Missions to Mars

[CaaC (John)+]

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Mars moon mystery: Strange structures found inside 'fearful' Phobos

Mars Express, which is a 19-year-veteran spacecraft in orbit around Mars, came within 51.6 miles (83 kilometers) of Phobos on Sept. 22, 2022 and was able to probe beneath the moon's surface using upgraded software on its MARSIS instrument (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding).

Understanding the interior structure of Phobos could be key in solving the mystery of its origin. "We are still at an early stage in our analysis, but we have already seen possible signs of previously unknown features below the moon's surface," said Andrea Cicchetti, who is a member of the MARSIS science team at INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, in a statement.

Mars has two moons, named Phobos and Deimos after the gods of 'fear' and 'panic' in Greek mythology. Unlike the major moons of our solar system, Phobos and Deimos are tiny, just 16.7 miles (27 kilometers) and 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) across, respectively. They have a similar composition to carbonaceous C-type asteroids, and are irregularly shaped like asteroids too, which has led to the suspicion that they actually are rogue asteroids captured by Mars' gravity. However, both Phobos and Deimos' orbits around the red planet are over Mars' equator and both orbits are extremely circular, which suggests they formed around Mars. If they had been captured, they would be expected to have more elliptical orbits in different planes.

"Whether Mars' two small moons are captured asteroids or made of material ripped from Mars during a collision is an open question," said Colin Wilson, who is a scientist on the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission, in the same statement.

MARSIS involves a 40-meter-long antenna beaming low frequency radio waves down to the surface. Most of the radio waves are reflected directly back from the surface, but some penetrate deeper, where they encounter transitions between layers of different composition and structure, and are reflected back by these boundaries. The stronger the reflection in the resulting 'radargram', the brighter the returning radio signal.

The radargram from across a narrow track on Phobos shows a bright line, split into two and labeled A–C and D–F respectively. The A–C section was captured using the old MARSIS software to compare with D–F, which utilizes the new software and which shows much more detail. The main bright line is the reflection from the surface of Phobos, but beneath that there is evidence for fainter lines that could just be interference, or 'clutter,' from features on the surface, but they could also be caused by structures below the surface. 

MARSIS had been designed to probe Mars' interior from an orbital distance of more than 155 miles (250 kilometers), but the recent software upgrade allows MARSIS to operate at much closer distances, permitting its use during close fly-bys of the moons.

Getting even closer to Phobos will provide radargrams with even greater resolution than that achieved here. The plan over the next few years is to employ MARSIS as close as 40 kilometers (24.9 miles) to Phobos.

"The orbit of Mars Express has been fine-tuned to get us as close to Phobos as possible during a handful of flybys between 2023 and 2025," said Cicchetti.

Mars Express isn't the only mission focused on Phobos. In September 2024, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) plans to launch the Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) spacecraft. Much like JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission to retrieve samples from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu, MMX will capture at minimum 10 grams of regolith from Phobos' surface. MMX will also deploy a small rover onto the surface, before venturing off to take a good look at Mars' second moon, Deimos, and then returning to Earth with the precious Phobos samples that will be analyzed in scientists' laboratories here on Earth.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/mars-moon-mystery-strange-structures-found-inside-fearful-phobos/ar-AA13A23w?cvid=8bbc4e9595934e9faca9352557cd4580#image=1

 

Edited November 1, 2022 by CaaC (John)
Spacing correction

[Stan]

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Is Mars alive? Deep scans show molten magma still exists under the red planet’s surface

Vulcanism may still play a role in shaping the Martian surface.

Mars has been shown to be geologically active. Scans show the red planet has pockets under the surface of a potentially “warm” source that could be explained by the existence of molten rock. This would indicate magma at this depth and volcanic activity on Mars.

Until now, Mars has been considered dead, geologically speaking. But the scans show that not only seismic signals, but vulcanism also plays an important role in shaping the Martian surface. Learning about Mars – the only other planet we know of that may once have supported a magnetic field – may help us understand similar geological processes on Earth.

NASA’s InSight lander has been studying Mars’s interior structure since 2018. Among recent discoveries that probe beyond skin-deep impressions of the red planet is a study which used seismography to confirm the diameter of Mars’s core (around 3,620 kilometres).

From the same cache of information scientists have revealed a completely new story – potential magma beneath the Martian crust. Their findings are published in Nature Astronomy.

Earthquakes on Mars – or marsquakes – with epicentres originating around a region called the Cerberus Fossae, consisting of surface fractures, have been studied by an international team led by seismologists and geophysicists in Switzerland.

Their analysis of deep, low frequency marsquakes suggests a structurally weak, potentially warm region, around 30-50 kilometres beneath the surface. This, they suggest, is consistent with recent magmatic activity at these depths.

