervolcanoes ejecta was relatively undisturbed from where it landed in layers, remaining plainly visible.

The studys third coauthor, geologist Jacob Richardson, said, Thats when I realized this isnt a fluke, this is a real signal. Were actually seeing what was predicted and that was the most exciting moment for me.

Based on the amount of ash predicted in the 2013 research, the team calculated that it would have taken thousands of supervolcanic eruptions in this one spot to produce the amount of ash they had identified.

According to NASA, the ash deposits blasted into the Martian skies the rough equivalent of 400 million Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. The researchers estimated that this occurred about four billion years ago, over a 500-million-year period.

Whalley said: Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the Sun and made the atmosphere colder. Modelers of the Martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes.

The finding raises questions for geologists, such as whether Earths early history might have been similarly explosive, with the evidence of terrestrial super-volcanoes long ago obliterated by plate tectonics.

Richardson mused: People are going to read our paper and go, How? How could Mars do that? How can such a tiny planet melt enough rock to power thousands of super eruptions in one location? I hope these questions bring about a lot of other research.

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Ancient Mars was once home to thousands of supervolcanoes - Big Think

Feminas Fabulous 40 for 2021The Olympians who represented the country on a prestigious platform. Some brought glory and others hope. The women who inspire us and make us believe that anything is possible, especially after the year that we have had. Women who have raised their voices and lent a voice to those who did not have one. There are too many to count, but this selection of 40 women will motivate us to hold our heads high while we march ahead.

The Mangalyaan WomenScientists

It was a long, complicated journey right from the announcement of the Mangalyaan project in 2010 till the orbiter was launched in 2013. A team of 500 scientists spread across Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) centres was roped in, and at least 27 per centof the key positions were held by women.

Nandini Harinath and Ritu Karidhal handled the missions operations from the UR Rao Satellite Centre (URSC), Bengaluru. They also worked on calculating the spacecrafts trajectory to Mars and on designing an autonomous software system to self-correct problems, respectively. Moumita Dutta and Minal Sampat built and tested the scientific instruments at the Space Application Centre (SAC). Besides these four superwomen, there were several other women scientists who played significant roles in Indias maiden mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), or Mangalyaan.

The launch of Mangalyan on November 5, 2013 marked a significant step in Indias space-related developments. India became the fourth country to place a satellite in the orbit of Mars, and this also made ISRO the first-ever space organisation to successfully execute the mission in the first attempt. Since it was a calculation-intensive mission, the mathematical expertise of the womens team was used extensively for manoeuvres, designs and path calculations. S Arunan, the missions project director, also credited the women scientists contingency plans for the precision of the minute calculations involved. He proudly mentioned that the women scientists played integral roles.

Minnie Vaids book, Those Magnificent Women and Their Flying Machines, talks of the efforts of women scientists who worked for the success of Mangalyaan.

Also Read: ISRO scientist Ritu Karidhal's Mars Mission

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Femina Fab 40: The Mangalyaan Women Behind India's Maiden Mission To Mars | Femina.in - Femina

The Mars helicopter's 12th flight flight went to the geological wonder that is the South Stah region. It climbed 32.8 feet for a total of 169 seconds and flew about 1,476 feet to scout the area for later scrutiny by the land rover.

This image taken by NASA's Perseverance rover on August 6, 2021, shows the hole drilled in a Martian rock in preparation for the rover's first attempt to collect a sample. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

This enhanced-color image from the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard Perseverance shows a sample tube inside the coring bit after completing the coring activity on August 6. The bronze-colored outer ring is the coring bit. The lighter-colored inner ring is the open end of the sample tube. A portion of the tube's serial number 233 can be seen on the left side of the tube's wall. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

This image, taken by the Mars helicopter Ingenuity during its ninth flight, shows a rocky terrain in the Jezero Crater area on the Martian surface on July 5, 2021. Photo courtesy of NASA

This image looking west toward the Seitah geologic unit on Mars was taken from the height of 33 feet (10 meters) by NASA's Ingenuity Mars helicopter during its sixth flight on May 22, 2021. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover used its dual-camera Mastcam-Z imager to capture this image of "Santa Cruz," a hill about 1.5 miles away from the rover, on April 29. The entire scene is inside of Mars' Jezero Crater. The crater's rim can be seen on the horizon line beyond the hill. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with the Ingenuity helicopter on April 6, using the WATSON (Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering) camera located at the end of the rover's long robotic arm. The image was constructed of 62 individual images, taken in sequence while the rover was looking at the helicopter, then again while looking at the WATSON camera, stitched together once they are sent back to Earth. The Curiosity rover takes similar selfies using a camera on its robotic arm. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance acquired this image of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter using its onboard Rear Left Hazard Avoidance Camera on April 4. The helicopter will soon make its first attempt at a powered, controlled flight of an aircraft on another planet. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance acquired this image of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter on March 29 using its SHERLOC WATSON camera, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

