Inflatable heat shield test

Packed into a 15-inch shroud payload, a newly developed inflatable heat shield was recently put through its paces by NASA engineers. Launched to a height of 124 miles, the shield automatically inflated itself into a 10-foot diameter mushroom shape of silicone-coated fabric. Given the success of the mission, which splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, NASA is hopeful that the shield will be useful not only for re-entries into the earths atmosphere, but also as a shield for future Mars missions, where space and weight are at a premium. More info at popsci.com

Rock and a hard place

There's a community of ardent armchair researchers to be found on the Internet determined to prove that intelligent life once existed on Mars. To this end, they're scouring images returned from Mars looking for a smoking gun. One of the most perplexing images that has turned up in this search appears to show a monolith like object on the Martian surface, in fact not a little like the famous monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey. But of course at the other end of the spectrum, scientists working in the field of Mars exploration are less than thrilled to be told they are covering up the existence of life on Mars, though I've yet to see it explained why they would send probe after probe to Mars with all the attendant risk that they'll be rumbled. And so to the Monolith, snapped by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Scientists at the University of Arizona are equally determined to put the monolith down to natural causes. Most likely says Alfred McEwen, "it's more likely that this boulder has been created by breaking away from the bedrock to create a rectangular-shaped feature." That sounds pretty reasonable to me, but while my strong inclination is to err on the side of caution, that's not to say that one-day, some amateur observer might spot something missed by the experts. But for now, the scientists at NASA really are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

War of the Wolds: Not a typo!

No, it's not a typo. This really is The War of the Wolds, and it's fantastic! Made by film maker Robin Smith on a shoestring budget, this is a short film in the style of a trailer for a War of the Worlds movie. It's been entered into the Virgin Media Shorts competition. You should check it out and if you like it as much as me, show your support. So what is a wold? In this case, it's an area in the North Lincolnshire area of England. Specifically, Smith has his Martians laying siege to the town of Barton.

This is an extraordinarily professional looking piece of work, with stunning special effects. The moment a Martian Tripod straddles an underpass under which a group of people are trapped is jaw dropping. If Smith can win, he bags £30,000 of film funding to shoot their next film with the UK Film Council and Virgin Media. My hope is that he takes his speculative trailer and amps it up to a full on movie.

Check out the full entry below.

The Spirit is willing, but the wheels are weak

The Spirit rover continues to be stuck up to its hubcaps on Mars, but JPL engineers have put together a simulation of the conditions Spirit has encountered and are busy attempting various scenarios to drive the plucky rover free of its sand trap. The same technique got sister rover Opportunity out of a similar jam back in 2005, so JPL are hopeful they can work the same magic again. A fully operating twin of Spirit is now in a box of sand in Pasadena and Wired magazine have an excellent article online detailing the preparations to build the simulation.

Europe's Mars rover launch delayed

The European ExoMars mission, seen as one of the most ambitious yet mounted to the red planet, has suffered a further setback (its 3rd delay) with a new launch date now likely to be in 2018. Mission planners are putting a brave face on things, pointing out that the delay will have benefits, rolling the mission up with the NASA program. The plan now envisages an American Atlas launcher delivering an orbiter in 2016 which will hunt for methane traces (a key indicator of life) and it is also possible that their might be payload room for a static lander. Then in 2018, ExoMars, accompanied by a smaller rover based on the Spirit/Opportunity design would arrive, targeted toward any promising Methane finds from the 2016 orbiter. So we've got a bit of a wait, but the payoff could be enormous is this combined mission finds evidence of actual life now on Mars. The full story is on the BBC website.

Bolden hints at refocused NASA

Details have emerged of a meeting at NASA at which the new NASA head Charles Bolden introduced himself to staff and laid out some of his vision for the agency. While precise details were lacking, it is clear from his comments that Bolden believes the agency is burdened down with too many conflicting projects and is lacking the vision and focus needed to get a manned mission to Mars. Encouragingly, Bolden repeated again his determination to get a NASA mission to Mars off the ground. A two-time space shuttle commander and retired Marine Corps major general, Bolden looks to be the sort of decisive leader the agency needs.