Scanning orbital images of the area, the team noticed the marsquake epicentres were very near a structure previously described as a “young volcanic fissure” surrounded by darker dust deposits.

“The darker shade of the dust signifies geological evidence of more recent volcanic activity – perhaps within the past 50,000 years – relatively young in geological terms,” explains lead author Dr Simon Stähler from ETH Zurich University.

“InSight’s (has) the most sensitive seismometer ever installed on another planet,” says Domenico Giardini, a professor at ETH Zurich. “It affords geophysicists and seismologists an opportunity to work with current data showing what is happening on Mars today – both at the surface and in its interior.”

Geophysically speaking, Mars was – 3.6 billion years ago – as active as Earth is today. Volcanic debris on Mars has formed the largest volcanic system in the solar system. The geology includes Tharsis Montes and the solar system’s tallest mountain, Olympus Mons (nearly three times higher than Mount Everest).

The analysis of the quakes at Cerberus Fossae shows there’s a little geological life left in Mars. Stähler believes we are witnessing the last remnants of a once-active volcanic region, or even magma moving eastward to its next location of eruption.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/mars-insight-magma/

 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by CaaC (John)
Spacing correction

[CaaC (John)+]

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UK-built Mars rover saved from museum retirement

The UK-built Mars rover, "Rosalind Franklin", will not be put behind glass for people to stare at and ponder what might have been.

The completed robot will now go to the Red Planet thanks to a €360m (£310m) rescue package approved by member states of the European Space Agency.

Rosalind Franklin should have departed in September but was stranded on Earth when its Russian rocket ride was cancelled because of the Ukraine war.

The cash injection is a lifeline.

It will initiate the design of a system to land the rover on Mars - replacing the previous Russian mechanism.

More money will be needed at a later date to complete all the works, but Esa director general Josef Aschbacher said the project was definitely back on track.

"I'm glad to say that we have found a very positive way forward," he told reporters, letting it be known that at one point, member states had considered simply putting the six-wheeled vehicle in a museum.

FULL REPORT

 

[Stan]

 

[nudge+]

Brilliant image that, breathtaking...

Mars is so clearly visible with a naked eye now! Noticed it first two days ago, a non-mistakable reddish glow. 

[Stan]

41 minutes ago, nudge said:

Brilliant image that, breathtaking...

Mars is so clearly visible with a naked eye now! Noticed it first two days ago, a non-mistakable reddish glow. 

Yeah! I'm always saying to missus 'that's Mars' when it's so clear in the sky .

Same with Venus with it's bright blue-ish hue, and that it stays quite close to the moon when visible in the sky.

Jupiter was visible a few weeks ago which is generally unusual for this time of year. 

[nudge+]

7 minutes ago, Stan said:

Yeah! I'm always saying to missus 'that's Mars' when it's so clear in the sky .

Same with Venus with it's bright blue-ish hue, and that it stays quite close to the moon when visible in the sky.

Jupiter was visible a few weeks ago which is generally unusual for this time of year. 

For Jupiter, I always get my binoculars out, simply because the most fun part of Jupiter for me is spotting four of its moons  I've heard you could even see them with a naked eye under certain conditions, but my eyesight is way too fucked for that haha

[Stan]

9 minutes ago, nudge said:

For Jupiter, I always get my binoculars out, simply because the most fun part of Jupiter for me is spotting four of its moons  I've heard you could even see them with a naked eye under certain conditions, but my eyesight is way too fucked for that haha

I've never seen the moons but that'll be pretty cool. Have you seen all of them and are they easily identifiable?

I'd love to see it without binoculars and with the naked eye - I'm long-sighted but that might be taking it a bit too far  

 

[nudge+]

4 minutes ago, Stan said:

I've never seen the moons but that'll be pretty cool. Have you seen all of them and are they easily identifiable?

I'd love to see it without binoculars and with the naked eye - I'm long-sighted but that might be taking it a bit too far  

 

I've seen all four of the Galilean moons, and they are easily identifiable as in you can clearly see how they are all lined up on one almost straight line bisecting Jupiter (unless some of them are behind the planet or too close to it to be visible). Granted, they still just look like small spots of light, but it's very easy to spot them and impossible to confuse with any other objects. As for correctly identifying which moon is which, that might be a bit harder, but still very straightforward if you use one of the apps. Without the help from an app, it is good to know that Io and Ganymede are the brightest ones, while Callisto is the dimmest (very easily noticeable). Europa is pretty bright too, but it's usually possible to see the difference and correctly identify it. So the biggest confusion comes from trying to distinguish which one is Io and which one is Ganymede... 