The debris shield, a protective covering on the bottom of Perseverance, was released to allow the Ingenuity helicopter to fold out of the rover on March 21. The debris shield protects the helicopter during landing; releasing it allows the helicopter to rotate down out of the rover's belly. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance acquired this image of its "ejectable belly pan" laying on the surface of Mars on March 14 using its onboard Left Navigation Camera. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance acquired this image of its "ejectable belly pan" laying on the surface of Mars using its SHERLOC WATSON camera, located on the turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. In cooperation with the European Space Agency, subsequent NASA missions would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance acquired this image on March 6, of the area in front of it using its onboard Front Right Hazard Avoidance Camera A. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance took this photo on March 4 of a rocky mound in Jezero Crater, which NASA scientists said is likely a remnant of an ancient river delta. Photo courtesy of NASA

Perseverance acquired this image of the area in back of it using its onboard Rear Left Hazard Avoidance Camera. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance acquired this image using its onboard Left Navigation Camera on March 3. The camera is located high on the rover's mast and aids in driving. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance shows a plate fastened to the rover aft crossbeam (lower right) with three fingernail-sized chips stenciled with nearly 11 million names of Earthlings. The full-resolution image was taken by the Perseverance rover's left Navigation Camera (Navcam) on February 28. The names were submitted as part of the Send Your Name to Mars campaign. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

The rover can be seen in this enhanced HiRISE color image at its landing site six days after touchdown on February 24. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance rover acquired this image using its left Mastcam-Z camera. Mastcam-Z is a pair of cameras located high on the rover's mast. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance documents the Martian surface. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

The Martian surface is documented is detail from Perseverance. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

The navigation cameras aboard the Mars rover captured this view of the rovers deck on Monday. This view provides a look at PIXL (the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), one of the instruments on the rovers stowed arm. Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

This panorama, made by the navigation cameras aboard Perseverance, was stitched together from six individual images after they were sent back to Earth. Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with the European Space Agency, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis. Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

This is the first high-resolution, color image to be sent back by the Hazard Cameras (Hazcams) on the underside of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover after its landing on February 18. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

This high-resolution still image, from the camera aboard the descent stage, is part of a video taken by several cameras as NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on Mars. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Perseverance can be seen falling through the Martian atmosphere in the descent stage, its parachute trailing behind, in this image taken on Thursday by the High-Resolution Imaging Experiment camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The ancient river delta, which is the Perseverance mission's target, can be seen entering Jezero Crater from the left. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

An illustration depicts the rover driving in the foreground across the plain of Jezero Crater, where the robotic explorer landed safely. Image courtesy of NASA

An image showing where Perseverance Mars rover landed is shown during a NASA Perseverance rover mission post-landing update, on February 18, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA | License Photo

Members of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars. Photo by Bill Ingalls/NASA | License Photo

The first photos taken by NASA's Perseverance Mars rover after landing on the Martian surface. A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

These computer simulations show Perseverance landing on the Martian surface. The rover will characterize the planet's geology and past climate, paving the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith. Image courtesy of NASA | License Photo

In this illustration of its descent to Mars, the spacecraft carrying NASA's Perseverance rover slows down using the drag generated by its motion in the Martian atmosphere. Hundreds of critical events must execute precisely on time for the rover to land on Mars safely. Entry, descent, and landing, or "EDL," begins when the spacecraft reaches the top of the Martian atmosphere, traveling nearly 12,500 mph. The cruise stage separates about 10 minutes before entering into the atmosphere, leaving the aeroshell, which encloses the rover and descent stage, to make the trip to the surface. Image courtesy of NASA | License Photo

An illustration of Perseverance on Mars, launched from Earth in July. It is the fifth rover to successfully reach Mars, and is the first of three that may return rocks samples to Earth. Image courtesy of NASA | License Photo

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NASA offers new website to look at Mars rover images - UPI News

artist's interpretation of the red planet

For the last decade at least, the second man to walk on the Moon - Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Col. Edwin Buzz Aldrin - has frequently been photographed with a Get Your A To Mars t-shirt. Aldrin has long wanted to forgo a return to the Moon and head straight to the red planet instead.Question is, just how many behinds are we talking about on that first trip to the Martian surface?