Mars predictions say presence by 2019

There's a big debate brewing right now about the path NASA should take in the coming years. Former President George W Bush tasked NASA with a return to the Moon prior to a Mars mission, but it seems new President Obama is not so keen, and we're not really sure yet what this bodes for Mars, though as previously noted in this blog, we've got a Mars focused NASA administrator and now Dr. Charles Elachi, director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has chimed in with his predictions. Speaking at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference, he was very upbeat for the prospects for manned exploration of the solar system, predicting a presence on Mars by 2019! That seems a tad optimistic to me, but it's good to see more senior people in the American space program pushing for this kind of commitment. Elachi also brought with him a super cool full scale model of the 2011 Mars rover named Curiosity.

NASA's administrator aims for Mars

Nice to hear that NASA's new Administrator Charles Bolden Jr is firmly supporting the prospect of a manned mission to Mars. Speaking to The Associated Press, Bolden sounded every inch the enthusiast, making the goal of reaching Mars sound pretty personal to him, which is exactly the passionate attitude you want in someone in his position. Bolden told the AP that, "In my lifetime, I will be incredibly disappointed if we have not at least reached Mars." Given that he's in his early 60's, it sounds like we can expect fast progress under Bolden's tenure. Even better, he went on to observe that he "did grow up watching Buck Rogers and Buck Rogers didn't stop at Mars." A science fiction fan in charge at NASA? The sky may not be the limit! Read the full AP story here.

Red hot and molten

New research published in the journal Nature Geoscience suggests that the planet spent a considerable period of time with its surface in a molten state, with temperatures in the region of 1000 degrees celsius curtailing the chances of life developing for at least the first 100 million years of its existence.

International scientists from the USA, Belgium, and Australia looked at a rare type of Martian meteorite called a Nakhlite (named after Nakhla in Egypt where the first one was found.) By measuring radioactive traces of exotic elements such as Hafnium, Lutetium, and Neodymium, the team were able to postulate that the early atmosphere would have been composed of a thick steam, keeping the surface trapped in a molten state.

Eventually the surface tipped over, allowing the crust to solidify. More detail can be found at physorg.com.

Apollo Astronauts push for Mars

Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins have called for a mission to Mars rather than the present NASA focus of a return to the Moon. Speaking at a gathering of the Apollo 11 astronauts, including a rare appearance by Neil Armstrong, both Aldrin and Collins expressed a desire to see a Mars landing. Praising the achievements of the Apollo program, Aldrin nevertheless said, "The best way to honour and remember all those who were part of the Apollo programme is to follow in our footsteps; to boldly go again on a new mission of exploration." Collins added, "Sometimes I think I flew to the wrong place. Mars was always my favourite as a kid and it still is today." The return to the moon program is of course by no means certain, and the Obama administration has been somewhat ambivalent about the idea. What this might do for the prospects of a Mars mission is presently anyone’s guess.

Life on Mars tantalisingly closer

Analysis of images from the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera, on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter seems to indicate that warming weather on Mars may have melted ice-rich soils as recently as 2 million years ago. The geographical features that point to this event were originally thought to have been volcanic in origin, but Matthew Balme, a research scientist with the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute has looked afresh at the images and now believes they were formed by the expansion and contraction of ice due to freeze/thaw cycles. If true, then the equator region would be an ideal place to look for signs of past life.

New War of the Worlds tripod model

It's always great to learn of a new War of the Worlds product, and it's particularly exciting that a forthcoming War of the Worlds model represents a first commercial project for fan Neil Hughes. Neil has been crafting his vision of a Martian tripod for the last six months, and going by the pictures on his blog, this has been a labour of love. The model is intended for use in the rather wonderfully named war-gaming scenario Glorious Adventures in Science Loosely Involving Generally Historical Times, or G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T for short. Eureka Miniatures will be selling the tripod, but to see some shots of the model in progress, check out Neil's blog.

Cast Recording of Wayne's War of the Worlds available for pre-order

The stage version of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds is turning into something of a worldwide phenomena, having toured Australia and New Zealand and heading this year to Ireland, Holland and Germany. For the UK leg of the 2009 tour, each performance is to be recorded and made available for purchase just minutes later. You can pre-order the performance of your choice right now on the Concert Live website. Each 3 CD set will contain the recording of your choice, plus 20 photographs from that night’s performance. For those lucky enough to have tickets to one of the shows, this strikes me as a really superb memento of what is sure to me a fantastic concert experience, but of course you don’t have to attend a concert to buy one of these albums. The only real difficulty then is which date you pick. For more info and to pre-order The War of the Worlds CD, visit the Concert Live website.