[Stan]

7 minutes ago, nudge said:

I've seen all four of the Galilean moons, and they are easily identifiable as in you can clearly see how they are all lined up on one almost straight line bisecting Jupiter (unless some of them are behind the planet or too close to it to be visible). Granted, they still just look like small spots of light, but it's very easy to spot them and impossible to confuse with any other objects. As for correctly identifying which moon is which, that might be a bit harder, but still very straightforward if you use one of the apps. Without the help from an app, it is good to know that Io and Ganymede are the brightest ones, while Callisto is the dimmest (very easily noticeable). Europa is pretty bright too, but it's usually possible to see the difference and correctly identify it. So the biggest confusion comes from trying to distinguish which one is Io and which one is Ganymede... 

That's pretty cool. I still use the Stellarium app you recommended a fair while back, but it's great on summer nights and clear skies. 

[nudge+]

2 minutes ago, Stan said:

That's pretty cool. I still use the Stellarium app you recommended a fair while back, but it's great on summer nights and clear skies. 

Yep, I still use it, too! Hope you found the night mode faster than I did when I first got it, makes the world of difference in observing  

[CaaC (John)+]

3 hours ago, Stan said:

That's pretty cool. I still use the Stellarium app you recommended a fair while back, but it's great on summer nights and clear skies.

 

3 hours ago, nudge said:

Yep, I still use it, too! Hope you found the night mode faster than I did when I first got it, makes the world of difference in observing  

Yep, still use it too like just now 

When the wife has a load of shite on tv like Eastenders I will put my earphones on, bring up a tab from Youtube and play some music while using another tab with the Stellarium application, that makes my night or day whenever. 

 

[nudge+]

25 minutes ago, CaaC (John) said:

 

Yep, still use it too like just now 

When the wife has a load of shite on tv like Eastenders I will put my earphones on, bring up a tab from Youtube and play some music while using another tab with the Stellarium application, that makes my night or day whenever. 

 

This is only slightly related, but you should get yourself Space Engine. It's a realistic Universe simulator, representing the entire 1:1 scale observable universe from a combination of real astronomical data and scientifically-accurate procedural generation algorithms. All types of celestial objects are represented: galaxies, nebulae, stars and star clusters, planets and moons, comets and asteroids. Known celestial objects are represented using real data from astronomy catalogues, while regions of space not yet cataloged feature procedurally generated objects. Best part - you can visit and explore almost any of them.

The newest version is paid, but earlier versions are free to download on the official website:

https://spaceengine.org/

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Nasa's Ingenuity helicopter to fly over the hills of Mars

The derring-do Mars helicopter is about to take on its greatest challenge yet.

The Ingenuity drone, which accompanies Nasa's Perseverance rover, is going to start flying over the hills that surround their exploration location on the Red Planet.

The pair are currently on the floor of Jezero Crater, but the plan is for them both to climb up and out of this bowl.

Ginny, as the drone is known, has therefore had to have software upgrades to allow it to navigate inclines.

"Up until this point, Ingenuity has always lived in the belief that Mars is completely flat, like a pancake," chief pilot Håvard Grip told BBC News.

"It's only now with these most recent software updates that we are able to tell Ingenuity that 'no, in fact, it's not flat; there are hills'."

FULL REPORT

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

December 21, 2022

NASA's Perseverance Rover Deposits First Sample on Mars Surface

Filled with rock, the sample tube will be one of 10 forming a depot of tubes that could be considered for a journey to Earth by the Mars Sample Return campaign.

---

A titanium tube containing a rock sample is resting on the Red Planet’s surface after being placed there on Dec. 21 by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Over the next two months, the rover will deposit a total of 10 tubes at the location, called “Three Forks,” building humanity’s first sample depot on another planet. The depot marks a historic early step in the Mars Sample Return campaign.

Perseverance has been taking duplicate samples from rock targets the mission selects. The rover currently has the other 17 samples (including one atmospheric sample) taken so far in its belly. Based on the architecture of the Mars Sample Return campaign, the rover would deliver samples to a future robotic lander. The lander would, in turn, use a robotic arm to place the samples in a containment capsule aboard a small rocket that would blast off to Mars orbit, where another spacecraft would capture the sample container and return it safely to Earth.

The depot will serve as a backup if Perseverance can’t deliver its samples. In that case, a pair of Sample Recovery Helicopters would be called upon to finish the job.

The first sample to drop was a chalk-size core of igneous rock informally named “Malay,” which was collected on Jan. 31, 2022, in a region of Mars’ Jezero Crater called “South Séítah.” Perseverance’s complex Sampling and Caching System took almost an hour to retrieve the metal tube from inside the rover’s belly, view it one last time with its internal CacheCam, and drop the sample roughly 3 feet (89 centimeters) onto a carefully selected patch of Martian surface.

 

Testing a Sample Drop in the Mars Yard: Engineers use OPTIMISM, a full-size replica of NASA’s Perseverance rover, to test how it will deposit its first sample tube on the Martian surface. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech. 