The number of crew on the first trip to Mars at first seems like something that would automatically be dictated by launch costs, in situ resources utilization (ISRU) and logistics.But theres also a human, psychological factor involved.In interpersonal settings of any sort, the sheer numbers of people at any given event can be crucial to its success or failure.

There isnt a real Goldilocks number for a Mars crew; the general opinion is that you need a group ofat least five people, social psychologist Sheryl L. Bishop, professor emeritus at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, told me. This lower boundary comes from the social psychological research in two areas - even versus uneven groups and groupthink - where the desire to avoid group conflict stifles dissent, she says.

In groups of four or less, Bishop says, the pressure to avoid conflict and disagreements is strongest and dissenting individuals will frequently simply remain silent even on important issues. This could result in critical problems being ignored in their early stage of emergence, she says. But when a group is five or larger, individuals seem to feel empowered to disagree and speak up about their differences of opinion, she notes.

But there are intangibles that can impact the ideal upper limit on crew numbers.These include the quality and nature of the missions leadership; the heterogeneity of the crew, including their personalities, skill sets, professional backgrounds, even their religion, nationality, gender and politics.

The sweet spot has often been the even number of six.But if the crew is in a tight squeeze and needs to vote on life-or-death decisions, thats one of the pros of an odd numbered crew roster.

Even so, the major space agencies appear to have given more emphasis to personality and work culture of potential astronaut crews than to the sheer numbers selected for any given mission.

Two Astronauts in Space Suits Confidently Walking on Mars, Exploration Expedition on the Planet's ... [+] Surface. Red Planet Covered in Rocks, Gas and Smoke. Humans Overcoming Difficulties.

In the early days of space flight, it was simply about getting astronauts into space.But by the time we send astronauts to Mars, there will be more options; one idea is to simply send two separate crews of six each to the same landing area in order to maximize the number of working personnel once on Mars itself.

As NASA points out, the optimal Mars mission length entails a long surface stay with a fast transit time of no more than six months each way, which would easily allow for more than a year on the Martian surface.So, when thinking about such long missions, crew numbers become even more important.

As anyone with social skills intuitively understands group dynamics matter.Think about dinners out with close friends; anything beyond six is a bit much. Conversations tend to break off into twos and threes and theres a lack of group cohesion which can sometimes quickly lead to tension even at a dinner table. Its also why at private house parties, a core group of four or five people are usually ensconced in deep conversation in the kitchen.

The challenge is to avoid a group so large that it becomes difficult for everyone to be heard, interferes with group identification or allows for subgroups to form, says Bishop.You want enough of a crew to provide diversity and redundancy in skills, but not so many that being a part of the group becomes a challenge, she says.

Group cohesion is better in smaller groups than larger groups because the interdependencies amongst group members is greater and creates greater cohesion, said Bishop.

A higher number may be called for to promote redundancy if something goes catastrophically wrong during a Mars mission.

Its presumed that a Mars crew will have extensive opportunities to cohere as a group, says Bishop. The best approach would be to start with a larger candidate group during the selection process with the intent of selecting a minimum of five members and expand with two to four more individuals, she says.

As to how best to choose these final crew members?

Science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinsons portrayal of the selection process for the first hundred in his 1999 book, The Martians, comes very close to the process needed, says bishop. The space agencies do utilize team training in various extreme environments for current space crews, but they will need to do so much more extensively and intensively for a Mars crew, she says.

In The Martians, a group of 158 candidate Mars walkers are dropped into a dry Antarctic valley during polar summer and are expected to build a base in which to winter.

This stay in Antarctica was a kind of test, or winnowing, Robinson writes.Some candidates were going to drop out, others would be invalidated out, and others placed on later trips to Mars. They were capable, brilliant, assured, used to success.

Robinsons fictional roster of potential Mars colonists sounds very much like the type of gung-ho overachievers that NASA has always loved.But as bishop points out, the longer any potential crew has to bond before departure, the better.

The more effort that goes into creating a tightly knit, cohesive group that identifies as a group and has practiced working and living together, the larger the group can be, says Bishop. For Mars, this would support groups probably not greater than nine.

But with the advent of the commercial space industry, the old rules may no longer apply.Humans may try for Mars sooner than any of the major space agencies would ever have dreamed.Heres hoping this new breed of commercial crew planners spend enough time figuring out not just who, but how many to send to the red planet.

