Curiosity – Australian Science

Alien encounters and the man from Grenada

Charles Ebikeme — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:45:16 +0000

The month of August indeed belonged to the tiny rover that could — Curiosity. We were all hooked right from the landing and until those first images of the red planet were beamed back. Not even Will.i.am could spoil it for us. We revelled in everything in between, from the missed high-fives, peanuts, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s conversation with the rover, to — yes, unfortunately — Will.i.am’s new single being broadcast from the surface. Curiosity even spawned this generation’s cultural hallmark that is the fake twitter account. If there is any one milestone that denotes you’ve reached a certain level of cultural status… it’s the fake twitter account. From Mrs Rupert Murdoch to dead literary figures, the fake twiteratti are just as important as the real ones.

In an odd roundabout way, all of this got me thinking about a bizarre event that happened in 1977.

The United Nations debating such topics as aliens and extra-terrestrial encounters of any kind seems like something confined to the annals of science fiction. And yet, the most significant debate any international body has had on the prospect of alien encounter happened at the 32nd session of the United Nations General Assembly, for reasons unbeknown to me and probably many at the committee.

Member nations and delegations convened at the 32nd session of the General Assembly to listen to the man from Grenada, Sir Eric M. Gairy, the Prime Minister and Minister for External Affairs of Grenada (evidently taking his title to its farthest logic conclusion — what could be more external than space?).

He began with a reading from the Bible — Psalm 100, then launching into an engaging speech that touched on freedom and independence of nations, human rights, wars and conﬂicts. It quickly took on another flavour. The smallest nation in the UN (at the time) had centre stage and was determined to make the most of it. Mr. Gairy began to speak of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) with the same unabashed enthusiasm he was getting a reputation for.

He concluded by recommending that not only the UN take it seriously but they should set up a department to study UFOs. The UN already had a space outfit — the Of

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It’s a wheel! It’s a wheel – a wheel on Mars!

Kevin Orrman-Rossiter — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 08:05:01 +0000

NASA’s rover Curiosity was safely on Mars. It was a perfect landing. The novel sky-crane method had proved its detractors wrong and its designers right. What was needed then was signs that Curiosity was working as designed. NASA had said that the first pictures may be anything up to 2 hours after landing. A long time for the audiences, waiting, live, all over Earth.

It's a wheel on Mars. Photo credit NASA/JPL

“Got thumbnails.” Pause in the control centre, then someone else yells “Its a wheel, its a wheel!” “A wheel on Mars!” For the second time that momentous afternoon the NASA/Jet propulsion Lab crowd erupted into spontaneous and joyful applause. Not only had they landed the rover, Curiosity, safely on Mars, they had received the first images back from its cameras. Sometimes the unscripted, unexpurgated exclamations make for the best history.

The first two pictures were from the front and back navigation cameras. They were low resolution black and white thumbnails taken through the dust caps that protected the cameras during landing. As the minutes ticked by higher resolution images came through from the rover. The business as usual, familiar image enhancement bought into sharp clarity the ‘first’ two images from the robot explorer.

The 'first' image enhanced view from the rear hazard camera, Mars Curiosity Sol 0.

The first week on Mars

After the exuberance and press conference came the trademark NASA precision and methodical approach. An approach that gets missions safely to Mars, at the same time can make the audacious appear mundane.

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, are now checking out Curiosity’s subsystems and 10 instruments. Curiosity is in the opening days of a two-year mission to investigate whether conditions have been favorable for microbial life and preserving clues in the rocks about possible past life.

Mission team members are “living” on Mars time. A Martian day is approximately 40 minutes longer than an Earth day, meaning team members start their shift 40 minutes later each day.

View of Mount Sharp, Curiosity's roving destination. Image credit NASA/JPL

Amongst the important system events in this first week was a software upgrade. It took four days to successfully upgrade Curiosity’s software in its main and back-up computer. The software had been uploaded during its trek to Mars, but not activated until now. The software to date was focused on getting Curiosity through the Martian atmosphere and safely to its destination in Gale Crater. The software upgrade is to cover its surface exploration activity, roving and controlling the various scientific instruments.

