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katherineharron

Four ways the Mars 2020 rover will pave the way for a manned mission - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 17 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • When NASA's Mars 2020 rover lands on the Red Planet in February 2021, it will touch down in Jezero Crater, the site of a lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago. The next generation rover will build on the goals of previous robotic explorers by collecting the first samples of Mars, which would be returned to Earth at a later date.
  • "We're very much thinking about how Mars could be inhabited, how humans could come to Mars and make use of the resources that we have there in the Martian environment today," said Stack. "We send our robotic scouts first to learn about these other places, hopefully for us to prepare the way for us to go ourselves."
  • "Combining an understanding of the composition of the rocks, but also the very fine detail that we see in the rocks and the textures, can make a powerful case for ancient signs of life," Stack said. "We know that ancient Mars was habitable. But we haven't yet been able to show that we have signs, real signs, of ancient life yet. And with our instrument suite, we think we can make real advances towards that on the surface.
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  • "This is a huge endeavor for the human species, and it'll take cooperation from more than just our own space program," Stack said. "Once the resources are there, we can develop the technology. It's getting the buy-in from international partners and from our own space administration and government to really make this happen."
  • No matter the mission, sticking the landing is key for future success. The 2020 rover will land on Mars using the new Terrain Relative Navigation system, which allows the lander to avoid any large hazards in the landing zone.
  • Astronauts exploring Mars will need oxygen, but carting enough to sustain them on a spacecraft isn't viable. The Mars 2020 rover will carry MOXIE on board, or the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment.
  • Speaking of "The Martian," the events of the book and its film adaptation are set in motion when a surprise, devastating dust storm impacts astronauts on the Red Planet. Understanding the weather and environment on Mars will be crucial for determining the conditions astronauts will face.
  • For the first time, a surface mission will include a ground-penetrating radar instrument called RIMFAX, or Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment. It will be able to peek beneath the surface and study Martian geology, looking for rock, ice and boulder layers. Scientists hope that RIMFAX will help them understand the geologic history of Jezero Crater, according to David Paige, principal investigator for the experiment at the University of California, Los Angeles.
summertyler

'A Great Moment': Rover Finds Methane, a Clue That Mars May Harbor Life - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...e-search-for-life-on-mars.html

science research theories change

shared by summertyler on 15 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • SAN FRANCISCO — Life on Mars? Today? The notion may not be so far-fetched after all.
  • Curiosity has now recorded a burst of methane that lasted at least two months.
  • for the first time, they had confirmed the presence of carbon-based organic molecules in a rock sample. The so-called organics are not direct signs of life, past or present, but they lend weight to the possibility that Mars had the ingredients required for life, and may even still have them.
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  • Even if the explanation for the methane turns out to be geological, the hydrothermal systems would still be prime locations to search for signs of life
  • But the new findings, which are described in detail in a paper this week in the journal Science, are a 180-degree flip from a year ago, when mission scientists said that Curiosity had found no signs of methane, placing an upper limit of 1.3 parts per billion by volume.
  • summertyler on 15 Jan 15
     
    Methane is found on Mars suggesting that there is life on Mars. This is a big change from what scientists knew only a year ago. Theories can change at any time, and when new ones are made, old ones are discarded.
Emily Horwitz

With Limited Budgets, Pursuing Science Smartly - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-pursuing-science-smartly.html

science politics space exploration mars rover nytimes

shared by Emily Horwitz on 02 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • With the first presidential debate coming up on Wednesday, it is striking — if not surprising — how bland and predictable the candidates have been in discussing America’s role in space.
  • neither candidate, and neither party, has addressed the scientific question of why we want to bother with exploring space.
  • Maybe scientists should simply face reality and accept that science doesn’t play a central role in the government’s equation.
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  • unmanned space exploration seems to me much more exciting and scientifically worthwhile than human spaceflight, especially at a time of restricted budgets and nascent technology.
  • human geologist could do in a few days what Curiosity may do in a year or two. But we aren’t likely to send geologists there anytime soon — and if we did, they wouldn’t be able to stay much longer than a few days, while Curiosity can silently and gently move about the planet for a decade or more, powered by its plutonium generator. Moreover, by the time we might get around to sending humans, in two to three decades at best, robots will have advanced to the point where they might easily compete in real time.
  • Over the coming decades we may send more robotic explorers to even harsher climes, maybe to explore deep oceans on Jupiter’s moon Europa, or to search on comets for telltale signs of life’s origins.
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