Monday, October 30, 2017
Mars Forecast: Floating CO2 blocks,spontaneous pi formation
Mars forecast: Floating CO2 blocks, spontaneous pit formation
Researchers now believe they know what's responsible for strange wiggly lines forming down the surface of dunes on Mars, like these found at the bottom of Endurance Crater captured by NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity
"Today will be hazy with a heavy possibility of sand furrow formation. Also keep your eyes peeled for floating chunks of carbon dioxide, spontaneous pit formation and, as always, don't leave home without your hab suit." That could some day be the winter weather forecast Martian colonists wake up to, based on new research out of Trinity College Dublin.
A study conducted there homed in on strange linear gullies on the sides of Martian sand dunes.
"Several years ago I discovered unique markings on the surface of Martian sand dunes," said geomorphologist Mary Bourke who helped lead the study. "I called them sand furrows as they were elongated shallow, networked features that formed and disappeared seasonally on Martian dunes. What was unusual about them was that they appeared to trend both up and down the dune slopes, which ruled out liquid water as the cause."
With water being ruled out, the researchers turned their attention to carbon dioxide, a gas found in abundance on the Red Planet. The team's theory was that the furrows were caused by the gas going through the process of sublimation – turning from a solid to a gas without going through an intermediary liquid stage.
"Mars' atmosphere is composed of over 95 percent CO2, yet we know little about how it interacts with the surface of the planet," said Bourke. "Mars has seasons, just like Earth, which means that in winter, a lot of the CO2 in the atmosphere changes state from a gas to a solid and is deposited onto the surface in that form. The process is then reversed in the spring, as the ice sublimates, and this seasonal interplay may be a really important geomorphic process."
Bourke initially thought the grooves were created by a process known as cryo-venting, in which carbon dioxide trapped and pressurized beneath the planet's surface escapes in dust and gas geysers. However, a new PhD candidate, Lauren McKeown, had a different idea and, to test it out, the team created a sand-filled low-humidity chamber that closely replicated the Martain landscape and environment.
Blocks of frozen CO2 were then placed on the surface and it was found that they could indeed form the furrows – and they could do it by levitating.
"The difference in temperature between the sandy surface and the CO2 block will generate a vapor layer beneath the block, allowing it to levitate and maneuver downslope, in a similar manner to how pucks glide on an ice-hockey table, carving a channel in its wake," said McKeown. "At the terminus, the block will sublimate and erode a pit. It will then disappear without a trace other than the roughly circular depression beneath it."
The team even saw some pits form in under 60 seconds as chunks of CO2 rapidly sublimated.
The pits found in the experiments closely matched the pits found at the ends of the furrows observed on Mars. With a bit more study, the team was able to accurately match block size to pit size on Mars, using previous observations from the Russell Crater megadune.
The team will now head to the Large Mars Chamber at the Open University in England. There, in the sealed environment that mimics conditions on the surface of the Red Planet – complete with UV radiation – the researchers will continue studying the influence Mars' atmosphere has on the formation of the furrows.
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Saturday, October 28, 2017
An Alien Invader
From The Economist Espresso: Foreign object: an interstellar visitor
https://espresso.economist.com/61c66a2f4e6e10dc9c16ddf9d19745d6
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Monday, October 23, 2017
Mars Rover Mission Progresses Toward Resumed Drilling
Mars Rover Mission Progresses Toward Resumed Drilling: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity team is working to restore Curiosity's sample-drilling capability using new techniques. The latest development is a preparatory test on Mars.
Friday, October 20, 2017
Blue Origin Test Fires Its BE-4 Engine
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/blue-origin-space-venture-fires-203911124.html
Take a Walk on Mars -- in Your Own Living Room
Take a Walk on Mars -- in Your Own Living Room: JPL and Google have collaborated on a free VR experience that lets people 'walk' on Mars.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Space-X To Launch Israeli Satellites
Check out this post in the News vibe:
SpaceX, Spacecom to launch new satellites after explosion last year
https://www.yahoo.com/newsroom/vibes/news/v-dd323ebb-416a-3b40-b6ef-7e9c677f40d2_c-228e6295-895f-362d-b41c-6d8d9cbf6e7f_a-228e6295-895f-362d-b41c-6d8d9cbf6e7f
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Why NASA Needs To Establish Martian Law
Why NASA Needs To Establish Martian Law
Future Mars colonists may want to form their own legal system. What would stop them?
/https://public-media.smithsonianmag.com/filer/fd/87/fd87eadc-f7d3-4fd1-82a7-4b4d2c888cc2/file-20171005-9767-4g1c6e.jpg)
Six people recently returned from an eight-month long isolation experiment to test human endurance for long-term space missions. Their “journey to Mars” involved being isolated below the summit of the world’s largest active volcano in Hawaii (Mauna Loa), and was designed to better understand the psychological impacts of manned missions.
