NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission

In 2020, sometime from July 17th to August 5th during the rover’s launch window, NASA will send a rover to Mars to try to answer a question being asked for over a century: was there life on Mars? The objective of the Mars 2020 Mission is to search for signs of previous microbial life as well as signs of previous “habitable conditions.” Additionally, the goal is to demonstrate new technology that could show the potential of “human expeditions to Mars.” Such methods used to test this potential is the rover’s ability produce oxygen using the Martian atmosphere, search for sources of water, identify the living conditions to prepare for astronauts, and improve landing technology.

Mars 2020 Mission Timeline

The Mars 2020 rover is based on NASA’s Curiosity rover, which demonstrated the ability to land heavy rovers on Mars and demonstrated surface mobility for sample collections. To improve upon this design, the 2020 rover is carrying a drill for coring samples rather than scooping rocks or soil from the surface. This “depot caching” strategy demonstrates “gathering, storing, and preserving” capabilities. These samples will eventually be sent back to Earth on a future mission for “intensive laboratory analysis” which will allow scientists to identify “past environments capable of supporting microbial life” and rocks with signs of previous life. Additionally, the new rover has technology to extract oxygen from Mars’ 96% carbon dioxide atmosphere, which will be used to demonstrate human exploration potential to improve designs for “life support, transportation, and other important systems for living and working on Mars.”

The Mars 2020 Mission is very important for future space exploration on Mars and other planets. As technology advances, scientists and engineers are eager to send more astronauts into space in search of life to continue answering questions about the history of our solar system and the universe. Technology will continue to develop, and the Mars 2020 Mission is the next step to demonstrate our ability to make new, ground-breaking discoveries.

Below is an interesting overview of the Mars 2020 Mission:

References:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/overview/


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Electric Cars and Climate Change

Climate change is the change in global climate patterns due to an increase in fossil fuels. A solution to mitigate these emissions released by fossil fuels is converting automobiles to use only electric energy. However, the electricity used by electric vehicles also generates harmful emissions due to power plants that use fossil fuels to generate electricity. Despite these pollutants emitted into the atmosphere to produce electricity, electric vehicles still seem to be a viable solution to reduce harmful emissions produced by gasoline and diesel vehicles.

Electric Vehicles Charging at a Charging Station in
Hennepin County, Minn
.

Considering average emissions nationwide, vehicles running on gasoline produce 381 grams of CO2e (CO2 equivalent) per mile. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles produce 196 grams of CO2e per mile, approximately 50% less than that of a gasoline vehicles, which includes the fossil fuels required to produce the electricity to power these hybrids. Solely electric vehicles produce only 129 grams of CO2e per mile, which is only 34% that of gasoline vehicles. Of course, battery waste is still an issue, and companies like Nissan are finding solutions to recycle old electric vehicle batteries, such as using them to power street lights after use in an electric vehicle. Once these issues are solved and the world’s power grid continues to become cleaner, more electric vehicles will replace standard gasoline and diesel vehicles, reducing the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere and hopefully reducing the issues experienced by man made climate change.

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Is There Life on Mars?

A true-color photo of Mars in all its beauty
Image Credit: Rosetta, ESA via Wikimedia Commons

Mars, our red-tinted planetary neighbor, has long attracted human curiosity. Due to its unusual color, it was named after the Roman god of war. Although it is so much smaller than our planet (only about half Earth’s diameter and one-tenth its mass), it shares certain Earth-like features, particularly volcanoes and a great canyon. These structures, however, dwarf their earthly counterparts. Nevertheless, there are also the telltale signs of the past presence of water: dried riverbeds and floodplains, and minerals that develop in water.

Schiaparelli’s map of the Martian canals
Image credit: Stefan Kühn via Wikimedia Commons

For centuries, humans have wondered about the possibility of life on Mars, and the first such “evidence” was actually due to a misunderstanding. In 1877, when Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli (after whom craters on Mars and the Moon are named) studied the Martian surface with a telescope, he saw channels and published his findings. However the Italian word for channel, “canali,” was later mistranslated into the English “canal,” suggesting that these structures had been deliberately constructed – certainly by an intelligent Martian life form. In 1908, the American astronomer Percival Lowell expanded on this idea by publishing the book, “Mars as the Abode of Life,” in which he described a sophisticated Martian civilization using these canals as a water transportation mechanism. Other scientists of the time sought ways to signal our presence to this supposed Martian civilization.

