Race to Mars: Thoroughbred or also ran?

Discovery Channel Canada premieres its ambitious looking 10-hour mini series on Sunday September 23rd. The series is as one would expect from the channel, a highly detailed and scientifically accurate look at the way in which the first human explorers might get to Mars, though on the evidence of the trailer, it looks wearisomely similar to other attempts to dramatise such a mission, with the inevitable, one might also obligatory technical failure along the way, giving rise to the usual heroics to get the mission to Mars safely. Anyway, I'm not sure when we'll see this in the UK, so if anyone would like to post comments and reviews after the first episode airs, feel free. The official website is here, and for those in the UK who would like to watch the trailer, I suggest here, since the official site detects UK IP addresses and refuses to play.

Not a whole lot after all?

A few months ago there was great excitement when a number of mysterious dark features were discovered on the surface of Mars. It very much looked like these might be cavernous entrances to underground caves, but a new image shot from a different angle has unfortunately demolished this theory. It looks like rather than caves, these features are pits. The newest image, with the sun shining from the west, shows the side of the pit, allowing geologists to make a good guess at the true size and nature of the feature, which it must be said, is still pretty impressive.

From the shadow of the rim cast onto the wall of the pit, it seems it is at least 78 meters (255 feet) deep and 150 x 157 meters (492 x 515 feet) across. Something similar has been observed here on earth, where pits form on volcanoes in Hawaii. These "pit craters" generally do not connect to long open caverns but are the result of deep underground collapse.

A shame then that the secret entrances to a long lost Martian civilisation have not been discovered, but a good lesson that it's worth waiting for the Fat Martian to sing before jumping to conclusions.

Going where no Gerbil has gone before

10 Gerbils have been blasted into space for a 12-day mission to test the possible effects on humans of a flight to Mars. The Gerbils were launched from Kazakhstan on Friday 14th September aboard a Foton-M spaceship. The mission will study the physiological and biological effects of long-term flights. The 10 are all sand rodents, praised as "a very interesting object for research" because they "can live for more than a month without using liquids," said Anatoly Grogoryev of the Russian Academy of Science. Day and night will be simulated aboard the spacecraft and the tiny cosmonauts filmed throughout their mission. Unfortunately it will not be a happy ending for all the Gerbils, as several will be dissected on their return to earth. You can't help wishing for a malfunction, and the poor little things go off course and fetch up on a nice little tropical island.

Mars had 40 ice ages

Norbert Schörghofer of the University of Hawaii at Manoa has proposed a new Martian climate theory, which suggests the planet has gone through at least 40 ice ages during the past five million years. These regularly send the planet's permanent ice sheets toward the equator before melting backward. These cyclical fluctuations are likely caused by shifts in the planet's orbit that alter the amount of sunlight reaching the planet's surface. The large volumes of ice found across the planet has puzzled scientists, with the prevailing theory being that the ice was laid down some 5 million years previously as snowfalls, but explaining how the ice water has survived so long has proven difficult. Schörghofer's theory explains the presence of the ice by suggesting it was laid down much later than thought, some perhaps only half a million years ago. National Geographic has the full story.

Opportunity begins Victoria descent

After an initial cautious probe a few days ago to check for wheel slippage, mission controllers have now committed the Opportunity rover to a full exploration of the large Victoria crater. Opportunity re-entered the crater during the rover's 1,293rd Martian day, or sol, (Sept. 13, 2007) to begin a weeks-long exploration of the inner slope. John Callas, the Mars rover project manager has described the exposed rock features in Victoria as like a bathtub ring, with hopes high that the impact which caused the crater will have exposed million year old geological evidence. Opportunity is now about 20 feet (6 meters) inside the rim, with the aim being to reach a layer of light-coloured rock exposed along the crater's inner slope within about a week. The total mission time within the crater is scheduled to last 3 months.

Opportunity scouts Victoria crater

With the dust storms that threatened the Opportunity and Spirit rovers now abated sufficiently to resume operations, the Opportunity rover has taken a first cautious drive into Victoria crater. The crater, measuring approximately one half-mile across and about 200 to 230 feet (70 meters) deep has been a top target for the rover for quite some time. Within the crater, about 40 feet (12.2 meters) below the rim, is a bright band of rocks that is intriguing scientists and which they hope will provide another revealing glimpse into the history of the planet. But this may be a one-way trip for the rover. Once in, it may not be able to get back out again, though there is plenty to explore inside the crater. Opportunity did not drive all the way in on this occasion, but far enough in -- about four meters (13 feet) -- to get all six wheels past the crater rim. Then it backed uphill for about three meters (10 feet). Commands were relayed to the rover to stop driving if the wheels suffered more than 40% slippage. This did indeed happen, so the rover automatically stopped and it is now perched on the rim with just the front wheels over the edge. Mission scientists will now examine the telemetry received back and plan how best to get Opportunity all the way safely.