NASA, which aims to send expeditions to Mars by the 2030s, is hoping that the results could help them pick crew members for a future mission to Mars. And it’s not just NASA that has an eye on Mars. Maverick millionaire Elon Musk and aerospace firm Lockheed Martin have heralded separate missions and stations for the red planet between 2022 and 2028.
Indeed, scientific discovery is making a Martian El Dorado a feasible dream at breathtaking speed. Last month, China claimed to have developed a “physics-defying EmDrive,” which would allow humans to journey to Mars in weeks. With or without this engine, it seems humans are on the inevitable trajectory to colonize Mars.
It is therefore becoming as important to ask what laws will govern humans on Mars as it is to ask whether we could survive on the planet’s surface. Unexpectedly, this may be something that isolation experiments could help with.
Settled law on space stations
Space law has always supported the position that objects and stations placed on celestial bodies are to remain under national ownership, jurisdiction and control. Private companies or other entrepreneurs cannot therefore have legitimacy or mine these bodies for resources unless they exercise lawful control through a sovereign state.
Current rules say the establishment of a space station and the area required for its operation should be notified to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. These would then be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the state where the spacecraft is registered or the state bringing the component parts of the station.
In many ways, this makes sense – it is difficult to see how a permanent station on Mars may be maintained without some form of tenure of the ground. The same goes for tenure over areas around the station sufficient for its maintenance (such as creating fuel from nearby resources). In fact, the closest practical analogies to a future Mars station in current jurisdictional terms would be the Antarctic stations maintained by Antarctic claimant states.
But there are areas where the law may need to be updated. With increased interest in multiple, permanent space stations on Mars and potentially dozens of objects in its orbit, the possibility of debris that could kill or damage Martian property also increases. What laws should govern this? It is in fact only a matter of time before damage to a space station caused by debris will lead to legal and political conflict?
Property rights and crime
It is also likely there will be questions regarding what states and corporations may be permitted to do on Martian colonies. Space manufacturing of drugs and other materials that may require absolutely sterile atmosphere could be carried out in space stations. Discoveries may under current laws be patented and commercialized. But the main question will be that of legitimacy of mining operations.
Although the use of resources for the conduct of scientific exploration and for the sustenance of a Martian mission is permitted under contemporary space law, creating property rights over space-based resources is not. That means the mining of resources for the purpose of commercial repatriation to Earth is forbidden until appropriate changes are made to space treaties.
However, the likelihood is that the law may end up be ing ignored – as shown by recent attempts to introduce appropriation of natural resources in space by the U.S. and Luxembourg. Both countries have enacted domestic legislation essentially granting a blank cheque to private companies to embark on a winner-takes-all gold rush on celestial bodies.
When it comes to civil and criminal jurisdiction, there are tested examples – such as Intergovernmental Agreements of 1988 and 1999 which regulate the Columbus Space Station Project and the ISS. Partners to these agreements developed a code of conduct for space station crews in free space. The rules specified many things including the power to punish crimes, registration of space objects, safety of nationals and repatriation/scheduled return of offenders to Earth.
Criminal jurisdiction will continue to have to be strict and hierarchical. It is increasingly common that there are astronauts of different nationalities on board a spacecraft or space station, and they are often subordinate to the disciplinary authority of one commander. The commander in all likelihood will have been appointed by the state of registry of the spacecraft or space station. The authority of this person is typically absolute and unquestionable.
In many ways, a space station’s commander inherits powers from older bodies of law such as that of a ship’s captain. The connecting thread in all these traditions is the obvious need to ensure the safety and survival of crew and passengers and eventually “space colonists.” Hopefully, recent isolation experiments could reveal a preference for a more democratic and less hierarchical regime for modern space stations.
This is not least because if collaborating countries all have their own commander, there could be conflict. A good indication would be how Russia and the U.S. dealt with the transportation of Dennis Tito, an American millionaire, into orbit on Space Station Alpha as the first commercial space tourist. To win NASA’s approval, the passenger, who won the privilege to travel there on a Russian rocket, had to promise not to wander through American segments of the station without an escort. He also agreed to pay for anything he broke.
On the flip side, Russian cosmonauts were also curiously banned from using American astronauts’ toilets on the ISS in 2008.
Ultimately, there’s the possibility that colonists won’t be happy being governed by Earth law. What should happen to them – would they be neo-colonialists or simply “alien” in legal terms? Would they or should they form or evolve their own juridical systems while in long-duration flight? Should parliaments on Earth deal with Martian earthlings’ issues on an arm's-length basis? These are all questions that need to be answered.