But the job wasn’t done for engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which built Perseverance and leads the mission. Once they confirmed the tube had dropped, the team positioned the WATSON camera located at the end of Perseverance’s 7-foot-long (2-meter-long) robotic arm to peer beneath the rover, checking to be sure that the tube hadn’t rolled into the path of the rover’s wheels.

They also wanted to ensure the tube hadn’t landed in such a way that it was standing on its end (each tube has a flat end piece called a “glove” to make it easier to be picked up by future missions). That occurred less than 5% of the time during testing with Perseverance’s Earthly twin in JPL’s Mars Yard. In case it does happen on Mars, the mission has written a series of commands for Perseverance to carefully knock the tube over with part of the turret at the end of its robotic arm.

 

OPTIMISM Sticks the Landing: Engineers react with surprise while testing how NASA’s Perseverance rover will deposit its sample tubes on the Martian surface. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

In coming weeks, they’ll have other opportunities to see whether Perseverance needs to use the technique as the rover deposits more samples at the Three Forks cache.

“Seeing our first sample on the ground is a great capstone to our prime mission period, which ends on Jan. 6,” said Rick Welch, Perseverance’s deputy project manager at JPL. 

“It’s a nice alignment that, just as we’re starting our cache, we’re also closing this first chapter of the mission.”

More About the Mission

A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

https://mars.nasa.gov/news/9323/nasas-perseverance-rover-deposits-first-sample-on-mars-surface/

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by CaaC (John)
Spacing correction

[Tommy]

5 hours ago, CaaC (John) said:

 

 

Not gonna lie, when I saw the first picture, I thought it was a lightsaber. 

[nudge+]

51 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Not gonna lie, when I saw the first picture, I thought it was a lightsaber. 

Same

[nudge+]

@Tommy it's not just us... Read the comments here: 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

Every time I see the Perseverance Mars Rover I think of Johnny Five in the film Short Circuit. 

[Stan]

2 hours ago, Tommy said:

Not gonna lie, when I saw the first picture, I thought it was a lightsaber. 

 

1 hour ago, nudge said:

Same

Same  

A lightsaber is a fictional energy sword featured throughout the Star Wars franchise. A typical lightsaber is depicted as a luminescent plasma blade about 3 feet (0.91 m) in length emitted from a metal hilt around 10.5 inches (27 cm) in length.[1] First introduced in the original Star Wars film,[a] it has since appeared in most Star Wars films, with at least one lightsaber duel occurring in each installment of the "Skywalker saga". The lightsaber's distinct appearance was created using rotoscoping for the original films, and with digital effects for the prequel and sequel trilogies.

[nudge+]

16 minutes ago, Stan said:

 

Same  

A lightsaber is a fictional energy sword featured throughout the Star Wars franchise. A typical lightsaber is depicted as a luminescent plasma blade about 3 feet (0.91 m) in length emitted from a metal hilt around 10.5 inches (27 cm) in length.[1] First introduced in the original Star Wars film,[a] it has since appeared in most Star Wars films, with at least one lightsaber duel occurring in each installment of the "Skywalker saga". The lightsaber's distinct appearance was created using rotoscoping for the original films, and with digital effects for the prequel and sequel trilogies.

Why are you impersonating John?

[Stan]

20 minutes ago, nudge said:

Why are you impersonating John?

No idea. Too much time on my hands.

[Gunnersaurus]

One thing I've often wondered about a potential colonization of mars. There isn't much light on mars. Wouldn't people get really depressed because there is hardly any natural sunlight. Even artifical light wouldn't have the same effect 

 

[nudge+]

34 minutes ago, Gunnersaurus said:

One thing I've often wondered about a potential colonization of mars. There isn't much light on mars. Wouldn't people get really depressed because there is hardly any natural sunlight. Even artifical light wouldn't have the same effect 

 

Why do you think there isn't much light on Mars? The intensity of the sunlight is lower due to the greater distance from the sun, but that's really not much of an issue, especially since the atmosphere is very thin. The average lighting conditions near the equator on Mars on a clear day would be somewhat similar to northern Canada. So maybe not ideal, but definitely not unbearable. Artificial lighting will still be needed though, as the colonists will spend most of the time indoors, probably even in the excavated structures underground, so in that sense, lack of natural sunlight could be an issue.

I think isolation, remoteness, cramped conditions, hostile environment, repetitiveness of daily tasks and high levels of stress would be by far larger issues regarding mental health of Mars colonists though. Will some people struggle and reach their breaking point? I'm absolutely sure they will. But in the end, humans can adapt to whatever conditions they need to. It's also safe to say that resilience and mental fortitude will be one of the key factors in selection process, especially for the first generation of settlers; you won't just send any random unprepared people there...