Cosmic Log
Two big-name dramatic productions — “First Man” in theaters, and “The First” on Hulu — are putting the glorious past and potentially glorious future of space exploration on big and small screens.
But if you’re expecting the Ryan Gosling movie about Neil Armstrong, or the Sean Penn streaming-video series about the first mission to Mars, to tell a geeky off-world tale like “The Martian” … expect to be surprised.
NASA’s Opportunity rover still hasn’t made contact after a weeks-long Martian dust storm forced it to go into hibernation, but at least the skies are now clear enough to spot the solar-powered robot from orbit.
And mission managers say they’re a long way from giving up on Opportunity, which began its work on the surface of Mars almost 15 years ago.
Oppy shows up as a blip on the slopes of Perseverance Valley in a color image captured Sept. 20 by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, from a height of 166 miles.
The orbiter’s clear view raises hopes that winds will sweep dust off Opportunity’s solar panels, as has happened several times before, and allow the rover to build up enough power to resume transmissions.
It’s no hoax: Mars is bigger and brighter in the night sky than it’s been at any time since 2003. And you can watch the longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century.
There are caveats, of course: The only way folks in North America can see Friday’s eclipse is to watch it online. And Mars won’t look anywhere near as big as the moon, despite what’s been claimed in a hoax that dates back to, um, 2003.
Nevertheless, this weekend’s astronomical double-header is not to be missed.
Radar readings from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter point to the location of what appears to be a 12-mile-wide lake of liquid water, buried under about a mile of ice and dust in the Red Planet’s south polar region.
The find is consistent with what scientists have been saying for years about the prospects for subsurface water on Mars, and is likely to give a boost to the search for Red Planet life.
“There are all the ingredients for thinking that life can be there,” Enrico Flamini, project manager for the MARSIS radar instrument on Mars Express, said today during a Rome news conference to discuss the results. “However, MARSIS cannot say anything more.”
The analysis of the MARSIS readings were published today by the journal Science.
NASA has had to put its power-starved Opportunity rover into an induced coma on Mars, but that drastic maneuver — plus some luck — should be enough to save it from one of the worst dust storms ever observed on the Red Planet.
That doesn’t mean everything’s cool at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., which has overseen the rover’s work on Mars for nearly 15 years.
“We have a very tight emotional connection with it,” John Callas, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover mission, told GeekWire today during a teleconference.
“It’s like you have a loved one in a coma in the hospital,” he explained. “The doctors are telling you that, ‘OK, you’ve just got to give it time and she’ll wake up. All the vital signs are good, so it’s just waiting it out.’ But if it’s your 97-year-old grandmother, you’re going to be very concerned. And so we are.”
NASA’s Opportunity rover on Mars has lost touch with its handlers back on Earth, probably due to a low-power condition brought on by a chokingly thick dust storm. The storm is covering an area of 14 million square miles, or a quarter of the Red Planet, NASA said today in a mission update.
The latest evidence for methane and other organic chemicals on Mars isn’t the smoking gun for life on Mars that some folks may have been hoping for, but it gives astrobiologists much more to go on.
Readings gathered by NASA’s Curiosity rover show a seasonal cycle in the rise and fall of methane in Mars’ atmosphere, as well as conclusive evidence of organic molecules in drilled-out Martian rocks. The findings are laid out in this week’s issue of the journal Science.
The reports are consistent with past observations, including previous detections of organic molecules as well as measurements of atmospheric methane going back more than a decade. The readings could be explained by past or present biological activity, but non-biological explanations could serve as well.
The big difference this time around is that the signals of organic molecules are orders of magnitude stronger than those previous hints, thanks to more precise, targeted measurements.
A newly released survey from Pew Research Center suggests that Americans still strongly support the space program, 60 years after NASA’s founding, but that they’re more interested in Earth science than exploration beyond Earth orbit.
That’s a turnabout from the broad strokes of White House policy, which has tried to downplay Earth observation and talk up the idea of sending Americans to the moon and Mars.
Despite that dissonance, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine welcomed the findings from Pew Research Center’s survey. When reporters told him that 63 percent said monitoring key parts of Earth’s climate system should be a top priority for NASA, Bridenstine reportedly answered, “Good.”
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is among 10 teams that will share about $10 million in NASA funding to look into techniques for using resources from the moon and Mars.
The studies are aimed at advancing technologies for in-situ resource utilization, or ISRU.
Such technologies could, for example, make use of ice in lunar soil to produce drinkable water, breathable oxygen and rocket propellants for refueling spacecraft. To cite another example, carbon dioxide from the Martian atmosphere could contribute to the production of methane fuel.
Relying on ISRU resource processing would reduce the amount of fuel and supplies that’d have to be launched from Earth for missions heading to the moon, Mars or other space destinations.
LOS ANGELES — Planetary scientist Pascal Lee could give astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson a good run for his money when it comes to truth-squadding movie depictions of space missions.
For almost two decades, Lee has been working on the tools and techniques that will be needed for future Mars expeditions, as the leader of the Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic. The project, funded by NASA, the SETI Institute and other institutions, provides an earthy analog to the Red Planet’s bleak, cold, dry, isolated environment.
Astronauts could conceivably set up shop on Mars sometime in the next decade or two, and there could be a crewed base on the moon even before that. So Lee says it’s high time for Hollywood to provide a more accurate picture of how such missions would work.