In 1938, yet another piece of “evidence” for Martian life was due to an even more drastic misunderstanding. Orson Welles aired a radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’ novel War of the Worlds, with voice actors telling of a meteor crashing into a New Jersey field and Martians coming out of a spacecraft at the crash site. The announcer on the program described the Martians in great physical detail and narrated as these creatures continued on to destroy thousands of National Guardsmen, before dispersing poisonous gas. Two more spacecraft landed in Chicago and St. Louis, and thousands of people were running for their lives. The show was, of course, fictional. However, millions of Americans, who had tuned in to the radio late, mistook the program for actual news. Panic ensued as people across the nation tried to flee, causing traffic jams everywhere and countless frantic calls to police. Although the situation eventually resolved itself, public curiosity about Martian life was piqued. Novels and movies were written about the subject, many of which depicted Martians as the stereotypical “little green men.”

Questions were finally answered in 1965, when Mariner 4 flew by Mars, photographing its surface and bringing home no evidence of intelligent life – or any life at all. Viking 1, which landed on the Martian surface in 1976, further confirmed the planet’s lifelessness. However, an image taken by the Viking 1 orbiter revealed the apparent presence of a giant human face in the Cydonia region. This “Face on Mars” became the target of much speculation, with some considering it evidence of a lost Martian civilization – perhaps even one that had visited Earth at some point. However, more detailed images taken over two decades later (by several spacecraft), revealed the “Face on Mars” to be a mountain range with little resemblance to a human face, thus virtually ending speculation.

The original “Face on Mars,” 1976
Image Credit: Viking 1, NASA via Wikimedia Commons

Despite centuries of false hope, the answer to the question, “Is there life on Mars?” is a surprising “Yes.” However, this life does not take the form of little green men or poisonous gas-wielding armies. These organisms are but tiny microbes – and they come from Earth. We humans are entirely responsible for their existence on Mars. Although scientists have gone to great lengths to search for life on Mars without contaminating the red planet with Earthly organisms, some risk of contamination was inevitable. NASA’s Curiosity Rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, carried some heat-resistant extremophiles. By analyzing the cloths used to wipe down the rover, scientists were able to determine the names of the species, which include Actinobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, Nitrososphaeraceae, and spores of Melanommatales. These organisms are the Martians of today.

Nevertheless, the search for Martian-based life continues on, both in the scientific community and in our imaginations. Even though speculations of intelligent Martian life have been debunked, it is still fun to read science fiction novels about little green men or daydream about exploring the ruins of a long-lost Martian civilization.

Do you think we will one day find evidence of Martian life (that didn’t come from Earth)? What about elsewhere in the Solar System?

I’ll conclude this blog post with an appropriately-titled song.

Sources:

Bennett, Jeffrey O., et al. The Cosmic Perspective. Pearson, 2018.

“Cydonia (Region of Mars).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Feb. 2019. Web.

“Life on Mars.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Feb. 2019. Web.

Niiler, Eric. “Life on Mars? The Search for Signs Goes Back Centuries.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 8 June 2018. Web.

Twilley, and Nicola Twilley. “There’s Already Life on Mars, and We Put It There.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017. Web.

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How to Find Orion in the Night Sky

Orion-Yonezu Kenshi (Youtube)
Orion (by me)

One of the most famous and recognizable constellations, Orion is most visible in the evening sky, winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It was named after a hunter in Greek Mythology, Orion. Rigel, a blue-white supergiant, and Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, are the brightest stars in Orion. Thousands of newly formed stars can be found in the direction of the Orion Constellation.

Orion (SPACE.com)

The easiest part t recognize is the Belt of Orion, which consists of Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. In the Northern Hemisphere, it is most visible during January around 9 pm, when it is approximately around the local meridian. If you want to find Orion in the night sky, the first step is to look for three stars located in a straight line.

Depiction of Orion (Wikipedia)

Above the Belt, the shoulder of Orion is marked by two bright stars, Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. The apex of the head, Meissa, forms a triangle with the shoulder. Looking down from the belt, you can find Saiph and Rigel, which represent the knees of Orion. The famous Orion Nebula is in Orion’s Sword, hanging from the Belt.

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The Star-Crossed Fates of Phobos and Deimos

The planet Mars was named after Mars, who to the Romans was the God of War. Its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, carry the names of the Greek Gods of fear (from which we get phobia) and terror, respectively.

However, despite the naming scheme that seems to be inspired by Death Metal, Phobos and Deimos are not very intimidating. The look much less like something menacing and much more like two misshapen, cosmic potatoes of especially low quality.

But we really shouldn’t be making too much fun of Phobos and Deimos. After all, they are doomed. “How can a moon be doomed?” viewers at home may be wondering. Here is how:

The Death of Phobos

From what we have observed about Phobos, it appears to be formed of many segments of rock weakly held together by gravity, coated by a thin crust. This loose conglomeration of rock does not fare well when tidal forces are applied. And unfortunately for Phobos, it is being subjected quite strong tidal forces, as it is much closer to Mars than Deimos. Moreover, it is being pulled in closer to Mars at a rate of 2 meters every hundreds years. At this rate, scientists expect that Phobos will either collide directly with Mars, or break up into a fancy planetary ring.