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Whats The Magic Crew Number For Astronauts Headed To Mars? - Forbes

NASAs Mars Perseverance rover is shown at its landing site in Jezero Crater in this view from the Explore with Perseverance 3D web experience. This interactive web tool features a 3D model of the rover on 3D landscape created from real images taken by Perseverance. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Two interactive web experiences let you explore the Martian surface, as seen by cameras aboard the rover and orbiters flying overhead.

Its the next best thing to being on Mars: Two online interactive experiences let you check out Jezero Crater the landing site and exploration locale for NASAs Perseverance rover without leaving our planet.

One new experience, called Explore with Perseverance, allows you to follow along with the rover as though you were standing on the surface of Mars. Another interactive Where Is Perseverance? shows the current location of the rover and Ingenuity Mars Helicopter as they explore the Red Planet. Its updated after every drive and flight and allows you to track the progress of Perseverance and Ingenuity, in their journeys on and above the Red Planet.

Its the best reconstruction available of what Mars looks like. JPL software engineer Parker Abercrombie

Explore with Perseverance is made mostly with images taken by the rover from various vantage points, with additional images from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Experiment) camera aboard NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter overhead.

Its the best reconstruction available of what Mars looks like, said Parker Abercrombie, a senior software engineer who is leading the software development at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The agencys Mars Public Engagement team recruited Abercrombie and his colleagues, who work on similar tools for the mission team, to develop a public-friendly experience by stitching together and reconstructing the Perseverance and HiRISE images.

The team plans to update the site regularly with new views from the spacecraft and the rover and some new points of interest, as they are found. For example, says Abercrombie, we can highlight scientifically interesting rocks and other features, or the Ingenuity helicopter flight locations.

Abercrombie believes the site will help people understand the perspective as if they were on Mars. Its sometimes hard for people to grasp location and distance from Mars images. Its not like here on Earth, where you can get your bearings by looking at trees and buildings. With the Martian terrain, it can be really hard to wrap your head around what youre seeing.

This video clip of the interactive 3D experience, Explore with Perseverance, shows how users can follow the activities of the Mars rover at Jezero Crater. The web tool features a 3D model of the rover on a 3D landscape created from real images taken by Perseverance. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The dashboard makes it easy for parents and teachers to share the 3D views with kids, bringing them along as Perseverance explores.

The 3D tool is based on the Advanced Science Targeting Tool for Robotic Operations (ASTTRO) that the rovers science team uses to select interesting targets for the rover to study but has been modified to make it more user-friendly.

Its a unique challenge to set things up so people can browse in a way theyll understand, since users have varying experiences in using 3D environments, Abercrombie said. This is a great opportunity for the public to follow along with the mission, using the same type of visualization tools as the mission scientists.

The Curiosity mission has a similar experience built by the same team.

The Where Is Perseverance? map allows you to see more of what were doing and where were going, said JPL Mapping Specialist Fred Calef. It, too, is based on ASTTRO, and Calef notes that youll get the data almost as fast as the engineers and scientists do. Plus, youre using practically the same software the team uses, so everyone can explore the way we explore in almost the same way, Calef says, zooming in, zooming out, and panning around.

The map shows the rovers route and its stopping points with markers indicating the Martian day, or sol, and youll get the overview of where Perseverance and Ingenuity might head next. Terrain maps like this one allow scientists to spot interesting places to look for possible evidence of ancient life, and youll be able to share in the journey.

When Ingenuity flies, its usually a burst of activity and then a lull for a couple of weeks. The rover, says Calef, drives more often, though not as far, traveling around 130 meters [142 yards] on its longest drive (sol) to date. When we find a geologically interesting spot, well stop for a week or so to check it out.

You can get more news about the activities of Curiosity on Mars at the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity website, and follow the latest about Perseverance at the Mars 2020/Perseverance website.

A key objective for Perseverances mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planets geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA, would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASAs Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

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Interactive Web Experiences: Take a 3D Spin on Mars and Track NASAs Perseverance Rover - SciTechDaily

In about a year (Sept. 20th, 2021), the Rosalind Franklin rover will depart for Mars. As the latest mission in the ESAs and Roscosmos ExoMars program, Rosalind Franklin will join the small army of orbiters, landers, and rovers that are working to characterize the Martian atmosphere and environment. A key aspect of the rovers mission will involve drilling into the Martian soil and rock and obtaining samples from deep beneath the surface.

To prepare for drilling operations on Mars, the ESA, Italian space agency (ASI), and their commercial partners have been conducting tests with a replica aka. the Ground Test Model (GTM). Recently, the test model completed its first round of sample collection, known as the Mars Terrain Simulation (MTS). The rover drilled into hard stone and extracted samples from 1.7 meters (5.5 feet) beneath the surface in a record-breaking feat.