Spring blooms detected on Mars

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured extraordinary images of geological activity as Spring arrives on the Red Planet. The beautiful images almost look as if they are biological in nature, but in reality they are caused by plumes of carbon dioxide vaporising from solid blocks of dry ice. During the Martian winter, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere builds up an underground layer of dry ice as much as a metre thick. As the planet warms up in the spring, the ice returns to a vapour, and as it finds weak points or cracks in the surface, it pours out, bringing with it a payload of dust that forms bizarre looking patterns on the surface. More details are available at the JPL website.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

First Mars 500 mission begins

On March 31st, an intrepid crew of 6 entered the Mars 500 spacecraft simulator in Moscow. The hatch was closed and sealed, and will not be reopened for 105 days! Over the coming months, the crew will simulate a trip to and from Mars, including a landing, though 105 days is not in reality anywhere near enough time to simulate a real mission to Mars. However, this experiment is just a precursor to a much more ambitious follow up experiment, which will see another crew of 6 locked up for 520 days. The experiments are critical to the development of a real mission to Mars, which will require a crew to share tiny quarters for over a year. The psychological and physical strains this will create need to be well understood before any real mission is launched. You can follow the mission on the ESA website and the official Russian site is here.

Deimos captured in new light

The previously rather drab little Martian moon of Deimos can now be seen in a new light, thanks to the latest pictures shot by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Captured on February 21st, 2009, using near-infrared, and red and blue-green filters, the new images show subtle colour variations on the surface. These are probably caused by the exposure of surface materials to the space environment, which leads to darkening and reddening. Brighter and less-red surface materials have seen less exposure to space due to recent impacts or downslope movement of regolith. The pictures can be seen here.

Usagi Yojimbo v Martians

Usagi Yojimbo is a rather bizarre comic book written and drawn by its creator Stan Sakai for the last 25 years. Its hero is, wait for it, a Samurai rabbit! But if Sakai has his way, his Japanese Bunny will soon be battling Martians. Usagi Yojimbo is generally set at the beginning of Edo period in Feudal Japan (the early 17th century) and was inspired by the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi, but Sakai has also branched out on occasion, even going so far as to transplant a version of the character into space for a spin off series. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of his character, Sakai spoke at the recent WonderCon convention, and revealed he has plans to pit the Samurai against H.G. Well's Martians. Said Sakai, "It would be set two hundred years before Wells’ time and would involve a very old Usagi fighting a Martian tripod."

Drip drip of evidence builds for water

The jury is likely to be out for some time, but intriguing images have come to light that seem to show drops of water that had formed on the landing strut of the Phoenix Mars lander. The "drops" are seen over a period of days to form, drip and merge down the struts. Study leader and Phoenix co-investigator Nilton Renno of the University of Michigan believes that the drops may have started life as saline mud that was splashed up onto the struts during the landing of the Phoenix probe. Salt in the mud would then have absorbed water vapour from the atmosphere to form the watery drops. The "water" might contain a substance called perchlorates, which acts as a powerful antifreeze, so though the drops may have partially frozen at night, they would have been in a liquid state during daylight hours. However, caution is urged, as it would not be likely that this highly salty water would be a good place for life to form.

Recent water on Mars - in a manner of speaking.

Planetary geologists at Brown University have found a gully fan system on Mars that they think was formed about 1.25 million years ago by flowing water. That may seem like an age, but in geological terms it's a blink of an eye, and if ever proven, means Mars had flowing water a lot more recently than previously supposed. The gully system is located on the inside of a crater in Promethei Terra, an area of cratered highlands to be found in the southern mid-latitudes. Mars Daily has an excellent story on the discovery.

Methane on Mars detected

One of the clearest indicators yet of the presence of life on Mars has been discovered as scientists release the results of a 7-year study of the Martian atmosphere. Using telescopes in Hawaii, researchers detected up to 19,000 tonnes of methane on the planet. Most exciting of all, the methane appeared to build up in the Northern hemisphere during summer months on the planet, which would also be indicative of some kind of biological process. However, caution is being exercised, since it is not impossible that the process producing the methane is geological. We might be seeing something called serpentinisation, which occurs when rocks rich in certain minerals react with water, releasing methane, but the odds certainly now seem to be 50/50 that some kind of primitive microbes are thriving on Mars.