tagged w/ Mars
-
This astonishing video takes environmental innovation to its outer limits: you’ll need to be pretty imaginative to find a way to invest in the ideas it explores
The eye-opening Stanford University talk by NASA titan Chris McKay, is called ‘Biologically Reversible Exploration’This astonishing video takes environmental innovation to its outer limits:... more
-
-
Russia has announced that it intends to build a base on the moon within 20 years, which it plans to use as a staging post for a manned mission to Mars.Russia has announced that it intends to build a base on the moon within 20 years,... more
-
-
-
I made this video so i could pass on a little bit of my magic! If your a rock star from mars then you have the magic to be the best! I have consumed more magic then the human and thats why i'm rock god! A bottle of tiger blood is what fuels this magic you are seeing! Also just to let you know Mrs. Charlie Shame ain't got nothing on this!
Be sure to like me on facebook @
http://www.facebook.com/likejoeycorbin
Also follow me on twitter @
http://www.twitter.com/joeycorbin
Don't forget to subscribe to my personal channel @
http://www.youtube.com/joeycorbinI made this video so i could pass on a little bit of my magic! If your a rock star... more
-
-
-
-
The NASA equivalent of duct tape could leak enough methane to confuse the next Mars rover’s life-detecting sensors.
Astrobiologists found evidence for three distinct plumes of methane flowing from beneath the planet’s surface, like swamp gas or a burp, in January 2009. The gas could simply mean that Mars is more geologically active than previously thought. But because much of Earth’s methane is a byproduct of life, the plumes could point to something living, eating or breathing methane beneath the Martian surface.
To settle the question of the methane’s origin, the next Mars rover, called Mars Science Laboratory or Curiosity, will launch in late 2011 equipped with a suite of instruments capable of sniffing out one molecule of methane in a billion other molecules.
But some of the materials in the rover itself could also release methane and confuse the sensors. In a paper in press in the journal Icarus, microbiologist and veteran Mars simulator Andrew Schuerger of the University of Florida and colleagues show that the tape used to hold the rover’s joints together could release enough methane to be a problem.
“I think it’s a valid concern,”said planetary scientist Adam Johnson of Indiana University, who has investigated which Earth microbes could hitchhike to Mars but was not involved in the new work. “We’re sending a very very sensitive instrument, and we are able to produce concentrations of methane that are orders of magnitude above the detection limits for that instrument.”
Schuerger and colleagues placed 18 materials in the Mars Simulation Chamber, a stainless steel cylinder whose interior mimics the atmosphere, dustiness, sunlight, temperature and pressure at the Martian surface.
“Andrew’s simulation setup in his chamber is state of the art, the best simulation chamber in the world,” Johnson said. “As far as simulation of the Mars conditions, you can’t ask for much better.”
The researchers tested a variety of biological materials, including amino acids, DNA and spores of a common soil-dwelling bacterium. They also checked several materials used to build the rover itself, including vacuum grease, a small sundial like the one rovers Spirit and Opportunity use to calibrate colored images, and kapton tape, the space industry equivalent of duct tape.
“I kind of think of it as electrical tape on Mars,” Johnson said. “It’s used for everything on there.”
After eight hours in the chamber, all the organic materials tested emitted some amount of methane, though not enough to worry about in most cases. The methane comes from the interaction of sunlight with materials that contain a methyl group, one carbon atom attached to three hydrogen atoms. Ultraviolet radiation from the sun (or, in the simulation chamber, a special lamp) could rip methyl groups from the materials. The charged methyl groups could then steal an extra hydrogen atom from a neighboring molecule to form stable molecules of methane, which has one carbon and four hydrogens.
Surprisingly, the bacterial spores they tested leaked noticeable amounts of methane, even after they had been irradiated to death. But the standards for cleaning the rover before launch are so stringent that there probably won’t be enough spores left on the rover by launch time to pose much of a problem.
The most trouble could come from kapton tape, which is ubiquitous and unavoidable on the rover. Schuerger’s team found that in the first few Martian days of the mission, the sensors in Curiosity’s Tunable Laser Spectrometer could pick up a few tens of methane molecules per million other molecules, about 100 times above the instrument’s detection limits.
This is especially worrisome given that Curiosity uses about 3 square meters of kapton tape, more than any previous rover.
“It’s a big monster rover,” said NASA planetary scientist Paul Mahaffy, who is in charge of MSL’s Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. “They use the appropriate level of tape to secure that stuff down. There’s just more of it than there might have been on [Spirit and Opportunity].”
The rover team already has a few low-tech solutions in mind to find the true Martian methane, Mahaffy said. First, they’ll take measurements at night, when ultraviolet radiation will be at a low.
“My best guess is, once you rotate into the dark, methane production stops pretty fast,” Mahaffy said. “By sampling at night we’d get a much cleaner sniff of the Martian atmosphere.”
The rover will also rotate the sensors into the wind to get the strongest whiff of the Martian atmosphere. Schuerger and colleagues suggest coming up with more detailed models of how much methane kapton tape will produce, and where on the rover it’s likely to show up. They also note that kapton tape gives off less and less methane as time goes on, so methane detections in the later parts of the mission should be more reliable.
