Host: Fraser Cain
Astrojournalist: Morgan Rehnberg(cosmicchatter.org / @cosmic_chatter)
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – April 11, 2014: Exomoons, Eclipses & Launches”
JPL Tests Big with a Supersonic Parachute for Mars
“You wanna go to Mars, you wanna go big? Then you gotta test big here,” says mechanical engineer Michael Meacham, and testing big is exactly what he and other engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have done to develop a new supersonic parachute for future Mars landings.
The process of putting things onto Mars has traditionally used the same couple of tried-and-true methods: inflatable, shock-absorbing bouncers and large parachutes combined with retro-rockets (most recently seen in the famous “Seven Minutes of Terror” Curiosity landing in August 2012.) But both methods are limited in how large and massive of an object can safely be placed on the Martian surface. For even larger-scale future missions, new technology will have to be developed to make successful landings possible.
Enter the LDSD, or Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, an enormous parachute — similar to the one used by Curiosity except bigger — that can slow the descent of even more massive payloads through the thin Martian atmosphere.
Of course, part of the development process is testing. And in order to run such a large chute through the same sorts of rigors it would experience during an actual Mars landing, JPL engineers had to step outside of the wind tunnel and devise another method.
The one they came up with involves a rocket sled, a Night Hawk helicopter, a 100-lb steel bullet, a kilometer-long cable (and lots and lots of math.) It’s an experiment worthy of “Mythbusters”… watch the video above to see how it turned out.
“When we land spacecraft on Mars, we’re going extremely fast… we have got to slow down. So we use a parachute. And we use a really BIG parachute.”
– Michael Meacham, Mechanical Engineer at JPL
Read more about the LDSD program here.
Source/credit: NASA/JPL
“Bright Light” on Mars is Just an Image Artifact
Thanks to everyone who has emailed, Tweeted and texted me about the “artificial bright light” seen on Mars. And I’m so sorry to disappoint all the folks who were hoping for aliens, but what you see above is just an image artifact due to a cosmic ray hitting the right-side navigation camera on the Curiosity rover.
If you do a little research, you can see that the light is not in the left-Navcam image that was taken at the exact same moment (see that image below). Several imaging experts agree this is a cosmic ray hit, and the fact that it’s in one ‘eye’ but not the other means it’s an imaging artifact and not something in the terrain on Mars shooting out a beam of light.
Update: JPL imaging specialists with the MSL mission have now weighed in on these images. “In the thousands of images we’ve received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots nearly every week,” said Justin Maki in a press release from JPL. Maki is leader of the team that built and operates the Navigation Camera. “These can be caused by cosmic-ray hits or sunlight glinting from rock surfaces, as the most likely explanations.”
If the bright spots in the April 2 and April 3 images are from a glinting rock, the directions of the spots from the rover suggest the rock could be on a ridge about 175 yards (160 meters) from the rover’s April 3 location.
The bright spots appear in images from the right-eye camera of the stereo Navcam, but not in images taken within one second of those by the left-eye camera. Maki said, “Normally we can quickly identify the likely source of a bright spot in an image based on whether or not it occurs in both images of a stereo pair. In this case, it’s not as straightforward because of a blocked view from the second camera on the first day.”
There’s a great discussion and analysis of this going on at UnmannedSpaceflight.com, and they seem to be leaning towards the cosmic ray explanation.
You can see the whole series of images from the right Navcam here.
Cosmic ray hits happen frequently on spacecraft that don’t have the benefit of being in Earth’s thick atmosphere. And frequently, people seem to get excited about what shows up in imagery that have been affected. For example, one guy thought there was a huge base on Mars based on some he saw on Google Mars.
Getting hit by a cosmic ray can have some serious consequences for a spacecraft — sometimes it can put them into what’s called “safe mode” where only basic functions operate, or other times it can mess up data (like what happened with Voyager 2 in 2010 where the data sent back to Earth was unreadable). Usually, engineers are able to fix the problem and get the spacecraft back in working order.
Cosmic rays can even show up in imagery taken by astronauts on the International Space Station, like this one by astronaut Don Pettitt in 2012:
Astronauts also report seeing flashes — even with their eyes closed — whenever cosmic rays zip through their eyeballs. You can read more about that here.
And so far, none of these blips, lights or flashes seen on space imagery has ever been “because aliens.”