Curiosity Ready to Roll

“There will be a lot of important firsts that will be taking place for Curiosity over the next few weeks, but the first motion of its wheels, the first time our roving laboratory on Mars does some actual roving, that will be something special,” said Michael Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Mission engineers are devoting more time to planning the first rove of Curiosity. In the coming days, the rover will exercise each of its four steerable (front and back) wheels, turning each of them side-to-side before ending up with each wheel pointing straight ahead. On a later day, the rover will drive forward about one rover-length 3 metres, turn 90 degrees, and then kick into reverse for about 2 metres. Exciting times for the rover driver team!

This image shows the landing site of NASA's Curiosity rover and destinations scientists want to investigate. Photo credit NASA/JPL

The scientists and engineers of NASA’s Curiosity rover mission have selected the first driving destination for Curiosity. The target area, named Glenelg, is a natural intersection of three kinds of terrain. The trek to Glenelg will send the rover 400 metres east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of terrain intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is attractive as the first drilling target.

The choice described by Curiosity Principal Investigator John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology as, “With such a great landing spot in Gale Crater, we literally had every degree of the compass to choose from for our first drive.” “We had a bunch of strong contenders. It is the kind of dilemma planetary scientists dream of, but you can only go one place for the first drilling for a rock sample on Mars. That first drilling will be a huge moment in the history of Mars exploration.”

Grotzinger estimated the rover’s journey would take between three weeks and two months to arrive at Glenelg, where it will stay for roughly a month before heading to the base of Mount Sharp.

It may be a full year before the remote-controlled rover gets to the base of the peak, which is within 20 kilometres of the rover’s landing site.

Zapping rocks and doing science

Before Curiosity heads off to Glenelg another first will occur. The team in charge of Curiosity’s Chemistry and Camera instrument, is planning to give their mast-mounted, rock-zapping laser and telescope combination a thorough checkout. ChemCam has “zapped” its first rock in the name of planetary science. It was the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.

The Chemistry Camera calibration target, as seen by the camera. Photo credit NASA/JPL.

The technique is called ‘laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy’. The high-powered, narrow-focused, laser beam vaporises the rock from a distance generating a plasma plume with temperatures in excess of 100,000°C. At the high temperatures during the early plasma, the vaporised material breaks down into excited ionic and atomic species. As it cools to 5,000–20,000°C the characteristic atomic emission lines of the elements can be recorded by the camera. This data is compared to the ‘standards’ that the rover carries to identify the rock components.

The soon to be famous rock N165, target for testing the Chemistry Camera laser and analysis. Photo credit NASA/JPL.

As Roger Wiens, principal investigator of the ChemCam instrument from the Los Alamos National Laboratory explained earlier, “Rock N165 looks like your typical Mars rock, about three inches wide. It’s about 10 feet away.” “We are going to hit it with 14 millijoules of energy 30 times in 10 seconds. It is not only going to be an excellent test of our system, it should be pretty cool too.”

Pretty cool indeed.

First weather report in 30 years

It is currently just above freezing point in gale Crater where Curiosity is.

Grotzinger noted the team’s report on the Martian crater’s temperature was “really an important benchmark for Mars science”.

“It’s been exactly 30 years since the last long duration monitoring weather station was present on Mars,” when Viking 1 stopped communicating with Earth in 1982,” he said. Then Viking 1 lander recorded temperatures that varied from −17.2 °C to −107 °C.

Sensors on two finger-like mini-booms extending horizontally from the mast of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity will monitor wind speed, wind direction and air temperature. One also will monitor humidity; the other also will monitor ground temperature. The sensors are part of the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station, provided by Spain for the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

The weather station devices on Curiosity being tested prior to launch. Photo credit NASA/JPL.

