Curiosity update: No turkey, but many side dishes

Posted on November 21, 2018 by rburnham

2229ML0118250070804351E01_DXXX-br2Sol 2236-39, November 19, 2018, update by MSL scientist Fred Calef: Curiosity is planning a smorgasbord of science over the next few days as it awaits results from digesting the “Highfield” drill target material. We’ll continue change detection observations including subdiurnal (i.e. several times a martian day) Mastcam observations of “Sand Loch” and “Windyedge”, as well as MARDI to watch moving sand grains beneath the rover, throughout the planning cycle. There’s also a good helping of Mastcam sky column, Navcam sky flats, crater rim extinction, and suprahorizon and zenith movies to round out the meal of atmospheric events. Repeating observations during the day of the same locations are one of the unique ways the rover can provide an hourly view of Mars’ surface that only a spacecraft on the ground can… [More at link]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

What two planetary siblings can teach us about life

Posted on November 21, 2018 by rburnham

Earth Mars ComparisonMars and Earth are like two siblings who have grown apart. There was a time when their resemblance was uncanny: Both were warm, wet and shrouded in thick atmospheres. But 3 or 4 billion years ago, these two worlds took different paths.

We may soon know why they went their separate ways. NASA’s InSight spacecraft will arrive at the Red Planet on Monday, Nov. 26, and will allow scientists to compare Earth to its rusty sibling like never before.

InSight (short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) won’t be looking for life on Mars. But studying its insides – what it’s made of, how that material is layered and how much heat seeps out of it – could help scientists better understand how a planet’s starting materials make it more or less likely to support life.

“Earth and Mars were molded out of very similar stuff,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which leads the mission. “Why did the finished planets turn out so differently? Our measurements will help us turn back the clock and understand what produced a verdant Earth but a desolate Mars.” [More at link]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

THEMIS: Field of hills in Terra Cimmeria

Posted on November 21, 2018 by rburnham

Hills in Terra Cimmeria (THEMIS_IOTD_20181121)THEMIS Image of the Day, November 21, 2018. This image is located in Terra Cimmeria. The bright, irregular features are hills.

This part of Terra Cimmeria is made up mostly by flat lying plains, with no other hills in the nearby vicinity.

See more THEMIS Images of the Day by geological subject.

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Did rolling stones made Phobos groovy?

Posted on November 20, 2018 by rburnham

phobosincolor_pia10369A new study bolsters the idea that strange grooves crisscrossing the surface of the Martian moon Phobos were made by rolling boulders blasted free from an ancient asteroid impact.

The research, published in Planetary and Space Science, uses computer models to simulate the movement of debris from Stickney crater, a huge gash on one end of Phobos’ oblong body. The models show that boulders rolling across the surface in the aftermath of the Stickney impact could have created the puzzling patterns of grooves seen on Phobos today.

“These grooves are a distinctive feature of Phobos, and how they formed has been debated by planetary scientists for 40 years,” said Ken Ramsley, a planetary science researcher at Brown University who led the work. “We think this study is another step toward zeroing in on an explanation.” [More at links]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Weather update from Gale Crater

Posted on November 20, 2018 by rburnham

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

New terrestrial analog for martian megaripple dunes

Posted on November 20, 2018 by rburnham

Wau-an-NamusA new paper [published in Icarus] by M. Foroutan (U. Waterloo, Canada) and co-authors describes the first terrestrial dark sand dunes similar to a type of mysterious dune found on Mars.  These megaripples, found surrounding the remote volcanic caldera Wau-an-Namus, Libya, are similar in scale and morphology to Transverse Aeolian Ridges (TARs) observed on Mars.  Further study of these features at Wau-an-Namus may help scientists understand the formation and evolution of TARs on Mars. [More at links]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

HiRISE: Impact crater near Tempe Terra

Posted on November 20, 2018 by rburnham

tumblr_pib2lyAL8O1rlz4gso1_1280An impact crater near Tempe Terra. Despite this crater likely being extremely old and filled-in with material, we can still see its ejecta blanket.

Beautiful Mars series. [More at links]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

THEMIS: Graben and pits in Sirenum Fossae

Posted on November 20, 2018 by rburnham

Pits and graben in Sirenum Fossae (THEMIS_IOTD_20181120)THEMIS Image of the Day, November 20, 2018. This VIS image is located in Sirenum Fossae near Daedalia Planum.

The arc at the bottom of the image is the rim of a crater that was dissected when the tectonic event created the linear faults and down dropped blocks of highland material visible in this image.

The linear breaks near the top of the cliff sides indicates the surface is made of layered materials.

See more THEMIS Images of the Day by geological subject.

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Overflowing crater lakes carved Mars canyons

Posted on November 19, 2018 by rburnham

Goudge_Jezero_BasinToday, most of the water on Mars is locked away in frozen ice caps. But billions of years ago it flowed freely across the surface, forming rushing rivers that emptied into craters, forming lakes and seas.

New research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found evidence that sometimes the lakes would take on so much water that they overflowed and burst from the sides of their basins, creating catastrophic floods that carved canyons very rapidly, perhaps in a matter of weeks.

The findings suggest that catastrophic geologic processes may have had a major role in shaping the landscape of Mars and other worlds without plate tectonics, said lead author Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral researcher at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who will be starting as an assistant professor at the school in 2019.

“These breached lakes are fairly common and some of them are quite large, some as large as the Caspian Sea,” said Goudge. “So we think this style of catastrophic overflow flooding and rapid incision of outlet canyons was probably quite important on early Mars’ surface.”

The research was published Nov. 16 in the journal Geology. Co-authors include NASA scientist Caleb Fassett and Jackson School Professor and Associate Dean of Research David Mohrig. [More at links]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Mars 2020: Sample-caching rover will land in Jezero Crater

Posted on November 19, 2018 by rburnham

JezeroCraterNASA has chosen Jezero Crater as the landing site for its upcoming Mars 2020 rover mission after a five-year search, during which details of more than 60 candidate locations on the Red Planet were scrutinized and debated by the mission team and the planetary science community.

The rover mission is scheduled to launch in July 2020 as NASA’s next step in exploration of the Red Planet. It will not only seek signs of ancient habitable conditions – and past microbial life – but the rover also will collect rock and soil samples and store them in a cache on the planet’s surface. NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are studying future mission concepts to retrieve the samples and return them to Earth, so this landing site sets the stage for the next decade of Mars exploration.

“The landing site in Jezero Crater offers geologically rich terrain, with landforms reaching as far back as 3.6 billion years old, that could potentially answer important questions in planetary evolution and astrobiology,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.”Getting samples from this unique area will revolutionize how we think about Mars and its ability to harbor life.” [More at link]

Posted in Reports | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off