Luckily, psychological studies like NASA’s will be very useful because the confined and stressful environments “astronauts” face may challenge current legal frameworks. The soup of legal issues that will emerge in future Martian space stations will be a curious thing indeed.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
The Latest On Space-X Mars Colonization
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/15/16476884/elon-musk-reddit-ama-spacex-mars-interplanetary-transport-system-raptor-engines
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Reconstructing Cassini's Plunge into Saturn
Reconstructing Cassini's Plunge into Saturn: Cassini is one of the most ambitious efforts in planetary space exploration. A joint endeavour of NASA, ESA and the Italian space agency, Cassini is a sophisticated spacecraft exploring the Saturnian system since 2004.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Tourists In Space
https://futurism.com/richard-branson-virgin-galactic-will-start-conquering-space-tourism-by-early-next-year/
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
Mars Once Had A Lake Ten Times The Size Of The Great Lakes
cience
Massive Martian waterbody that dwarfed the Great Lakes once dominated Mars
Scientists have known for some time that Mars once had lots and lots of water — in fact, some of it is still there — but exactly where it existed on the planet has been pretty difficult to figure out thanks to billions of years of surface erosion. Now, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered one place on the red planet that held a whole bunch of the life-giving liquid: an incredibly massive lake that, during its peak, held ten times the amount of water of all the Great Lakes, combined.
It’s an incredible discovery, and one that could help inform future exploration of Mars in the hopes of finding evidence that life once existed there. The idea that Mars was one a life-giving planet much like our own is one that has tantalized scientists for a long, long time, and if they ever hope to prove it, they now have a promising lead on where to start looking.
But even if Mars never hosted living organisms, its colossal lake could still help inform researchers painting the picture of life’s origins here on Earth. “Even if we never find evidence that there’s been life on Mars, this site can tell us about the type of environment where life may have begun on Earth,” Paul Niles of NASA’s Johnson Space Center explains. “Volcanic activity combined with standing water provided conditions that were likely similar to conditions that existed on Earth at about the same time — when early life was evolving here.”
The lake was discovered thanks to the detection of huge mineral deposits hiding underneath the surface. It is believed that those minerals were the byproduct of volcanic underwater vents, much like those that exist deep in Earth’s oceans. On our planet, those hydrothermal vents actually host life, but it’s unclear whether the same was true for ancient Mars.
At the moment, the idea of a massive Martian lake with hydrothermal features is incredibly exciting, but we’re still a long way from actually finding anything suggesting the existence of life there. There are no current plans to actually investigate the site, dig, or study the area beyond what is already being done, but that could change.
Trending right now:
- NASA might actually modify the DNA of astronauts going to Mars
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- Video highlighting the iPhone X features Apple stole from Android is horribly misleading
Monday, October 9, 2017
One NASA Study Advocates An All-Female Crew To Mars
This is fascinating. Unbeknownst to most people, in 1958 NASA scientist did a study on who the ideal astronaut would be,They rejected the "male fighter jock." They came to the logical conclusion that women would be the best astronauts. They said this was because women generally have a smaller physical stature than males and could fit in the Mercury capsule better. Women consumed less oxygen and water. Women could bear physical pain better than males (Child birth is an excellent example.), Women could stand extremes of temperature better than males. Women adapted to new circumstances faster than males. 12 high-powered women pilots applied to be astronauts. All 12 were rejected. In the late 1970's I worked north of the Arctic Circle in Prudhoe Bay at the oil and gas production facility of SOHIO. It was well ahead of its time.To make the environment more humane, 60% of the workers were male and 40% female. Sex did happen. I never heard of any unwanted pregnancies or STD's. I never heard of violence erupting over jealousy over sex partners. But let us say that female workers often received very generous gifts from their male colleagues. There is also the book Sex In Space about sexual contacts between astronauts in space. Picking a Mars crew will be a very difficult task. First you have to pick people with a very low risk of serious health problems. Then there is intense psychological screening. Then we have to discuss the concept of sex between crew members. Evan an all-female crew might have sexual contact.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-all-female-mars-missions-secret-plan-astronauts-sexual-dynamics-study-space-a7974416.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-all-female-mars-missions-secret-plan-astronauts-sexual-dynamics-study-space-a7974416.html
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Mars Study Yields Clues to Possible Cradle of Life
Mars Study Yields Clues to Possible Cradle of Life: The discovery of evidence for ancient sea-floor hydrothermal deposits on Mars identifies an area on the planet that may offer clues about the origin of life on Earth.
Friday, October 6, 2017
Large Water Deposit Found In An unlikely Place On Mars
https://futurism.com/scientists-just-found-water-on-mars-where-they-thought-none-could-exist/
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Examining Mars' Moon Phobos in a Different Light
Examining Mars' Moon Phobos in a Different Light: NASA's longest-lived mission to Mars has gained its first look at the Martian moon Phobos, pursuing a deeper understanding by examining it in infrared wavelengths.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Are Earthworms Tough Enough For Mars?