Rovers are roving again

After many weeks of frustrating inactivity, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers have begun to tentatively wake from a slumber imposed by Mission Control to conserve energy while a planet wide dust storm raged. The storm is now showing some signs of abating, Opportunity is receiving some 230-240 watt hours of energy, while Spirit is getting 313 watt-hours of energy per day and has already made a short 42 centimetre drive. Spirit is now expected to begin the drive to Home Plate, an interesting geological feature that geologists believe may be the remains of a volcano. Opportunity meanwhile is poised to begin the long delayed descent into Victoria crater, a move that may well signal the end for the plucky little robot, as it may well not be able to climb back out again. Spirit is suffering from a layer of dust on the lens of the camera mounted on the end of the rover’s robotic arm and various options are under discussion to try and shake it off. In order to avoid the same problem occurring with Opportunity, the mission controllers are delaying opening the dust cover for now. The solar panels on both rovers may also become impacted by dust, as it begins to settle as the storm dies down, but it is hoped that gusts of wind that have previously helped cleanse the cameras may come to the rescue again.

Canada gears up for Mars

A consortium of Canadian universities is planning to send a lander to Mars in 2009. At just $20 million dollars, the mission is going to cost a fraction of the recently launched Phoenix mission. Though the Northern Light robot will weigh a petite 35 kilograms, far less than Phoenix, it is expected to carry a varied range of instruments, such as a spectrometer, seismic and environmental sensors, plus a rover named Beaver with a 1km range. The rover will also come equipped with a number of useful instruments, including a ground-penetrating radar and a rock grinder. The mission is not government sponsored, but hopes to raise the $20 million needed via private contributions and sponsorship. Costs will be kept low by using an off the shelf launch system, such as the Russian Rockot system, which is made from converted Soviet era ballistic missiles. More info can be found at the Northern Light website.

Mars Phoenix Mission lifts off

NASA has successfully launched the Mars Phoenix lander from Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop a Delta II rocket. It was a textbook lift-off, brilliantly lighting up the night sky. The launch was delayed from Friday because of bad weather, but the rescheduled launch in the early hours of the morning went smoothly. Unlike the Spirit and Opportunity missions presently on Mars, Phoenix is not mobile, but the lander carries with it a 2.4m (7.5ft) robotic arm that will dig into the Martian polar region surface in search of complex carbon-based chemicals (organics) in the soil that could provide tell-tale signs of life.

Mars invades in boxes

August seems to be the silly season for Mars as inboxes fill with a perennial hoax e-mail that arrives at about this time every year. The mail tells readers that Mars is due to an incredibly close approach, so close in fact that it will appear as it the Earth has two moons in the sky. The story seems to have originated from the genuine close approach of August 2003, when the planet came within 35 million miles of us. By no stretch of the imagination did it appear as large as our own moon, but it was some 6 times large than normal and 85 times brighter. From this has sprung the hoax mail, which somehow re-emerges every year no matter where Mars is in the firmament. Alas, to get anything like a repeat of the 2003 show, you’ll have to wait for 2018, though it won’t actually be until 2287 that we’ll get an approach as close again.

Rovers in peril

The Opportunity and Spirit rovers are facing the most serious threat yet encountered on their 3 year sojourns on Mars, with a massive dust storm reducing power levels to their lowest ever levels. Opportunity is the worst effected of the two rovers, with direct sunlight levels to its solar panels reduced by up to 99% in the last few days. Mission scientists have been scaling back science operations for both Rovers, switching off instruments and basically hunkering the machines down in the hope that they can survive. The biggest problem is that they can't simply switch the rovers off and on again after the storm clears. A minimum amount of power is required to run heaters that keep vital core electronics from becoming too cold and Opportunity is coming perilously close to the point where it will not be able to cope. Power levels dipped on Wednesday 18th to an unprecedented 128 watt hours, prompting scientists to take the extraordinary action of suspending some of the regular communication sessions with the Rover, a contingency that has never been enacted before.