The MTS operations are being held at the Rover Operations Control Center (ROCC), located on the Aerospace Logistics Technology Engineering Company (ALTEC) premises in Turin, Italy. These dry runs are basically a dress rehearsal for the surface operations conducted by the real rover, which is being developed in parallel in preparation for launch next year.

To test how Rosalind Franklin will fare in on the Red Planet, the GTM has been drilling into a well filled with various rocks and soil layers. This takes place on a dedicated platform tilted at seven degrees to simulate the sample collection process on realistic, variable terrain. The first sample was obtained from a block of cement clay of medium solidity and was shaped like a pellet measuring about 2 cm long and 1 cm in diameter (0.787 x 0.39 inches).

Once collected, Rosalind Franklins drill retains the sample with a shutter that prevents it from falling out during retrieval. Once the drill is completely retracted, the sample is dropped into a drawer in the front of the rover, which closes and deposits the sample into a crushing station. The resulting powder is then distributed to ovens and containers inside designed to perform scientific analysis.

By drilling to a depth of 1.7 meters, the GTM established a new record for sample collection, as the deepest any mission has drilled on Mars to date is 7 cm (2.75 inches). The Rosalind Franklin rover is designed to drill deep up to 2 meters (6.5 ft) beneath the Martian surface, the purpose of which is to gain access to any well-preserved organic material that may have migrated there from 4 billion years ago and after.

At that time, Mars was a warmer, wetter place where surface conditions were similar to what is believed to have existed on Earth around the same time. With the success of missions like the Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance rovers which found compelling evidence for flowing water and organics on the surface scientists have been eager to get a peek at the subsurface environment to see if this is where Mars water and possibly life could have retreated to.

The long-awaited successful soil collection from a hard stone and its delivery to the laboratory inside the rover represents a major milestone for the ExoMars 2022 mission and Mars exploration in general. As ExoMars project scientist Jorge Vago described:

The reliable acquisition of deep samples is key for ExoMars main science objective: to investigate the chemical composition and possible signs of life of soil that has not been subjected to damaging ionizing radiation,

The drill was developed by the aerospace company Leonardo, which also contributed to creating the ROCC alongside the ESA, ASI, and Thales Alenia Space (the prime contractor for the ExoMars 2022 mission). Relying on an automated assembly of mechanisms, the Rosalind Franklin drill works on rotation by fitting tools and extension robs to form a drill string that allows it to drill to a depth of up to 2 m (6.5 ft).

The drill also has a two-degree of freedom positioner that allows it to deposit samples at the right angle into the rover laboratory. It can penetrate the ground at 60 rotations per minute (depending on the consistency of the soil) and dig into solid clay materials and sandy rock at a rate of 0.3 and 30 mm (0.012 to 1.18 inches) per minute, respectively.

Said ExoMars rover team leader Pietro Baglioni, The design and construction of the drill has been so complex that this first deep drilling is an extraordinary achievement for the team.

Another major challenge comes from having to simulate Martian conditions during the tests accurately. To do this, the GMT must be suspended from the ceiling on a dedicated gravity compensation device to recreate the effect of Martian gravity, which is about 38% that of Earth (0.38 g). But gravity alone does not represent all of the environmental challenges a robotic rover will have to contend with once its on the surface of Mars.

As Andrea Merlo, ExoMars Rover functional engineer from Thales Alenia Space, explained:

Drilling hard stones to a depth of two meters on a mobile wheeled platform with less than 100 watts of power is a complex task. This already gives engineers a hint on how the system could degrade on Mars.

In addition to drilling operations, the GTM has completed several other tests designed to gauge the rovers other abilities. These include the ability to move around and identify potential scientific targets while also acquiring data and images. These dry runs began in June of 2021 and have successfully demonstrated that Rosalind Franklin can follow precise trajectories and survey the surface and subsurface environment.

Once it reaches Mars, the rover will rely on its advanced suite of cameras, spectrometers, a sub-surface sounding radar, and neutron detector to search for evidence that life once existed on Mars (and perhaps still does!)

Further Reading: ESA

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ExoMars Will be Drilling 1.7 Meters to Pull its Samples From Below the Surface of Mars - Universe Today

Mars is home to the solar systems largest volcano, Olympus Mons, and volcanic activity has had a profound impact on shaping the planet into the state it is in today. Now, new evidence shows that volcanic eruptions on ancient Mars were incredibly dramatic, with thousands of super eruptions throwing huge quantities of dust and gases into the air and blocking out the sun.

