After six months of effort, an instrument that helps the Mars rover look for potential signs of ancient microbial life has come back online.
The SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument aboard NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has analyzed a rock target with its spectrometer and camera for the first time since encountering an issue this past January. The instrument plays a key role in the mission's search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed on June 17 that the instrument succeeded in collecting data.
"Six months of running diagnostics, testing, imagery and data analysis, troubleshooting, and retesting couldn't come with a better conclusion," said SHERLOC principal investigator Kevin Hand of JPL.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1049741(Eurekalert) The desert moss Syntrichia caninervis is a promising candidate for Mars colonization thanks to its extreme ability to tolerate harsh conditions lethal to most life forms. The moss is well known for its ability to tolerate drought conditions, but researchers report June 30 in the journal The Innovation that it can also survive freezing temperatures as low as −196°C, high levels of gamma radiation, and simulated Martian conditions involving these three stressors combined. In all cases, prior dehydration seemed to help the plants cope.
“Our study shows that the environmental resilience of S. caninervis is superior to that of some of highly stress-tolerant microorganisms and tardigrades,” write the researchers, who include ecologists Daoyuan Zhang and Yuanming Zhang and botanist Tingyun Kuang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “S. caninervis is a promising candidate pioneer plant for colonizing extraterrestrial environments, laying the foundation for building biologically sustainable human habitats beyond Earth.”
A small number of previous studies have tested the ability of microorganisms, algae, lichens, and plant spores to withstand the extreme environments of outer space or Mars, but this is the first study to test whole plants.
Syntrichia caninervis is a common moss species with a widespread global distribution. It grows in remarkably extreme desert environments including Tibet, Antarctica, and the circumpolar regions as part of the biological soil crust—a widespread and resilient type of ground cover often found in arid lands. Given the moss’s ability to survive extreme environmental conditions, the researchers decided to test its limits in the lab.
To test the moss’s cold tolerance, the researchers stored plants at −80°C (in an ultra-cold freezer) for 3 and 5 years and at −196°C (in a liquid nitrogen tank) for 15 and 30 days. In all cases, the plants regenerated when they were defrosted, though their rebound was less rapid compared to control specimens that had been dehydrated but not frozen, and plants that were not dehydrated prior to freezing rebounded more slowly than plants that were dried, then frozen.
Read more here: https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-i ... el-2024-7(Business Insider)
With current technology, a round-trip to the red planet would take almost two years.
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The PPR (Pulsed Plasma Rocket) is a propulsion system that uses pulses of superheated plasma to generate a lot of thrust very efficiently. It's currently in phase two of development, funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program.
This phase two study is scheduled to begin this month, and is focused on optimizing the engine design, performing proof-of-concept experiments, and designing a PPR-powered, shielded spaceship for human missions to Mars.
The big advantage of the PPR is that it can make a spacecraft go really, really fast. It has both a high thrust and high specific impulse. Specific impulse is how quickly a rocket engine generates thrust, and thrust is the force that moves the spacecraft along.
A spacecraft flying that fast would eventually have to slow down to reach its destination. Howe said the company has accounted for the additional energy and propellant this would require to land on Mars.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/scientist ... -a-catch(Science Alert) There are literal oceans' worth of liquid water hiding out on Mars. There's just one big problem. That water is actually in Mars, at depths that are too far below the surface for us to access.
That's according to new analysis of seismic data collected by the Mars InSight lander, for which huge reservoirs of liquid water are the best explanation. And, although that water is out of reach, it is an important piece of the strange puzzle of the aquatic history of our dry, desiccated, dusty neighbor.
"Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior," says geophysicist Vashan Wright of the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
"A useful starting point is to identify where water is and how much is there."
As rovers scurry about on the surface of Mars, collecting data on its surface geology, it has become more and more evident that the red planet was once loaded with water. Minerals, terrain, and features such as ancient dry lake beds and deltas suggest that Mars was once pretty soggy.
https://www.extremetech.com/science/nas ... ars-craterAfter exploring the bottom of a Martian crater for three and a half years, NASA's Perseverance is preparing for the steep climb out. NASA announced Wednesday that the car-sized rover would begin a monthslong ascent out of Jezero Crater next week. The journey is expected to be more challenging than any Perseverance has taken on yet.
Jezero is a 45-kilometer (28-mile) crater basin in Mars' Syrtis Major quadrangle, which is characterized by igneous rocks, narrow ridges, and Earth-like buttes. These geologic features intrigue scientists who are interested not only in understanding the Red Planet's makeup, but also in searching for signs of liquid water—and, by extension, extinct or extant life. Since landing in Jezero in February 2021, Perseverance has snapped photos of the dusty crater, provided detailed Martian weather reports, collected (and deposited) sediment samples, and more.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1055543(Eurekalert) Abu Dhabi, August 23, 2024: Researchers have identified specific materials, including certain plastics, rubber, and synthetic fibers, as well as Martian soil (regolith), which would effectively protect astronauts by blocking harmful space radiation on Mars. These findings could inform the design of protective habitats and spacesuits, making long-duration Mars missions more feasible. Because Mars lacks Earth’s thick atmosphere and magnetic field, astronauts exploring the planet would be exposed to dangerous levels of radiation.