If you really want to see some amazing things, look at the imagery taken by Curiosity in its currently location on Mars. See all the raw images here, or see some really great colorized and enhanced versions on ‘amateur’ imaging blogs like those by Stuart Atkinson, James Canvin, Damia Bouic, Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society, or the work done by Ken Kremer here on Universe Today.
Additionally, if you want to see bright lights associated with Mars, all you have to do is look up in the sky at night and see Mars shining brilliantly in the sky right now. Mars is in opposition, where it is closest to the Earth, and the “official” closest moment happens today, April 8th! Find out more about how to see it or watch different webcasts taking place today at our previous article here.
And for those of you who think we shouldn’t give “air time” to nutty claims like lights on Mars, it is our policy to address and debunk such claims (for example, see our article debunking the latest end of the world claim) in order to make sure the real story and good doses of reality are out there, too, and available to people who are looking for the real story.
Curiosity rover maneuvers around ‘Kimberley’ seeking potential Red Planet Drill Sites
Curiosity maneuvers into ‘Kimbeley’ and scans scientifically intriguing Martian rock outcrops in search of next drilling location exhibiting several shallow hills in foreground and dramatic Gale crater rim backdrop. Rover tracks at right in this colorized Navcam photomosaic assembled from raw images snapped on Sol 589, April 3, 2014.
Credit: NASA/JPL/Marco Di Lorenzo /Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com[/caption]
NASA’s car sized Curiosity rover has arrived at a scientifically enticing science destination at “The Kimberley Waypoint” where researchers hope to carry out the next drilling operation into alien Martian terrain in search of further clues about ancient Red Planet environments that may have been favorable for life.
“We are officially in ‘The Kimberley’ now,” Curiosity Principal Investigator John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, told Universe Today.
Since arriving in the Kimberley region, Curiosity’s earth-bound handlers have been maneuvering the 1 ton robot to thoroughly survey the destination dubbed “The Kimberley”.
Why was Kimberley chosen as a science destination?
“The Kimberley” has interesting, complex stratigraphy,” Grotzinger told me.
The team moved the six wheeled robot further this week in search of a suitable location to conduct the next drilling operation. The terrain is replete with diverse rock types and extensive outcrops.
I asked Grotzinger if today’s (April 5) location at ‘The Kimberley’ is the intended drill site?
“It’s a possible drill site,” Grotzinger replied.
“Pending further evaluation,” he noted.
Curiosity drove the final stretch of some 98 feet (30 meters) on Wednesday, April 2, required to arrive at a major stopping waypoint planned since early 2013 for up close study of the Red Planet’s rocks.
Along the recent dune filled path to ‘The Kimberley’, Curiosity snapped breathtaking landscapes around the irresistible ‘Junda’ outcrop, much like a tourist.
See our photomosaics showing the spectacularly inviting terrain around Kimberly and Junda, above and below, by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer.
The state-of-the-art robot now sits at a vantage point at “The Kimberley” enabling a detailed photographic survey of the rock exposures and surroundings with the high resolution Mastcam cameras.
The new imagery will be used to select the most scientifically productive drilling locations.
“It is named after a remote region of western Australia,” Grotzinger informed me.
The team chose Kimberley because its lies at the intersection of four different types of rocks, including striated rocks overlain by others and deposited in a decipherable geological relationship to each other.
Researchers directed Curiosity on a pinpoint drive to ‘Kimberley’ after high resolution imagery and mineral mapping spectrometry gathered by NASA’s powerful telescopic cameras aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling overhead piqued their interest.
“This is the spot on the map we’ve been headed for, on a little rise that gives us a great view for context imaging of the outcrops at the Kimberley,” said Melissa Rice, Curiosity science planning lead, of Caltech.
The team expects Curiosity to investigate Kimberley for several weeks of observations, including sample-drilling and onboard laboratory analysis of the area’s rocks with the CheMin and SAM miniaturized chemistry labs.
If drilling is warranted, Kimberley would be the site of Curiosity’s first drilling operation since boring into the ‘John Klein’ and ‘Cumberland’ outcrop targets during the spring of 2013 at Yellowknife Bay.
The robot has conducted cleaning activities of SAM, CheMin and the CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in anticipation of boring into the Martian outcrops and delivering powdery, pulverized samples of cored Martian rocks to SAM and CheMin – waiting patiently inside the robots belly to eat something exciting from the Red Planet.