Starting around 4 billion years ago, volcanic activity on Mars crescendoed into a period of around 500 million years when super eruptions spewed water vapor, carbon dioxide, and toxic sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. These eruptions spread a thick blanket of ash for thousands of miles around the volcanoes, and according to NASA, they threw out the equivalent of 400 million Olympic-size swimming pools of molten rock and gas.

There was so much of this activity that it changed the entire planets climate, according to the studys lead author Patrick Whelley, a geologist at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. Each one of these eruptions would have had a significant climate impact maybe the released gas made the atmosphere thicker or blocked the sun and made the atmosphere colder, Whelley said in a statement. Modelers of the martian climate will have some work to do to try to understand the impact of the volcanoes.

Whelley and his colleagues were investigating vast basins in the martian surface which were originally thought to be from asteroid impacts. But more recently, researchers realized that the craters could actually be the sites of ancient volcanoes which had collapsed in on themselves.

We read that paper and were interested in following up, but instead of looking for volcanoes themselves, we looked for the ash, because you cant hide that evidence, Whelley said.

They investigated an area called Arabia Terra and looked for the way volcanic minerals were distributed across the surface using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars instrument. They found these volcanic minerals even thousands of miles from the craters and used 3D topographical maps to see that the ash had been laid down in consistent layers, suggesting it was deposited around the same time. Not only that, but the layers were so thick that the ash must have been created from thousands of super eruptions.

Currently, the Arabia Terra region is the only place on Mars with evidence of these huge explosive volcanic eruptions has been found, making this a special place on the planet.

People are going to read our paper and go, How? How could Mars do that? How can such a tiny planet melt enough rock to power thousands of super eruptions in one location? co-author Jacob Richardson said. I hope these questions bring about a lot of other research.

The research is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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Volcanoes on Mars exploded in super eruptions that blotted out the sun - Digital Trends

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Space food innovators need to think about questions we take for granted on Earth: How long is a day? What air pressure is it? Will there be soil? Are there insects?

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Birthday cakes took a different form aboard the International Space Station (ISS) under Chris Hadfields command. Using alternating layers of peanut butter, honey and the maple syrup he had brought with him from Canada, the astronauts stacked tortillas 25 high. Especially versatile in space, tortillas dont crumb like bread or cake; since theyre heat-treated and packaged in an oxygen-free environment, they can last for 18 months.

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Because it was all stuck together as one big cylinder, suddenly wed created a space cake, says Hadfield. We could cut everybody a little traditional triangular slice, and have a birthday cake that was using the materials on hand to make something that actually was quite delicious and different, but still reminiscent.

If they had been celebrating on the Moon, birthday candles could have been flickering. But in microgravity, theres no convection. The only way for oxygen to resupply a lit candle would have been through random molecular motion, Hadfield explains. Starved of oxygen on the ISS, the spherical blue flames would have almost immediately extinguished.

Not being able to blow out candles didnt detract from the celebrations, though: We had the whole world in our window.

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During his five-month assignment aboard the ISS in 2013 the second half of which he served as commander, another first (in 2001, he became the first Canadian to walk in space) Hadfield captured the worlds attention. His cover of David Bowies Space Oddity has more than 50 million views on YouTube, but people were also captivated by glimpses of his daily life in orbit.

Part of it is just trying to share what is still an extremely rare human experience, and a perspective that I think is really important. Being able to see the entire world in 90 minutes, over and over again, forever changes your perception of where the line between us and them is drawn, and the shared commonality of the human experience, says Hadfield, who was an astronaut for 21 years and has since started exploring space in fiction with The Apollo Murders (Oct. 12, 2021, Random House Canada). The perspective from space radically forever improves your understanding of the world itself.

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The ISS is entirely dependent on supplies from Earth. As Hadfield demonstrated in videos shot in his space kitchen, food preparation is limited to opening packages, squeezing tubes, rehydrating or reheating. There are no fridges, freezers, stoves, microwaves or dishwashers no aromas of food cooking, coffee brewing or plates to eat off of.

Since objects float away if untethered, astronauts tend to eat serially: one dish after the other. Building a meal with multiple ingredients aboard the ISS would be akin to food juggling; the less assembly, the better.

Space foods must be compact, firm (not crumbly), lightweight, shelf-stable, nutritious and tasty. But feeding astronauts today involves more adaptability and expense than it does invention, says Hadfield. Moving beyond the ISS to the Moon or Mars, however, will require innovation.

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In an effort to encourage the creation of food technologies or systems for long-duration space missions, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has partnered with NASA on the Deep Space Food Challenge, which Hadfield is co-chairing with Dr. Thomas Graham, a professor in the University of Guelphs School of Environmental Sciences with 25 years of experience in space-related research.