Are Earthworms Tough Enough for Mars?
One ecologist is trying to find out.
IN A RECENT SPEECH IN Adelaide, Australia, the aspiring space maven Elon Musk updated the public on his plans for colonizing Mars. His current vision includes a massive 40-cabin spacecraft, an aspirational launch date of 2024, and technology that can produce fuel from the planet’s thin atmosphere.
As with the heady beginnings of most space travel plans, this is all very glitzy and appealing. If you ask Wieger Wamelink, though, any successful Mars mission will eventually have to leave room in the plans for something a bit more quotidian: a heck of a lot of worms.
Wamelink, a senior ecologist at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, spends most of his time studying Earthly questions. Much of his work involves what he calls “plant-soil relations,” or figuring out why particular plant species will grow easily in one place, and not at all in another. A few years ago, though, he became interested in a far-flung version of this question: if humans were able to provide them with water, air, and climate control, could some plant species grow on dirt from the moon? What about from Mars?
At first, Wamelink proposed a theoretical study, based on comparing plant needs with what we know about these extraterrestrial soil types. But then he learned that NASA actually sells simulants of each, based on samples analyzed by probes or, in the case of the Moon, brought back by astronauts. “I thought, why not change the project into something experimental?” Wamelink says. So in 2013, he and his students filled a greenhouse with three sets of pots: some with lunar dirt, some with Martian dirt, and some with dirt from the Rhine river. (Wamelink deliberately chose a coarse, nutrient-poor Earthly soil, he says, to even the playing field a bit.)
They planted 4,200 seeds from various useful plant species, including nitrogen-fixers such as lupin and clover, and four different crops: rye, carrots, tomatoes, and garden cress.
“Our expectations were low,” says Wamelink. But just a few days after planting, sprouts started popping up. In the end, “almost all the seeds germinated,” he says. Although the simulated moon plants withered quickly after sprouting, the others thrived, producing flowers, fruits, and even seeds. “The Mars soil simulant was even better than the Earth control that we used,” he says. “That was maybe the biggest surprise.” (He and his team later published this research in PLOSOne.)
The next year, 2014, Wamelink and his students mixed things up. They grew only crops—ten species, including radishes, chives, and arugula—and they enriched the soils with dead plant parts, to mimic what might happen in a successful space-gardening scenario. They switched the Earth control to potting soil, now that the space soils had proved they could pull their weight. This imrpoved things: On the Mars soil, “all the plants did well except the spinach,” he says. “Even on the moon soil we had tomatoes, though they never made it to red.”
They tested the vegetables for heavy metals—a concern with space dirt, which contains cadmium, copper, and lead—and also came up clear: “the lead content was higher in the tomato we grew on Earth potting soil,” Wamelink says. After the third experiment, which was completed last year and aimed at getting as large a harvest as possible, they served up the fruits of their labor, complete with an interplanetary tomato taste test. (“The Mars soil tomatoes were a bit more sweet,” says Wamelink.)
These results have been promising. But soil alone can only do so much: a sustainable off-earth farming ecosystem also involves fungi, bacteria, and pollinators such as bees and butterflies. (Wamelink is betting on bumblebees: “you can keep them in hibernation,” he says, so they’d easily survive the rocket trip.) Over the past month, he and his team have begun testing the next most important ecosystem member—earthworms—to see if they are able to hack it in relatively harsh exoplanetary dirt.
The dangers are many: lunar dirt is very sharp, because the moon lacks weather. “Stones and rocks over there fall apart because of cosmic radiation,” says Wamelink. “But they just fall apart and lie there. They have all kinds of sharp edges… imagine eating glass.” (Martian dirt has the same problem, though to a lesser extent.) The heavy metals, too, pose a threat: at certain concentrations, copper and cadmium are toxic to at least one common worm species.
If the earthworms do prove flexible about their earthiness, though, they’ll be a great help. On this planet, they are incredible gardening accomplices, breaking down organic matter into forms that plants can soak up, and aerating the soil with their burrows so that nutrients and water can reach their roots.
In space, they’ll be even more vital: “Moon soil especially is very compact and dense,” says Wamelink. “Even air has trouble getting in.” He thinks this may be one reason that the lunar soil tends to underperform. By tunneling, worms could provide the necessary egress, solving this problem.
The official worm experiment started last week: Wamelink made worm homes out of organic matter, pig slurry, and the various soils, planted some arugula seeds, and dropped in several different types of wrigglers. Now, the waiting and watching begins. (You can follow the experiment’s progress on the group’s Facebook page.) But Wamelink, in his excitement, has given himself a sort of sneak peek: since February, he’s had worms in Martian-style soil living in a small terrarium on his desk.
“They are still alive,” he says. “They really seem to like it. They seem to be very happy.” One small bite for worm, one giant dig for wormkind.
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