Planting the seed of an idea for a green Mars

With an eye to the eventual greening of Mars, Scientists in Mexico are examining Pine trees living on the side of a volcano to see how they cope with the adverse conditions. The snow-capped Pico de Orizaba is not only a dormant volcano but also Mexico's tallest mountain, so the Trees that cling to the side are a hardy breed. Learning how they survive may give clues as to how to one day cultivate plants on Mars, but first we'll need to warm the planet up. Scientist Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez of Mexico City's UNAM University thinks the idea is not necessarily the stuff of science fiction. Global warming here on Earth gives a clue to the process required. If we can introduce highly insulating gases like methane or nitrous oxide in sufficient volume, we could heat Mars. If we can raise the temperature to 41 degrees Fahrenheit from the present minus 67 F, this would match temperatures where trees grow at 13,780 feet on Pico de Orizaba. NASA scientist Chris McKay believes we might see Trees on Mars within 100 years, and sees them as a vital component of any terraforming effort, since Trees are the major "engines of the biosphere."

Opportunity descent into Victoria delayed

Fears that a growing dust storm on Mars will deplete power to the Opportunity rover have caused mission planners to delay by a few days the descent into Victoria crater. Opportunity has been surveying the edge of the crater for months, looking for a safe place to begin the perilous descent, but with dust cutting nearly half the available power to the rover, (from 765 watt-hours to 402 watt-hours per day) the decision has been taken to keep the rover in sleep mode as much as possible, with a tentative date of July 13th pencilled in for a full resumption of the mission. The storm has been growing since June, and while mission scientists remain confident that it will abate and be no threat to Opportunity and Spirit, there is some concern that the storm may go global. Such storms are not uncommon, seeming to follow a rough pattern of occurring every 6 years. The last global storm was in 2001, so the planet is due one.

Mars drier than thought, but glass still half full

An ancient Mars of rolling oceans is an image pregnant with implications and one that has gained a lot of currency amongst researchers in recent years, but it is good to be occasionally reminded that this is just a theory, and there are plenty of other ways of interpreting the evidence. New Scientist magazine is reporting this week that results from Mars Express cast some doubt on the idea that Mars was once a very wet environment, because it appears to have lacked the necessary carbon-dioxide-rich atmosphere to make this possible. Since the sunlight reaching Mars is 25% less than that on Earth, a very effective greenhouse effect powered by large concentrations of CO2 would have been needed to generate a warm thick atmosphere, 80% more than is experienced on Earth. Analysis of clays, or phyllosilicates, found on the planet by the OMEGA spectrometer on Mars Express seems to indicate that the presence of these clays rules out a large amount of CO2 in the atmosphere since this would have prohibited their formation. Methane, which can also act as a greenhouse gas has been proposed as an alternative driver of a greenhouse effect, but Methane in any significant volume would need an extremely active biosphere, and while it is nice to imagination a tropical Mars in the past, this does not seem very likely. Intriguingly, another alternative has it that large meteor impacts may have caused very brief flurries of wet activity on Mars, in the order of a few thousand years at a time. The question then arises, would a few thousand years of rain (even repeated multiple times) have been sufficient to carve out the river valley like features seen on Mars. Read the article at New Scientist.

Dust storm threatens rovers

A powerful new dust storm is developing on Mars and may threaten the safety of the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The storm is thought to now be several thousand miles in diameter and is some 560 miles (900 KM) east of Opportunity, which is presently working at Meridiani Planum. The fear is that the storm will become global in nature, as last happened in October 2001, when a giant storm blanketed the entire planet in an impenetrable gloom. Ironically, high winds have been the saviour of the rovers before, as dust accumulating on their solar panels appears to have been blown off, restoring power that had been steadily in decline. The storm is not yet big enough to worry mission planners unduly, but a press conference called for Thursday will discuss the possibility that a planned drive by Opportunity into the massive Victoria Crater may be cancelled.

Martian tilt may explain lost ocean

When the Viking spacecraft arrived over Mars in the 1970's they saw what appeared to be the ancient shorelines of a long dead Martian ocean, but this theory was largely discredited bv the later Mars Global Surveyor mission of the 1990's. The far more sensitive Mars Global Surveyor imaged the surface to a resolution of a few hundred metres, and that seemed to prove that the opposite shores of the "ocean" varied in elevation by several kilometres, making for a very unusual ocean indeed, in fact an ocean that simply could not have existed. Until now this is the view that has prevailed, but scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Toronto and the Carnegie Institution in Washington have now re-accessed the data, and their startling conclusion once again puts an ocean on Mars, and a very deep one at that. The scientists have changed their mind because a new theory suggests that Mars has undergone some major upheavals, at the heart of which is an exotic event called true polar wander, a process in which the very poles of the planet shifted, resulting in massive deformation of the surface. If this is the case, then those improbable shorelines may indeed be the edges of an ancient ocean, one that once covered an entire hemisphere of the planet to a depth of several kilometres. If that is the case, then the next question to answer is, where did all the water go? The Independent Newspaper has an excellent indepth article on the new theory.