Neither of these options are very appealing for Phobos.

The Rejection of Deimos

Deimos is suffering (or will be suffering, at any rate) from the opposite problem that is afflicting Phobos. Tidal acceleration is slowly but surely increasing Deimos’ orbit, and eventually Mars will lose gravitational hold on Deimos. Deimos will then be sent to drift about the Solar System indefinitely, or until it crashes into something. It is thought (though there is not a consensus) that Deimos and Phobos are asteroids that were captured by Mars at some point in the past, so perhaps it would be fitting for Deimos to rejoin its friends in the asteroid belt. Still, one can’t help but feel for Deimos’ impending loss of glory, falling from the status of moon to lowly space rock.

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Venera, or the Soviets’ many attempts to reach Venus

Despite being the sister planet of Earth, Venus is far from hospitable. Very far. Its atmospheric pressure at the surface is 92 times that of Earth’s, has an average surface temperature of 863 degrees Fahrenheit, and at higher latitudes sulphuric acid rains onto the surface.

So what better force could there be to attempt to reach, land on, and take pictures of Venus than the Soviet Space Program?

As it turns out, a different force would probably have been preferable, because the Soviets did not have an easy time getting to Venus. For reference, here are the results for their first eight attempts:

  1. Failed to leave Earth
  2. Communications lost en route to Venus
  3. Failed to leave Earth
  4. Failed to leave Earth
  5. Third stage exploded
  6. Did not reach Venus
  7. Did not leave Earth
  8. Communications lost en route to Venus

And hey, going 0/8 isn’t so bad, but remember: they have not even managed to reach Venus by this point, so all of that blistering heat and acid rain has not even entered the equation yet.

When the spacecraft actually manage to make it to Venus, things do not go well. For starters, only one of them managed to last over two hours before overheating and becoming crushed by the atmosphere. One lasted a mere 23 minutes. Venera 11 managed to land on the surface, armed with a color camera, but due to a design flaw its lens cover become stuck and no pictures could be taken. The new-and-improved Venera 12 had the exact same issue.

The Photos

Eventually, however, the Venera landers did manage to take some photographs of the surface of Venus, both black-and-white and in color. Here are some of them:

From Venera 9 and 10
From Venera 13
Still from Venera 13

The Aftermath

What happened after the Soviets obtained these images? In fact, they realized that idea of landing on Venus was a little too ambitious, and the next four (and final) missions to Venus were flyby’s.

Since the last Venera landing in 1982, no spacecraft has landed on the surface of Venus. While there are some tenuous plans by the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Indian Space Research Organization to launch orbiter spacecraft toward Venus in the late 2020s, there are currently no proposed Venus landers.

As such, it is likely that over half of a century will have passed, and our only knowledge of the surface of the planet closest to us will be a handful of dingy photographs taken by ill-fated landers, sent by a country that no longer exists.

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What’s the weather like on the Sun?

NASA-Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun (from: Youtube)

Just like the Earth, the Sun has weather. The most important features of the Solar Activity includes Sunspots, Solar flares, Coronal mass ejections. and solar winds.

Sunspots (from: wikipedia)

 • Sunspots are spots darker than the surrounding area on the Sun’s photosphere caused by concentration of magnetic flux field. Their number varies in an approximately 11-year cycle.

• Solar flares are sudden flashes of light on the Sun, usually observed on the surface and close to a sunspot group. They are caused by the interaction between accelerated charges particles and the plasma medium.

• Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are significant releases of plasma caused by magnetic reconnection. They often accompany powerful solar flares. On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the Sun produced a solar flare, followed with a CME, then a coronal rain. In the video at the beginning of the article, each second corresponds to 6 minutes of real time.

• Solar Winds are streams of charged particles released from the corona.

Effects on Earth

How Solar Winds Impact the Earth’s Magnetosphere (from: NASA)

• Earth’s weather and global climate change can be affected by solar activities. Auroras are indicators of the connection between the Sun and the Earth.

• Solar activities also affect GPS, satellites and other high-tech systems. For example, a solar radiation storm can cause noise in imaging systems and permanent damage to exposed detectors on satellites.

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Awesome Planetary Formation Videos

20 new protoplanetary disks, as imaged by the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP) collaboration, showcasing what newly-forming planetary systems look like. (S. M. ANDREWS ET AL. AND THE DSHARP COLLABORATION, ARXIV:1812.04040)
20 new protoplanetary disks, as imaged by the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP) collaboration, showcasing what newly-forming planetary systems look like. (S. M. ANDREWS ET AL. AND THE DSHARP COLLABORATION, ARXIV:1812.04040) Found on Dr. Ethan Sharp’s Starts With A Bang blog

I’d love to show you a whole bunch of videos that show planetary formation! Some showcase certain parts of formation better than others but they all are pretty awesome.