Curiosity departed the Yellowknife Bay region in July 2013 where she discovered a habitable zone and thereby accomplished the primary goal of the mission.
To date, Curiosity’s odometer totals 3.8 miles (6.1 kilometers) since landing inside Gale Crater on Mars in August 2012. She has taken over 137,000 images.
The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals. Such minerals could possibly indicate locations that sustained potential Martian life forms, past or present, if they ever existed.
Curiosity has some 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp.
She may arrive at the lower reaches of Mount Sharp sometime in the latter half of 2014, but must first pass through a potentially treacherous dune field.
Meanwhile, NASA’s sister Opportunity rover is exploring clay mineral outcrops by the summit of Solander Point on the opposite side of Mars at the start of her 2nd Decade investigating the Red Planet’s mysteries.
A pair of new orbiters are streaking to the Red Planet to fortify Earth’s invasion fleet- NASA’s MAVEN and India’s MOM.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Curiosity, Opportunity, Chang’e-3, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Learn more at Ken’s upcoming presentations at the NEAF convention on April 12/13 and at Washington Crossing State Park, NJ on April 6.
An Afternoon on Mars
Here’s a pretty picture for your Friday: a mosaic of Mastcam images acquired by Curiosity on mission Sol 582, also known to us Earthlings as Thursday, March 27, 2014. Barsoom sure looks lovely this time of year!
The mosaic was assembled from five raw images downlinked to the MSL site earlier today. I pasted them together in Photoshop, aligning the edge of one to the next using landscape objects as visual markers, and then did a little bad pixel cleanup (Mastcam has a notorious black smudge a few pixels wide just off-center) and then cropped the result, with a bit of surface cloning at the lower right to fill in some missing Martian soil. The I hit it with an HDR filter, which I’m usually not a fan of but in in this instance it turned out pretty nice.
See s hi-resolution version of this on my Flickr album.
You can find all the raw images from Curiosity — including the ones I used to compose this image — here.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Edit/composite by Jason Major.
Mars-Bound Comet Siding Spring Sprouts Multiple Jets
Comet Siding Spring, on its way to a close brush with Mars on October 19, has been kicking up a storm lately. New images from Hubble Space Telescope taken on March 11, when the comet was just this side of Jupiter, reveal multiple jets of gas and dust.
Discovered in January 2013 by Robert H. McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, the comet is falling toward the sun along a roughly 1 million year orbit. It will gradually brighten through spring and summer until reaching binocular brightness this fall when it passes 130 million miles (209 million km) from Earth.
Astronomers were particularly interested in getting images when Earth crossed the comet’s orbital plane, the path the comet takes as it orbits the sun. The positioning of the two bodies allowed Hubble to make crucial observations of how fast dust particles streamed off the nucleus.
“This is critical information that we need to determine whether, and to what degree, dust grains in the coma of the comet will impact Mars and spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars,” said Jian-Yang Li of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.
On October 19 this year, Comet Siding Spring will pass within 84,000 miles (135,000 km) of Mars or less than half the distance of our moon. There’s a distinct possibility that orbiting Mars probes like NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Mars Express might be enveloped by the comet’s coma (hazy atmosphere) and pelted by dust.
While comet dust particles are only 1 to 1/10,000 of a centimeter wide, they’ll be moving at 124,000 mph (200,000 km/hr). At that speed even dust motes small can be destructive. Plans are being considered to alter the orbits of the spacecraft to evade the worst of the potential blast. On the bright side, the Red Planet may witness a spectacular meteor storm! Protected by the atmosphere, the Martian rovers aren’t expected to be affected.
I know where I’ll be on October 19 – in the front yard peering at Mars through my telescope. Even if the comet doesn’t affect the planet, seeing the two overlap in conjunction will be a sight not to miss.
What Are These Hollows on Mercury?
Emily Lakdawalla from the planetary society describes one of the mysteries that’s currently fascinating her. There are strange structures on Mercury which have been called “hollows”. What might they be?
Continue reading “What Are These Hollows on Mercury?”
Curiosity Pulls into Kimberley and Spies Curvy Terrain For Drilling Action
Martian landscape with rows of curved rock outcrops at ‘Kimberley’ in the foreground and spectacular Mount Sharp on the horizon. NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover pulled into Kimberly waypoint dominated by layered rock outcrops as likely drilling site. This colorized navcam camera photomosaic was assembled from imagery taken on Sol 576 (Mar. 20, 2014).