The international competition includes $300,000 for up to 15 winning Canadian teams. This fall, as many as 10 semi-finalists will test their prototypes; and in fall 2022, up to four finalists will build a full system demonstration. Underscoring the complexity of the task, the jury is diverse: Lynn Blackwood, a food security policy analyst with the Nunatsiavut Government, Lawrence Goodridge, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph, and chef Lynn Crawford are among the 11 tasked with arriving at a short list.

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Less than 10 per cent of NASAs Food Lab menu is feasible for trips to Mars, according to the Deep Space Food Challenge. On the ISS, any of the food astronauts grow is research-oriented, not nutritional. In order to embark on longer missions to destinations like Mars, we need to be able to produce food en route, as well as sustain ourselves once we get there.

In coming up with future food technologies for space, innovators must consider questions terrestrial producers take for granted, says Hadfield: How long is a day and night? What air pressure is it? Will there be soil and if so, what type? Are there insects or not? How will seeds be germinated? Is there gravity and if so, how much and how will it affect plant life?

Producing food in space may be wrapped up in a new set of parameters, but Hadfield looks at it historically. Just as when Indigenous peoples in present-day southern Mexico domesticated corn roughly 9,000 years ago, the solutions are technical, they are scientific. Theyre genetic and biological.

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The technologies and systems must be as sustainable as possible and have the ability to produce more than they take. Its a complex problem that humans have had to solve many times over, he adds, as weve found ways to adapt to new environments over millennia.

Necessity is the mother of invention; whether addressing the effects of climate change on Earth or settling the Moon, when external circumstances change, our approaches must shift as well.

To start growing things in a new climate, in our long, long human past, that has required invention, says Hadfield. And thats where we are now for the Deep Space Food Challenge: Were going to a new environment. And so how much can you bring with you? How much can you grow in situ? And then how are you going to turn that into not just one food stuff, but a wide enough smorgasbord that it meets everybodys nutritional needs?

These innovations wont be confined to deep space, though; they should also have the potential to improve life on Earth. The distance between the two may seem difficult to fathom, but there are direct parallels.

The terrestrial benefits (of space exploration) are huge, says Graham, who specializes in controlled-environment agriculture (e.g., greenhouses, hydroponics, vertical farms). Doing it better there, under the really tight requirements of space, allows us to improve things here for the betterment of us all. It will make our food systems more secure.

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Since 1976, NASA has recorded more than 2,000 spinoff technologies, including the recent development of a ventilator for coronavirus patients. As many as 811 million people in the world lived with food insecurity in 2020 according to the FAO; innovations for space could be applied to hard-hit areas at home, including food deserts, remote and Northern communities.

Right now, at least terrestrially, vertical farms are making money on things like leafy greens, microgreens, baby greens. Thats fairly well established, says Graham. But if this sort of method of production is ever going to truly realize its potential, we need to get into things that have higher energy content, things that can provide fibre and proteins and lipids.

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Grahams group at the U of Gs Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility is examining ways to expand the scope, investigating crops like beans. And as part of his three-year postdoctoral term at NASA, he and a team at the Kennedy Space Center developed the first spaceflight-compatible tree fruit with the USDA.

Tree fruits with their continual cycles of flowering, fruit production and dormancy dont work in space or vertical farms, Graham explains. But their engineered plum tree, which is more vine-like (similar to a tomato), flowers quickly and constantly.

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As an added bonus, it turns out that prunes (dried plums) are very good terrestrially for mitigating bone loss, he says. Due to radiation in microgravity, bone loss in space is a significant issue; the prunes produced from this crop could also be used as a countermeasure to help mitigate the stresses on the body in space.

That has been picked up by some of the big vertical farm players that have fairly extensive R & D programs. So theyre looking at that now for terrestrial applications, he adds. Its all intertwined when youre talking about food. It doesnt matter where you do it; the questions are the same.

Graham is also part of a project aiming to grow edible plants on the Moon by 2024. As a very first baby step, their goal is to have three plants barley, radish and an as-yet-undetermined third withstand a lunar night. At roughly minus 200 degrees Celsius and lasting for two weeks, surviving it is challenging. In 2019, China successfully sprouted a cotton plant on the Moon an agricultural first but when the lunar night fell, it perished.

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In deep space, plants would provide a source of food, adds Graham, but they would also deliver other requirements for life support all in a regenerative fashion. A plant grows and makes seeds, which can be used to start another plant and the cycle continues.

