Month: June 2024

Mars holds a very special place in our hearts. Especially because, of all the other planets in the solar system, Mars is the most likely place where we'll find some tantalizing clues, or maybe even evidence, of prehistoric life. NASA's Perseverance rover has been driving around Jezero Crater, looking for evidence that it once hosted life. To do so, it's collected not only rock samples, but air samples as well, and scientists can't wait to get their hands on them.

The Mars Rover Perseverance is part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission. It launched on July 30, 2020 and successfully landed in the Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021. The site was chosen because it is a dried-up riverbed and if there is any evidence of early primitive life on Mars, this is a likely location. Perseverance is equipped with a variety of instruments, including a drone called Ingenuity to explore the planet.

The Mars rover Perseverence sent back this image of its parking spot during the Mars solar conjunction. Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech

An exciting element of the mission is the collection of rock samples as part of the Mars Sample Return Campaign. So far, 24 core samples have been taken and deposited on the surface so that they can be picked up by a future mission. But it wasn't just rock samples that were collected. In what is known as “headspace,” there is air around the rock samples, and that is exactly what excites the scientists.

It is not only the rocks that hold secrets about Mars, but also its atmosphere. The atmosphere is rich in carbon dioxide, but probably also contains traces of other gases. Information about the current climate can be obtained from the trapped gases, but by analyzing the rocks, one can also learn something about the evolution of the atmosphere. There is one particularly important tube that is completely filled with gas from the atmosphere.

Image of the Martian atmosphere and surface taken by the Viking 1 orbiter in June 1976. (Source: NASA/Viking 1)

Since the sample may remain on the surface of Mars for many years, the trapped gas will react with the rock in the sample tube. The interaction will only stop when the tubes are opened upon their return here to Earth. It is hoped that this will provide more information about the water vapor concentration near the surface of Mars.

It's not just the water vapor that's of interest, but also the trace gas concentrations. By analyzing the gas samples, we can determine if there are gases like neon, argon, and xenon, which are non-reactive. Since these gases don't react, their presence in the tube samples could indicate that Mars had an atmosphere. We know that it had a much denser atmosphere in the past, but we don't know if it was always there or if it evolved later.

Analysis of the samples will bring many benefits, including the dust concentration that will help future human exploration. Justin Simon of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston said: “The gas samples have a lot to offer Mars researchers. Even those who don't study Mars will be interested in them because they provide insight into how the planet forms and evolves.”

Source: Why scientists are fascinated by the air in NASA's Mars sample tubes

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From THE DAILY CALLER

Owen Klinksy
Contributor

Billionaire-backed nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) behind a botched experiment to block sunlight using aerosols in California have announced they will continue their efforts, Politico reported Wednesday.

The initiative, which aims to lower global temperatures by making clouds brighter so they better reflect the sun's rays, has run into obstacles because California officials are reluctant to allow scientists to spray aerosols, such as liquefied salt, into the atmosphere. Still, many of the program's funders, including Hyatt hotel heiress Rachel Pritzker, are undeterred, according to Politico. (RELATED TOPICS: Climate scientists want an umbrella the size of Argentina to block out the sun)

“The Pritzker Innovation Fund believes in the importance of research that helps improve climate models and enables policymakers and the public to better understand whether climate interventions like marine cloud brightening are feasible and advisable,” Rachel Pritzker said in a statement to Politico in response to public backlash against the Alameda experiment. “We will only get answers to these questions through open research that can support science-based, democratic decision-making.”

“We remain committed to promoting transparent, equitable and science-based approaches to understanding and potentially mitigating climate risks,” Greg De Temmerman, science and program director at the Quadrature Climate Foundation – an NGO with ties to British hedge fund Quadrature Capital – told Politico.

The Alameda experiment lasted a total of 20 minutes, despite being planned to last several months. According to Politico, this is partly because the researchers first announced the project in the New York Times before notifying the city.

The project is the second billionaire-funded project to inject aerosols into the stratosphere to fail in recent months.

In March, a similar Harvard-led project in northern Sweden was shut down after facing opposition from environmentalists and indigenous communities concerned about the study's impact on weather patterns, Politico reported.