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer-kenkremer.com
See additional Curiosity Mars photomosaics below[/caption]
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – NASA’s Curiosity rover has just pulled into gorgeous terrain chock full of curvy rock outcrops at Kimberley that’s suitable for contact science and drilling action, according to the mission team.
The six wheeled Martian dune buggy drove into the dazzling Kimberley waypoint this week after traversing a swath of otherworldly dune fields since passing through a gateway known as the ‘Dingo Gap’ sand dune some six weeks ago.
The robot’s arm has been deployed to investigate the most scientifically productive spots to touch Kimberley’s textured outcrops for detailed scrutiny.
The science team has been hunting for tasty rock outcrops suitable for the first drilling campaign since she departed the dried out lakebed at Yellowknife Bay in July 2013 and began her epic trek across the floor of Gale Crater towards the base of Mount Sharp.
With each passing Sol, or Martian day, Mount Sharp looms larger and larger and the historical layers with deposits of hydrated minerals potentially indicative of an alien habitable zone come ever clearer into focus.
About a month ago on Feb. 19 (Sol 548), Curiosity couldn’t resist the urge to pause mid dune drive, just like a tourist, and snap fabulous imagery of multiple rows of striated rocks at the Junda outcrop – see our mosaics below.
Junda appeared remarkably similar to Kimberley, about 1 kilometer back.
So after executing a final series of short bumps edging ever closer to the outcrops this week, Curiosity parked at the periphery of Kimberley on Thursday, March 20, Sol 576, and captured breathtaking imagery of the rocky rows dominated by towering Mount Sharp on the distant horizon.
See our photomosaics showing the spectacularly inviting terrain around Kimberley and Junda – above and below by Marco Di Lorenzo and Ken Kremer.
“The images [at Kimberley] show nice outcrops in front of the rover, suitable for contact science,” according to science team member Ken Herkenhoff in a mission update.
This weekend, the state of the art robot is conducting contact science with the cameras and spectrometers on the terminus of the 7 foot long robotic arm and the mast mounted ChemCam laser and high resolution cameras to determine the best spot for drilling and sampling.
The team commanded Curiosity to clean out the arms CHIMRA sample handling mechanism in anticipation of boring into the Martian outcrops and delivering powdery, pulverized samples of cored Martian rocks to the SAM and CheMin miniaturized chemistry labs waiting patiently inside the robots belly to eat something exciting from the Red Planet.
“The arm will be deployed to “thwack” and vibrate CHIMRA to clean out any remnants of the “John Klein” [drilling] sample, followed by Mastcam and RMI imaging of the CHIMRA sieve,” says Herkenhoff.
Scientists directed Curiosity on a pinpoint drive to Kimberly after their interest was piqued by orbital images taken by the powerful telescopic camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling overhead.
“At Kimberly, we see three terrain types exposed and a relatively dust-free surface,” said science team collaborator Katie Stack of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
The missions science focus has shifted to “search for that subset of habitable environments which also preserves organic carbon,” says Curiosity Principal Investigator John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Organic molecules are the building blocks of life as we know it.
The sedimentary foothills of Mount Sharp, which reaches 3.4 miles (5.5 km) into the Martian sky, is the 1 ton robots ultimate destination inside Gale Crater because it holds caches of water altered minerals. Such minerals could possibly indicate locations that sustained potential Martian life forms, past or present, if they ever existed.
Curiosity discovered a habitable zone at Yellowknife via two drilling operations at the John Klein and Cumberland outcrops and thereby accomplished the primary goal of the mission.
To date Curiosity’s odometer stands at 6.2 kilometers. She has taken over 132,000 images.
The robot has somewhat over another 4 kilometers to go to reach the base of Mount Sharp.
She may arrive at the lower reaches of Mount Sharp sometime in mid 2014, but must first pass through a potentially treacherous dune field.
Meanwhile, NASA’s sister Opportunity rover is exploring clay mineral outcrops by the summit of Solander Point on the opposite side of Mars at the start of her 2nd Decade investigating the Red Planet’s mysteries.
A pair of new orbiters are streaking to the Red Planet to fortify Earth’s invasion fleet- NASA’s MAVEN and India’s MOM.