In this image, the spacecraft specialist’s hands are just below one of the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station mini-booms. The other mini-boom extends to the left a little farther up the mast.

As Curiosity’s primary mission is for a full Martian year it will be able to record the seasonal variations that occur for Mars.

On the ground radiation monitoring and weather conditions will be crucial for any future exploration or habitation by humans. This mission by Curiosity represents an important step towards these aspirations.

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First Color Image of the Martian Landscape from Curiosity

Editorial Board — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:03:47 +0000

This view of the landscape to the north of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) on the afternoon of the first day after landing. (The team calls this day Sol 1, which is the first Martian day of operations; Sol 1 began on Aug. 6, 2012.)

In the distance, the image shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater. The image is murky because the MAHLI’s removable dust cover is apparently coated with dust blown onto the camera during the rover’s terminal descent. Images taken without the dust cover in place are expected during checkout of the robotic arm in coming weeks.

First Color Image of the Martian Landscape Returned from Curiosity

The MAHLI is located on the turret at the end of Curiosity’s robotic arm. At the time the MAHLI Sol 1 image was acquired, the robotic arm was in its stowed position. It has been stowed since the rover was packaged for its Nov. 26, 2011, launch.

The MAHLI has a transparent dust cover. This image was acquired with the dust cover closed. The cover will not be opened until more than a week after the landing.

When the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is in a position that is rotated 30 degrees relative to the rover deck. The MAHLI image shown here has been rotated to correct for that tilt, so that the sky is “up” and the ground is “down”.

When the robotic arm, turret, and MAHLI are stowed, the MAHLI is looking out from the front left side of the rover. This is much like the view from the driver’s side of cars sold in the USA.

The main purpose of Curiosity’s MAHLI camera is to acquire close-up, high-resolution views of rocks and soil at the rover’s Gale Crater field site. The camera is capable of focusing on any target at distances of about 0.8 inch (2.1 centimeters) to infinity. This means it can, as shown here, also obtain pictures of the Martian landscape.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

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Where to land Mars Curiosity for the best science? Interview with Marion Anderson, who helped choose the landing site.

Alan Kerlin — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 00:31:54 +0000

Australian geologist Marion Anderson, with a model of Curiosity's predecessor rover Opportunity. Source: The Age

You’ve sunk more than $2 billion into a car-sized rover and you’re ready to send it to explore Mars. But where exactly on Mars do you send it?

Of course you want it and its controllers back here to be able to do the best possible science. So apparently that is exactly what NASA did – consulted the geology scientists of the world.

One of those scientists was Marion Anderson of Melbourne’s Monash University.

In this interview recorded on 2 August 2012, Marion explains to me what went into the selection of Gale Crater as the landing site for the Mars Curiosity rover, what to expect from the rover as it begins to explore the crater after its landing there on Monday 6 August, and why Curiosity is NOT looking for life, despite what many media people are saying (running time 20 mins).

Marion also talks about her role in selecting the landing sites for those other Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and where next after Mars?

If you are interested in learning more about the geology of Mars, I highly recommend the one-hour lecture by Richard Pogge titled The Deserts of Mars from an entire – free – university course in Astrobiology from Ohio State University (also available on iTunes).

In the interview you’ll hear Marion talk about how Mount Sharp in the centre of Gale Crater is actually higher than the surrounding crater walls – some five kilometres high. In this lecture, listen for an explanation why Olympus Mons is the highest volcanic cone in our Solar System, and probably explaining the height of Mount Sharp too.

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Is there life on Mars? Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity go roving

Kevin Orrman-Rossiter — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 00:01:06 +0000

The NASA rover Curiosity is expected to be landing on Mars at 3:31 am August 6, 2012 (AEST). It’s mission, lasting one Martian-year (98 Earth weeks), is of scientific significance and perhaps even of human significance. Curiosity will be fulfilling the prospecting stage of a step-by-step program of exploration, reconnaissance, prospecting and mining evidence for a definitive answer to the question “Has life existed on Mars?

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