Citizen Scientists Seek South Pole 'Spiders' on Mars

Ten thousand volunteers viewing images of Martian south polar regions have helped identify targets for closer inspection, yielding new insights about seasonal slabs of frozen carbon dioxide and erosional features known as "spiders." From the comfort of home, the volunteers have been exploring the surface of Mars by reviewing images from the Context Camera (CTX) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and identifying certain types of seasonal terrains near Mars' south pole. These efforts by volunteers using the "Planet Four: Terrains" website have aided scientists who plan observations with the same orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. HiRISE photographs much less ground but in much greater detail than CTX.

Volunteers have helped identify more than 20 regions in mid-resolution images to investigate with higher resolution. "It's heartwarming to see so many citizens of planet Earth donate their time to help study Mars," said HiRISE Deputy Principal Investigator Candice Hansen, of the Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona. "Thanks to the discovery power of so many people, we're using HiRISE to take images of places we might not have studied without this assistance."

Planetary scientist Meg Schwamb, of the Gemini Observatory, Hilo, Hawaii, presented results from the first year of this citizen science project Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences and the European Planetary Science Congress, in Pasadena, California. The type of terrain called spiders, or "araneiform" (from the Latin word for spiders), is characterized by multiple channels converging at a point, resembling a spider's long legs. Previous studies concluded that this ground texture results from extensive sheets of ice thawing bottom-side first as the ice is warmed by the ground below it. Thawed carbon dioxide gas builds up pressure, and the gas escapes through vents in the overlying sheet of remaining ice, pulling dust with it. This process carves the channels that resemble legs of a spider.

The Solar Fried Planets Atmosphere

An international team of astronomers has fixed a star in the work of devouring one of its planets. BD+48 740, a red giant they pragmatic using the 9.2-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at the McDonald Observatory in Texas, appears to have the gas of a scorched planet in its atmosphere.  This is reliable with a rocky world, recently destroyed.

The great researchers who concentrate in stellar evolution have lengthy known that the inner planets are in danger.  The trouble starts in the isolated future when the sun's core runs out of hydrogen fuel for nuclear fusion. To keep the fires flaming, the sun will begin to fuse hydrogen external the core, in a layer closer to the stellar surface. This will turn the sun into a red oversize, at least 200 times wider than it is today. Mercury, Venus, Earth and possibly even Mars might be engulfed. 

The fate of Earth is not a confidence, however. Some researchers believe that Earth's orbit might spiral outward, keeping the planet at a safe space from the future inferno.  This could happen if solar winds carry a path a major fraction of the sun's mass in the years most important up to the red giant phase. On the other hand, the sun might get bigger so fast that our planet has no chance to escape.  Earth would get trapped in the sun's rapidly advancing atmosphere and spiral innermost to oblivion.

The Voyager spacecraft-100 Year Star-ship

The Voyager spacecraft, exposed in this artist's description barreling away from the sun, would take tens of thousands of years to attain the nearest star to Earth. Scientists and researchers with 100 Year Star-ship are probing faster space travel and other elements needed to send a human crew past the Solar System.

Although NASA has ended its space take program and the latest mission beyond our planet occupied a robotic Mars rover, rather than astronauts, a group of scientists and dreamers is working out how to send humans to the remote stars.

The plan, called 100 Year Star-ship, has original funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It's snooping what would be required to take a ship and crew away from our solar system within the next century.

NASA Developed Orion spaceship- Test Flight 2014

Orion space capsule life form developed to fly astronauts to asteroids, the moon and finally to Mars arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a 2014 test air travel. The spacecraft, built by Lockheed-Martin, is embattled for launch aboard an unmanned Delta 4 Heavy rocket as of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, contiguous to the NASA spaceport.

A second test air travel in 2017 using NASA's planned huge-lift Space Launch System rocket is planned to put an unmanned Orion capsule around the light moon. The third test air travel, targeted for 2021, is probable to include astronauts.

 By 2025, NASA intends to send astronauts to explore a near Earth asteroid and then top on to Mars in the 2030s.Humans have not fly beyond a few hundred miles over Earth since 1972 when the Apollo missions to the moon finished. With the departure of the space shuttle last summer, NASA is dependent on Russia to fly crews to the space station, a $100 billion project of 15 countries that orbits about 240 miles over the planet.

Solar System Montage -Jet Propulsion Laboratory In Pasadena

This Solar System montage of planetary imagery taken by spacecraft managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Included are (from head to foot) images of Mercury, Venus, Earth (and Moon), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft accountable for these metaphors are as follows the Mercury picture was taken by Mariner 10, the Venus illustration by Magellan, the Earth image by Galileo, the Mars image by Viking, and the Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune picture by Voyager.

The inner planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, and Mars are roughly to scale to each other the external planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) are roughly to scale to each other. Actual diameters are listed below: Sun 1,390,000 km Mercury 4,879 km Venus 12,104 km Earth 12,756 km Moon 3,475 km Mars 6,794 km Jupiter 142.984 km Saturn 120,536 km Uranus 51,118 km Neptune 49,528 km Pluto 2,390 km

NASA Selects Investigations For Future Key Planetary Mission

NASA has selected three science investigations from which it will pick one potential 2016 mission to look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial sea on one of Saturn's moons; or study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus. Each investigation team will receive $3 million to conduct its mission's concept phase or preliminary design studies and analyses. After another detailed review in 2012 of the concept studies, NASA will select one to continue development efforts leading up to launch. The selected mission will be cost-capped at $425 million, not including launch vehicle funding.