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Curiosity, Opportunity, Chang’e-3, SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, LADEE, MAVEN, MOM, Mars and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Learn more at Ken’s upcoming presentations at the NEAF convention on April 12/13 and at Washington Crossing State Park, NJ on April 6. Also evenings at the Quality Inn Kennedy Space Center, Titusville, FL, March 24/25 and March 29/30.
Weekly Space Hangout – March 21, 2014: Cosmos & Gravitational Waves!
Host: Fraser Cain
Guests: Matthew Francis, Nicole Gugliucci, Brian Koberlein, Morgan Rehnberg, Mike Simmons
Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout – March 21, 2014: Cosmos & Gravitational Waves!”
6-Year-Old ‘Right Stuff’ Boy Reaches for the Stars with Petition Drive and Astronauts to Save NASA Funding
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER VISITOR COMPLEX, FL- When 6-year-old Connor Johnson from Denver, Colo. heard that his youthful dreams of going to Mars and ‘Reaching for the Stars’ were in danger due to funding cuts to NASA’s budget, he decided to do something about it.
So, with the encouragement of his parents, Connor started an online petition drive on the White House website in December 2013 to help save NASA’s budget and fulfill his dreams.
Connor’s petition drive efforts were noticed by a Denver TV station that broadcast a report on the young lads work that spurred his efforts.
Over 22,000 folks have already signed Connor’s petition.
That’s when the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex noticed his zeal in communicating the excitement and benefits of science and space voyages.
The KSC Visitor Complex invited Connor and to visit as a guest of honor with his family and to participate in the first ever ‘Robot Rocket Rally’ held this past weekend from March 14 to 16.
At a special ‘guest of honor’ ceremony held on Saturday, NASA recognized Connor’s unique contributions to space exploration with a public meeting at the Visitor Complex with Kennedy Space Center Director and space shuttle commander Bob Cabana.
Cabana, who flew four shuttle missions, gave Connor several mementos, including a mission patch and an actual bolt from the International Space Station, as a token of appreciation from the agency.
“I think it’s great for Connor to be so interested in the future of NASA,” Kennedy Center Director Bob Cabana said.
“It shows great initiative on his part to do what he’s done.”
Credit: Ken Kremer – kenkremer.com
“Ultimately, the budget supports what we want to do with continuing International Space Station research and technology which will feed into SLS and Orion, leading to the asteroid initiative and on to Mars.”
“And it will dictate how we work with commercial partners to launch our astronauts from U.S. soil,” Cabana explained.
Millions of kids of all ages worldwide have been inspired by NASA for generations to pursue their dreams of science research and exploring space.
After the ceremony with Bob Cabana, the media including myself met with Connor.
I asked Connor when he became interested in space and where did he want to journey.
“I’ve been interested in NASA and space since I was three years old.”
“I want to be an astronaut and go to Mars!” Connor told Universe Today.
Since NASA currently plans to send the first manned mission to Mars in the 2030s, Connor is just about the right age.
Connor Johnson clearly exhibits the ‘Right Stuff.’
So much so that Apollo 17 Astronaut and Moon walker Eugene Cernan also spoke with Connor upon hearing of his work to save NASA’s funding.
What did Cernan say to Connor?
“Dream the unimaginable,” Moon walker Eugene Cernan said to 6-year old future Mars walker Connor Johnson.
During his visit to the Visitor Complex, Connor also visited with the Earth bound brother of NASA’s Robonaut 2 at the ‘Robot Rocket Rally’ and saw a demonstration of the robots new legs heading soon to the ISS on the SpaceX CRS-3 mission later this month. He and his younger brother also operated other robots at the festival.
Connor and his family spent the rest of the weekend touring the new Space Shuttle Atlantis pavillion, enjoyed Lunch With An Astronaut, featuring space shuttle astronaut Sam Durrance, and participated in the Astronaut Training Experience with space shuttle astronaut Mike McCulley.
What a thrilling way to begin a space career.
Way to go Connor!
Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, commercial space, Orion, Chang’e-3, LADEE, Mars rover, MAVEN, MOM and more planetary and human spaceflight news.
Learn more at Ken’s upcoming presentations at the NEAF astro/space convention, NY on April 12/13 and at Washington Crossing State Park, NJ on April 6. Also evenings at the Quality Inn Kennedy Space Center, Titusville, FL, March 24/25 and March 29/30.
And watch for Ken’s SpaceX launch coverage at Cape Canaveral & the Kennedy Space Center press site.