ESA opts for big Mars mission

In a further sign of the importance national space agencies are assigning to exploration of the red planet, the ESA has moved a step further forward approving a much enhanced vision for the 2013 ExoMars mission. The proposed upgrade would see a 205kg robot lift off on a heavy-lift rocket such as an Ariane 5 or a Proton. The probe would carry a 16.5kg instrument package, including a weather station (or Geophysics/Environment Package - GEP) but a request to include an orbiting communications platform was not approved. This means that ExoMars will be reliant on aging American hardware already in orbit about Mars. The project teams now have the go-ahead to refine the concept over the coming months, though the final design may still be subject be rejection when it comes up for final review in a years time. More information can be found on the BBC website.

ESA air bags demonstrates less bounce

In an important step toward a European mission to Mars, scientists have successfully tested a new kind of air bag landing system that they believe could bring the proposed ExoMars mission to a much speedier and safer stop than previous designs. The American Spirit and Opportunity rovers presently on Mars used airbag technology, but the method employed required the landers survive up to 25 bounces and travel some 200 metres before coming to a standstill. The ESA design, known as a vented, or dead-beat system, uses sensors to deflate the squashable bags on touchdown, reducing the bounce factor and meaning that the payload can be delivered right side up. There is still a lot of testing to be done, but if successful, the bags will also mean a significant weight saving, leaving more room for the science payload. The BBC website has an extensive story.

Storm in a puddle growing on Mars

The prestigious publication New Scientist magazine is reporting on controversial findings that open water was found on the surface of Mars two years ago. Open water should not be possible on Mars due to the harsh surface conditions, (though very strong photographic evidence has been found for occasional small flash floods) so if true, this is a real bombshell. Physicist and Lockheed engineer Ron Levin has looked at images returned several years ago by the Opportunity Rover while it was exploring a crater called Endurance. Creating stereoscopic reconstructions from paired images from the rover's twin cameras, he seems to have found some compelling evidence. The picture shows a one metre square area with a distinctly bluish tint, and indeed it looks just as you would imagine water would look if it were puddling in low depressions in the ground. It is also free of dust and other detritus, suggesting that if it is water or ice, it formed recently. Levin has previously theorised that water might exist briefly on the surface in a regular daily cycle, evaporating away as the day progresses. This however is a very contentious theory, as it would require some very precise circumstances to come about. It is worth mentioning that Levin's father Gilbert Levin was one of the scientists on the old Viking missions to Mars, which found no official evidence for life, though both father and son have been vigorous proponents of the idea that the scientific instruments on Viking did find life, but the results were incorrectly interpreted. I mention this because Levin may well have an axe to grind here, and just as conspiracy theorists are constantly finding signs of an ancient civilisation on Mars, this may be a case of the eye seeing what the mind wants it to see. However, it is equally fair to say that the picture is compelling, so here is hoping that NASA is open minded enough to take a look at this, and have Spirit and Opportunity keep their cameras trained for further examples. As Levin has pointed out, it only requires that they poke the surface with the Rover’s drilling tool to test out his theory. If it’s water, then the drill will make no visible impression. If it’s anything else, it will leave a mark.

ESA Mars rover talks inconclusive

The ExoMars mission to Mars has been the subject of intense discussion over the last few days, as European Space Agency delegates attempt to finalise the design for the ambitious probe. At the heart of the discussion is the proposal by mission scientists to beef up the mission in order to address several worries they have. The most costly change is the request to send a combined orbiter and lander configuration, a proposal driven by several imperatives. For one thing, scientists are concerned that without an orbiter to relay data back to Earth, the ExoMars mission will be relying on American orbiting hardware for the crucial link home, and another failure such as recently befell Mars Global Surveyor would be catastrophic. Equally concerning, a recent change to the launch date from 2011 to December 2013 now means ExoMars would arrive in 2014, at a time of increased dust storm activity. Without an orbiter to wait out the storms, the lander would have to risk a perilous descent in these conditions. These changes mean a far bigger payload requiring a more powerful launch vehicle. That all adds up to substantial cost increases, and that means the member nations of the ESA will have to dig a lot deeper into their pockets to fund it. The worry is that some ESA members may decide to cut and run, threatening the entire project, which is a key plank of highly ambitious European plans to explore and eventually return material from Mars. The discussions to date appear to be veering toward acceptance of the more expensive option, but a final decision has been deferred to a later meeting on June 11th.