NASA's Discovery Program requested proposals for spaceflight investigations in June 2010. A panel of NASA and other scientists and engineers reviewed 28 submissions. The selected investigations could reveal much about the formation of our solar system and its dynamic processes. Three technology developments for possible future planetary missions also were selected. "NASA continues to do extraordinary science that is re-writing textbooks," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Missions like these hold great promise to vastly increase our knowledge, extend our reach into the solar system and inspire future generations of explorers."

The planetary missions selected to pursue preliminary design studies are:

-- Geophysical Monitoring Station (GEMS) would study the structure and composition of the interior of Mars and advance understanding of the formation and evolution of terrestrial planets. Bruce Banerdt of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., is principal investigator. JPL would manage the project.

--Titan Mare Explorer (TiME) would provide the first direct exploration of an ocean environment beyond Earth by landing in, and floating on, a large methane-ethane sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research Inc. in Gaithersburg, Md., is principal investigator. Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., would manage the project.

Advanced NASA Instrument Gets Close-up on Mars Rocks

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity, will carry a next generation, onboard "chemical element reader" to measure the chemical ingredients in Martian rocks and soil. The instrument is one of 10 that will help the rover in its upcoming mission to determine the past and present habitability of a specific area on the Red Planet. Launch is scheduled between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011, with landing in August 2012. The Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument, designed by physics professor Ralf Gellert of the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, uses the power of alpha particles, or helium nuclei, and X-rays to bombard a target, causing the target to give off its own characteristic alpha particles and X-ray radiation. This radiation is "read by" an X-ray detector inside the sensor head, which reveals which elements and how much of each are in the rock or soil.

Identifying the elemental composition of lighter elements such as sodium, magnesium or aluminum, as well as heavier elements like iron, nickel or zinc, will help scientists identify the building blocks of the Martian crust. By comparing these findings with those of previous Mars rover findings, scientists can determine if any weathering has taken place since the rock formed ages ago. All NASA Mars rovers have carried a similar instrument Pathfinder's rover Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity, and now Curiosity, too. Improvements have been made with each generation, but the basic design of the instrument has remained the same.

"APXS was modified for Mars Science Laboratory to be faster so it could make quicker measurements. On the Mars Exploration Rovers it took us five to 10 hours to get information that we will now collect in two to three hours," said Gellert, the intrument's principal investigator. “We hope this will help us to investigate more samples.” Another significant change to the next-generation APXS is the cooling system on the X-ray detector chip. The instruments used on Spirit and Opportunity were able to take measurements only at night. But the new cooling system will allow the instrument on Curiosity to take measurements during the day, too.

Currently, NASA's rover to blast Mars rocks with laser

NASA's next rover will blast Martian rocks with a rock-zapping laser tool. The Chemistry and Camera tool on the rover Curiosity can excite a pinhead-size mark into a glowing, ionized gas. It then watch the flash through a telescope and analyze the range of light to recognize the chemical elements in the target. The data about rocks or patches will help the team review the rover's surroundings and choose which target to drill into, or scoop up. With this data, they can decide if any environment in the land area have been favorable for microbial life and for preserving proof about whether life existed.

In late 2011, NASA will open Curiosity and the other part of the flight system, deliver the rover to the outside of Mars in August 2012, information the Science Daily. Roger Wiens, a geochemist with the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, future the instrument during NASA's 2004 open competition for contribution in the Mars Science Laboratory project. The idea strike when he visit a chemistry laboratory building where a colleague, Dave Cremers, who had been trial with a dissimilar laser technique. "The room was sound used. Every flat surface was enclosed with instruments, lenses or visual mounts. The filing cabinet look like they had a bad case of acne. I found out afterward that they were used for laser aim practice," said Wiens.

From that point, after 10 years of international growth and testing, the project resulted in ChemCam being installed on Curiosity in September 2010. "The trick is very small bursts of the laser. You actually dump a lot of energy onto a small spot-megawatts per square millimeter-but just for a little nanoseconds," Wiens said. The flash comes back to ChemCam through the instrument telescope, mount beside the laser tall on the rover's camera mast. The telescope direct the light down an optical fiber to three spectrometers within the rover. The spectrometers evidence intensity at 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, noticeable and infrared light.

NASA Spacecraft Provides Travel Tips For Mars Rover

NASA's Mars Opportunity rover is getting important tips from an orbiting spacecraft as it explores areas that might hold clues about past Martian environments. Researchers are using a mineral-mapping instrument aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to help the rover investigate a large ancient crater called Endeavour. MRO's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) is providing maps of minerals at Endeavour's rim that are helping the team choose which area to explore first and where to go from there. As MRO orbits more than 150 miles high, the CRISM instrument provides mapping information for mineral exposures on the surface as small as a tennis court.

"This is the first time mineral detections from orbit are being used in tactical decisions about where to drive on Mars," said Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis. Arvidson is the deputy principal investigator for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers and a co-investigator for CRISM. Opportunity's science team chose to begin driving the rover toward the 14-mile-wide crater in 2008, after four years studying other sites in what initially was planned as a three-month mission. The rover has traveled approximately nine miles since setting out for Endeavour crater. It will take several months to reach it.

The team plans for Opportunity's exploration of Endeavour to begin at a rim fragment called Cape York. That feature is too low to be visible by the rover, but appears from orbit to be nearly surrounded by water-bearing minerals. The planned route then turns southward toward a higher rim fragment called Cape Tribulation, where CRISM has detected a class of clay minerals not investigated yet by a ground mission. Spacecraft orbiting Mars found these minerals to be widespread on the planet. The presence of clay minerals at Endeavour suggests an earlier and milder wet environment than the very acidic wet one indicated by previous evidence found by Opportunity.