  • Beginning of Solar System formation (from gas cloud to disk) from ESA (0:39)
  • Why is the Solar System Flat? from Minute Physics (3:12)
  • Planetary Formation – by NASA for the James Webb Space Telescope, uses data from computer models (3:21)
  • Planet Formation – narration by Harrison Ford, I like that it has some timescale information in it, part of a larger series (3:13)
  • Short animation from the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft – it especially shows comet formation but watch for: a) gravitational forces bringing smaller things to bigger things in orbits (bound and unbound), and b) those conglomerating rocks/metals getting a layer of ices (0:55)
  • A computer model: Planetary System Formation Simulation (200 AU View) (0:45)
  • Two renderings (i.e. computer simulations) of protoplanetary disk gravitational instabilities (i.e. planet formation), one is face on (0:44) and one is an oblique angle (0:44)
  • The California Academy of Sciences has a really nice former planetarium show segment about Simulating Solar System Formation (and it explains why the Kuiper Belt (and Oort Cloud) look the way they do) (4:22)
  • blocked on copyright grounds From “Space with Sam Neill” Episode: “Star Stuff”, I really like how this one is done (I started it at 1:27) – here
  • The “Formation of the Moon” video that I commented does happen to be one of my favorites despite the speeding up of some events that they did (3:37)
  • More Moon formation – this is from a supercomputer simulation and it has the weirdest music! It’s also a bit old and you don’t need to watch until the end… (4:05)

Below is an image of the Orion Nebula (we can see it during our observations this semester ;) ) from the Hubble Space Telescope showing some of the protoplanetary disks that have been found in this nebula.  Look!!!  New baby planetary systems! :)

A collection of 30 never-before-released images of embryonic planetary systems in the Orion Nebula are the highlight of the longest single Hubble Space Telescope project ever dedicated to the topic of star and planet formation. Also known as proplyds, or protoplanetary discs, these modest blobs surrounding baby stars are shedding light on the mechanism behind planet formation. (from 2009) https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic0917/
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Archeoastronomy and the Newgrange monument

newgrange
newgrange-entrancenewgrange_sun An aerial view of Newgrange, the “roof-box” above the main entrance, and light streaming in through the roofbox, Newgange.com

Newgrange is a monument located in County Meath, Ireland.  This mysterious structure is estimated to be over 5,000 years old and was built by ancient inhabitants of Ireland during the Neolithic period.  Since its construction, word of the structure was passed down through generations as part of Irish folklore.  In the meantime, the mound-like shape of Newgrange became obscured by overgrowth of vegetation and shifting soil.  But in the 1960s, archaeologists unearthed the whole of the structure and carried out a detailed excavation.  This excavation confirmed that Newgrange was a passage tomb, which is a monument-like tomb with a single passage.

It was also during this excavation that Newgrange’s most intriguing feature was uncovered – a small opening above the main entrance called a “roof-box.”  This roof-box flooded the main room of the tomb with sunlight only during the few days surrounding the winter solstice.  This revealed that the ancient peoples who designed Newgrange had a working knowledge of astronomy.  Additionally, this roof-box suggested that the entire religion or culture of the ancient people may have revolved around astronomical events.

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Moving in Circles: Apparent Retrograde Motion

This gif from DeLeoScience illustrates how the orbits of Earth and Mars around the Sun appear to make Mars move in a retrograde motion across our celestial sphere.

Over a single night, the planets behave much like the stars; they appear to rise in the east and set in the west. However, over the course of many nights, one will recognize that the movement of planets among the stars is quite intricate. The speeds and brightnesses of the planets fluctuate significantly, and while they typically travel eastward through the zodiac, they will periodically reverse course and move westward through the stellar background. This phenomenon is called apparent retrograde motion, and these periods can last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

For ancient astronomers who believed in a geocentric universe, this presented a problem. If planets supposedly moved in perfect circles around a stationary Earth, then what could be causing this peculiar backward motion? Greek astronomers like Ptolemy suggested that each planet traveled around Earth on a small circle, or epicycle, that simultaneously moved upon a larger circle, or deferent.

This animation from Kepler College depicts how a planet moving around Earth on an epicycle would show apparent retrograde motion.

Apparent retrograde motion can be explained much more simply with a heliocentric universe. Each of the planets orbits the Sun at a different rate; Mercury and Venus have shorter orbital periods than Earth since they are closer to the Sun, but Mars and the gas giants take a longer time to complete their revolutions. As the Earth passes or is passed by another planet in its orbit, the other planet appears to move back and forth relative to the stars in the distance. We know today that the heliocentric theory is the right one, but it would take almost 2,000 years from the time it was first suggested by Greek astronomer Aristarchus in 260 B.C. to be widely accepted. Nevertheless, the complexities of planetary motion would spur much of the debate over our planet’s place in the cosmos.

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