Dimitra Atri, Investigator, Center for Astrophysics and Space Science and Group Leader of the Mars Research Group at NYU Abu Dhabi's Center for Astrophysics and Space Science, and lead author Dionysios Gakis from the University of Patras in Greece, report these new findings in “Modeling the effectiveness of radiation shielding materials for astronaut protection on Mars,” appearing in the journal The European Physical Journal Plus.
Using computer modeling to simulate the radiation conditions on Mars, the researchers tested various standard and novel materials to see which best shielded cosmic radiation and determined that compound materials like certain plastics, rubber, and synthetic fibers would all perform well. Martian soil (regolith) was also somewhat effective and could be used as an extra layer of protection. In addition, they demonstrated that the most widely used aluminum could also be helpful when combined with other low atomic number materials. The study also used real Mars data from NASA's Curiosity rover to confirm these findings.
“This breakthrough enhances astronaut safety and makes long-term Mars missions a more realistic possibility,” said Atri. “It supports the future of human space exploration and potential establishment of human bases on Mars, including the UAE's Mars 2117 project and its goal of establishing a city on Mars by the year 2117.”
“Several materials were specifically tested in a simulated Martian environment, making our results directly applicable to future missions and optimizing the combination of advanced materials with the natural resources available on Mars,” Gakis added
https://www.extremetech.com/science/mar ... atmosphere
Mars' atmosphere is one of the planet's most scientifically controversial characteristics. We know that the Red Planet's atmosphere is incredibly sparse, but mounting evidence suggests it once harbored abundant liquid water, making the existence of a formerly robust atmosphere more likely. But if Mars once possessed a fairly healthy atmosphere, where did it go?
A pair of researchers at MIT think Martian clay is the culprit. In a paper published Wednesday in Science Advances, planetary scientist Joshua Murray and geologist Oliver Jagoutz explain that the clay that lends the Red Planet its nickname contains a carbon dioxide-slurping mineral. They believe that mineral, called smectite, pulled carbon dioxide out of Mars' atmosphere sometime between the planet's late Noachian and late Hesperian period—3.7 to 2.9 billion years ago.
Same way we would do terraformation.firestar464 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2024 1:42 am Nuclear fusion? How are we going to build a reactor on Mars?
firestar464 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2024 1:42 am This probably isn't going to be practical until we figure out AGI
Additional extract:(Eurekalert) NASA’s Curiosity rover, currently exploring Gale crater on Mars, is providing new details about how the ancient Martian climate went from potentially suitable for life – with evidence for widespread liquid water on the surface – to a surface that is inhospitable to terrestrial life as we know it.
Although the surface of Mars is frigid and hostile to life today, NASA’s robotic explorers at Mars are searching for clues as to whether it could have supported life in the distant past. Researchers used instruments on board Curiosity to measure the isotopic composition of carbon-rich minerals (carbonates) found in Gale crater and discovered new insights into how the Red Planet’s ancient climate transformed.
“The isotope values of these carbonates point toward extreme amounts of evaporation, suggesting that these carbonates likely formed in a climate that could only support transient liquid water,” said David Burtt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of a paper describing this research published October 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our samples are not consistent with an ancient environment with life (biosphere) on the surface of Mars, although this does not rule out the possibility of an underground biosphere or a surface biosphere that began and ended before these carbonates formed.”
Isotopes are versions of an element with different masses. As water evaporated, light versions of carbon and oxygen were more likely to escape into the atmosphere, while the heavy versions were left behind more often, accumulating into higher abundances and, in this case, eventually being incorporated into the carbonate rocks.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1060481These climate scenarios for ancient Mars have been proposed before, based on the presence of certain minerals, global-scale modeling, and the identification of rock formations. This result is the first to add isotopic evidence from rock samples in support of the scenarios.
We didn't find any little green men on Mars when the first robotic explorers reached the red planet, but the dusty, radioactive surface has not stopped scientists from hunting for life. A new study by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) focuses on a potential microcosm of life on Mars. The new study proposes that pockets of meltwater hiding within ice deposits could provide a home for microbial life, much as similar environments do on Earth.
Mars is a famously icy planet—it's the only planet in the solar system besides Earth with ice caps. However, most of the ice we can see on Mars is frozen carbon dioxide from its thin atmosphere. There is some water ice, though, and that's what the researchers behind the new study are modeling.