The University of Washington, NGO SilverLining, SRI International, the Quadrature Foundation and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen's Larsen Lam Climate Change Foundation – all of which were also involved in running or funding the Alameda experiment, according to Politico – did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's request for comment.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan news service, is available free of charge to any reputable news publisher that can reach a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter's name and their DCNF affiliation. If you have any questions about our policies or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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NASA's Perseverance rover has left Mount Washburn behind and arrived at its next destination, Bright Angel, where it has found an unusual type of rock that scientists call “popcorn rock.” The strange rock is further evidence that water was once present in Jezero Crater.

Perseverance's mission is focused on life on ancient Mars. In addition to looking for fossilized evidence of ancient life, the probe is also searching for and trying to understand environments that might have supported life. That's why it is located in Jezero Crater, an ancient paleolake with a sedimentary delta and other fascinating geological features.

On sol 1175 of its mission, Perseverance arrived at Bright Angel, a region of scientific interest that is part of the river channel that flows into Jezero Crater. Bright Angel is known for its bright rock outcrops, which are either composed of ancient sediments that filled the channel or of much older rock exposed by the river.

The image below shows the rover's path leading to Bright Angel. The white part shows where Perseverance paralleled the Neretva Vallis riverbed, and the blue part shows where it drove through the bed. The bright rocks of Bright Angel are clearly visible.

This Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image, taken with the orbiter's HiRISE camera, shows the Neretva Vallis river channel with Perseverance's path above it. The orbiter has passed Mount Washburn and reached Bright Angel. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

As Perseverance moved toward Bright Angel, mission crews could see the bright rocks in the distance. But the path to the new destination was not easy. The rover encountered a boulder field that proved so difficult that the crew changed course.

“We started traveling parallel to the channel in late January and were making pretty good progress, but then the boulders got bigger and more numerous,” said Evan Graser, Perseverance's deputy strategic route planning lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The average travel distance of over 100 meters per Martian day was reduced to just a few tens of meters. It was frustrating.”

Perseverance has two modes of travel. In rougher terrain, the route planning team uses imagery to plan the rover's route in 30-meter increments. To get further in a single sol, the team relies on Perseverance's autopilot mode, called AutoNav. But as the route through the scree field became more difficult, AutoNav ran into trouble. Sometimes it just stopped, which is the safest option. But that meant the drive to Bright Angel took much longer than expected.

“We had been keeping an eye on the river channel to the north as we were traveling, hoping to find a section where the dunes were small and far enough apart for a rover to drive through — because dunes are known to eat Mars rovers,” Graser said. “Perseverance also needed an access ramp that we could drive down safely. When the images showed both, we headed straight for that.”

The rover was diverted through the dune field and across the river channel, shortening its journey by several weeks.

Perseverance captured this image of Bright Angel with one of its navcams on June 6, 2024. Bright Angel is the bright area in the distance to the right. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Perseverance is nearing the end of its fourth exploration phase. It has been looking for carbonate rocks and olivine in the Margin Unit, which is located on the inside of the Jezero Crater rim. But at Bright Angel, it hoped to find other rocks.

That's exactly what happened.

According to a NASA press release, geologists were intrigued by what they saw. Some of the rocks are densely packed with balls, earning them the name “popcorn rocks.” The rocks are also full of ridges that look like mineral veins. Mineral veins are formed when water carries minerals through rock and deposits them.

These rocks in Bright Angel have unusual popcorn-like textures and numerous mineral veins. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

Mineral veins are common on wet, watery Earth, and rovers have discovered them elsewhere on Mars.

The MSL Curiosity Rover captured this image of mineral veins in Martian rocks in 2015. The area is called Garden City and is located at the base of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The popcorn structures could also be evidence of water. Like the mineral veins, they indicate that water has flowed through these rocks.

The next step is to determine what minerals are present in these popcorn rocks. Perseverance will work its way up to Bright Angel, taking measurements as it goes. Over the weekend, it will use its abrasion tool and other instruments to look even closer. It will vaporize some of the rock and use its SuperCam suite of instruments to study the rock's chemistry. The decision to take a sample and (hopefully) return to Earth will depend on those results.

Once Perseverance finishes at Bright Angel, the rover will head south again, through the Neretva Valley, to its next destination: Serpentine Rapids.

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