Growing plants in space provides the oxygen we need to breathe, scrubs the carbon dioxide we exhale, and helps purify the water. And then theres the psychological benefit of sharing space with other living organisms: Humans didnt evolve in a tin can, so its always nice to have some greenery with you.

Menu diversity is part of the Deep Space Food Challenge as well; people take comfort in eating, especially in high stress environments. Having continual access to fresh food being able to pluck a few leaves of basil from a tray and add them to a dish, for example would go a long way towards adding enjoyment.

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Eating your supper out of a toothpaste tube is no way to live, says Graham, laughing. So if you can improve someones mental well-being when theyre on a rocket ship or on some very inhospitable planet where if you step outside unprotected, you die, theres certain merit to that. And again, that still translates to Earth. If you can provide people with good, nutritious food, you reduce health-care costs.

Space is the ultimate in closed-loop (or circular) production, he adds: All space waste needs to be processed in the backend of the system as we should probably be doing on Earth, too. In effect, there is no waste in space; only resources.

Controlled-environment agriculture is not poised to replace field production on Earth, Graham highlights, but it is a complementary way to provide fresh, local food. If you close the loops by tying in renewable energy, its an efficient, sustainable and weather-proof production system, which helps improve food security. As an added benefit, it can be done anywhere, all year long.

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There are still technical aspects to figure out, he says, but thats where things like this challenge help. Lets put this big old carrot out there that were all going to go for. And as the technology develops, and is improved through these challenges, we all benefit.

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Hadfield grew up on a grain farm in southern Ontario, where he learned firsthand how important technology is for the efficiency of food production. Its also where he watched the Apollo missions and Moon landings in the late 1960s and early 70s. NASA could have waited to show the world, as the Soviets did, he recalls. But broadcasting the process as it unfolded no matter the outcome made the triumph all the more impactful.

I think maybe I internalized that as a 10 or 11 year old kid, that Hey, if you ever get to do this, share it. Dont keep it to yourself. Let other people see the beauty of it, and the opportunity of it, says Hadfield. And its why Im in the Deep Space Food Challenge as well. To me, its part of my own responsibility, but its also a really cool facet of it that we need. And where the technology can spin back and really help everybody.

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The race is on to develop space food for Mars and it could change how we eat on Earth - National Post

Dust devils are generally used as a trope in media when the writers want to know that an area is deserted. They signify the desolation and isolation that those places represent. Almost none of the settings of those stories are close to the isolation of Perseverance, the Mars rover that landed on the planet earlier this year. Fittingly, the number of dust devils Perseverance has detected is also extremely high over 300 in its first three months on the planet.

The paper discussing those findings, written by Brian Jackson of Boise State University, is available on arXiv. Data used in that analysis was collected by a suite of instruments on the rover known as the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA). That suite includes everything from humidity and wind sensors to ground temperature and dust optical sensors.

Those sensors were all put to good use, collecting data on that many dust devils. However, this wasnt the first time dust devils were seen on Mars the Viking missions first noticed them back in the 1970s, and they have been visible even from space by orbiting satellites for years. But never before have as many fine-tuned on the ground sensors been able to collect a myriad of data on the phenomena.

Other rovers have also experience dust devils, but Jezero crater, Perseverances landing site, seems to have a high occurrence of dust devils. Meteorological predictions suggested that might be the case, and observational evidence from Perseverance so far has confirmed those predictions.

What the predictions didnt expect was the number of dust devils that didnt involve any dust. Only about 20% of the 309 vortices nearly 5 per sol detected dimmed the light around the rover by more than 2%. An insolation (i.e., light detection) sensor was used to estimate how much dust was in the air during the events. Even with relatively limited dust uptake, scientists believe that dust devils are one of the most significant contributing factors to the amount of dust floating around Mars atmosphere.

Martian dust is notorious for its difficult clinginess and toxicity and could prove a problematic hazard to deal with when crewed exploration missions start. This confirmation of meteorological models with Perseverances data is a positive step toward genuinely understanding Maritan weather patterns. But it also might mean that Jezero Crater isnt a particularly great place to go with the first human missions.

Learn More:Brian Jackson Vortices and Dust Devils As Observed by the MEDA Instruments onboard Mars 2020 Perseverance RoverSpace.com Perseverance rover spots its first dust devil on MarsUT Summer is Dust Devil Time on MarsUT This is a Dust Devil on Mars

Lead Image:A large dust devil on Mars.Credit HiRISE, MRO, LPL, University of Arizona, NASA

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Perseverance has Already Detected Over 300 Dust Devils and Vortices on Mars - Universe Today