“By no means does is nullify the measurement we’re trying to do on [Mars Science Laboratory],” Mahaffy said.
Still, the study is “very useful,” Mahaffy said. “It will help us do a better job of sorting out what’s really there on Mars, and what we might bring along from Earth. The last thing we want to do is have a false positive.”
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/msl-duct-tape/The NASA equivalent of duct tape could leak enough methane to confuse the next Mars... more
-
-
Since settling into orbit around the Red Planet on March 10, 2006, MRO has transmitted more data to Earth -- 131 trillion bits and more than 70,000 images so far -- than all other interplanetary missions combined.
link :http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/happy-birthday-mro/Since settling into orbit around the Red Planet on March 10, 2006, MRO has transmitted... more
-
-
-
Two members of a simulated space flight to Mars have taken their first "steps" on the red planet.The Moscow version of Mars looks more like a drab sandpit than a glowing red planet but it was still a momentous occasion when the two men took their first steps on its surface. The six-man mission began in June last year at a research centre in Moscow and it's a joint venture between a Russian science institute and the European Space Agency, ESA. It is the longest ever space simulation experiment.Researchers will look at how well they cope in their spacesuits, each of which weighs 32 kilos, after the long period of reduced physical activity and isolation.Three of the men are Russians, two are Europeans and one is Chinese.
Two members of a simulated space flight to Mars have taken their first... more
-
-
The Mars500 mission spacecraft with five astronauts has finally entered the orbit of Mars after a grueling interplanetary flight. It will soon land on the red planet on Feb. 12.The Mars500 mission spacecraft with five astronauts has finally entered the orbit of... more
-
-
Alstom
-
added this
-
1 year ago
- |
-
-
NASA and its spooky Sith-lord counterpart, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, are teaming up to achieve the impossible: interplanetary colonialism. DARPA, known for its role in developing such technologies as the internet and GPS, has also funded cyborg beetles implanted with electrodes that control their flight by radio, battery powered human exoskeletons, and ravenous robots called EATRs which find and consume biomass (read humans) for fuel.
The stated purpose of DARPA is to maintain military supremacy through technological superiority. During the dark nights after Sputnik first blinked overhead, Americans gathered in their bomb shelters and grumbled that we should do something before the other guys do it to us. In our innocence, we had no idea what that something might be, so we put together a crack team of scientific geniuses to discover it.NASA and its spooky Sith-lord counterpart, the Defense Advanced Research Projects... more
-
-
-
-
-
-
eva2
-
added this
-
1 year ago
- |
-
NASA is holding a press conference on Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding." Are they going to announce that they've found evidence of extraterrestrial life?
Blogger Jason Kottke took a look at NASA's press release, which touts "an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life" (astrobiology, besides being a cool word, is "the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe"), and decided to investigate further by looking at the participants' resumes. So who are the participants?
* A geobiologist who's written about "geology and life on Mars";
* an oceanographer who's done extensive work on arsenic-based photosynthesis;
* a biologist examining Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and its similarities to early Earth;
* and an ecologist investigating the "chemistry of environments where life evolves."
Now, yes, obviously, throw in a grizzled marine and you've got the making of an awesome movie about discovering aliens. But that's not (the only reason) why Kottke thinks the announcement will be about life on another world. Here's what he says:
So, if I had to guess at what NASA is going to reveal on Thursday, I'd say that they've discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis (by following the elements). Or something like that. (thx, sippey)
Of course, the announcement could be something totally different! Or, it could be that NASA has been contacted by a warlike race of space aliens and a certain-to-fail mission carried out by a ragtag bunch of scientists is our only hope of survival.
http://gawker.com/5702124/did-nasa-discover-life-on-one-of-saturns-moonsNASA is holding a press conference on Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology... more
-
-
ThunderboltsProject | November 11, 2010 | 58 likes, 2 dislikes
David Talbott continues his presentation on Martian mysteries, from the forthcoming DVD, "The Cosmic Thunderbolt," (Episode 2 in the series SYMBOLS OF AN ALIEN SKY).
For a playlist of selections from Episode One see:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...
Additional glimpses from Episode 2:
"The Cosmic Thunderbolt," Part 1
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
"The Cosmic Thunderbolts," Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-46CJ...
"Planet of a Thousand Mysteries"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wOogk...
"When Meteorites Fell from Mars"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEWPVk...
Since this video is part of a much larger presentation of evidence, and all of the evidence is interlinked, it is best to start at the beginning.ThunderboltsProject | November 11, 2010 | 58 likes, 2 dislikes
David Talbott... more
-
-
ThunderboltsProject | September 10, 2010
David Talbott presents additional glimpses from the forthcoming DVD, "The Cosmic Thunderbolt" (Episode 2 in the series Symbols of an Alien Sky).
For a playlist of selections from Episode One see:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list...
In viewing the present selections keep in mind that the Martian enigmas are PREDICTABLE--if the events described in Episode One did indeed occur.
This video includes just the first 15 minutes of a 40 minute segment on Mars.ThunderboltsProject | September 10, 2010
David Talbott presents additional glimpses... more
-
-
