Space Week 2008 #2: Phoenix Reveals a New Side of Mars
(Originally sent 10/08/08)
Greetings, everyone.
I am writing this tonight after watching the second presidential debate. While the issues that were discussed are definitely important to our nations future, one critical policy area that has not yet been raised in the debates or covered extensively by the media, except as it relates to climate change, is science and technology. In the discussion about Russia nowhere did it come up that we will be depending on them to transport crews to and from the ISS for five years starting in 2010 while NASA works on the new Ares launch vehicle. Stem cell research: nothing. Nanotechnology: total silence. Genetic engineering: zippo. Fortunately for those of us interested in these issues, on Oct. 20-21 Science Debate 2008 and the Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs will be hosting the Innovation 2008 Conference. Featuring leading minds like Lawrence Krauss, Eugenie Scott, Chris Mooney, and keynote speaker Ira Flatow, this event will draw scientists, policy makers, business leaders, and academics to the U of MN campus to discuss what an Obama or McCain administration needs to do to ensure that good science gets brought back into the policy process and that we remain competitive in an age where scientific understanding is becoming increasingly important in everyday life. As a student at the HHH Institute, I will be volunteering at the conference in various capacities, and so will be right in the middle of the action, but registration is now also open to the general public. Check the links at the end for more information. I hope to see some of you there.
Now that my PSA has concluded, on to today's topic. Last year I wrote about two robotic missions that had recently launched. One of them, Dawn, is still in its cruise phase and will not start its primary mission for another three years. The other, Phoenix, is nearing the end of its useful lifetime. How do we know this? Last week the headlines read that it was snowing on Mars. Successfully landing in the north polar region of Mars on May 25th, the Phoenix lander has spent a little over four Earth months on the Martian surface conducting a variety of measurements and experiments that continue to deepen our understanding of the Red Planet. While the snow observation was groundbreaking and had a bit of a poetic quality to it, unfortunately it means that the Martian winter is on its way, and since Phoenix is stationary it will eventually be subsumed under the growing icecap.
Phoenix has been busy in its relatively short lifetime, so I will only be able to touch on a few of the major highlights, but first I have to acknowledge the PR savvy of the mission team (they set up a Twitter feed from the lander's point-of-view), which has done a better job than most at keeping the public interest level high and the media informed about the latest findings. Probably the most significant of those findings was confirming the presence of water on Mars, something that many earlier missions had hinted at but never definitively affirmed. Phoenix did this by using its robotic arm to scoop up a soil sample and put it in the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA), NASA's version of an Easy-Bake Oven. TEGA heated the sample, melting ice contained within the soil, and was able to detect the resulting water vapor. Other soil samples gave evidence of some of the chemical nutrients that would be necessary for life as we know it to survive such as magnesium, sodium, and potassium. Could Mars be the future breadbasket of the Solar System? Finally, Phoenix has found evidence of clay and calcium carbonate in the soil, compounds that on Earth form only in the presence of liquid water. This is the strongest indication yet that Mars once had flowing water on the surface in some areas, and is a promising finding for those hoping that Mars may one day support a permanent human presence.
While there are still a few things the lander might be able to do, the solar energy that powers all of the instruments has been diminishing of late, and by the end of the month it will drop precipitously. Before the end it will turn on a microphone to pick up any sounds that might be there for the listening, and once that experiment is done the mission will conclude.
Links of interest:
http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/stpp/events/innovation2008/index.html (Innovation 2008 Conference information and registration)
http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php (Science Debate 2008)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html (NASA Phoenix home page)
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php (Univ. of Arizona Phoenix home page)
Question to contemplate: If you could ask Sen. Obama and/or McCain a science related question, what would it be and what would be your preferred answer?
See you next time.
Norm
Greetings, everyone.
I am writing this tonight after watching the second presidential debate. While the issues that were discussed are definitely important to our nations future, one critical policy area that has not yet been raised in the debates or covered extensively by the media, except as it relates to climate change, is science and technology. In the discussion about Russia nowhere did it come up that we will be depending on them to transport crews to and from the ISS for five years starting in 2010 while NASA works on the new Ares launch vehicle. Stem cell research: nothing. Nanotechnology: total silence. Genetic engineering: zippo. Fortunately for those of us interested in these issues, on Oct. 20-21 Science Debate 2008 and the Center for Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs will be hosting the Innovation 2008 Conference. Featuring leading minds like Lawrence Krauss, Eugenie Scott, Chris Mooney, and keynote speaker Ira Flatow, this event will draw scientists, policy makers, business leaders, and academics to the U of MN campus to discuss what an Obama or McCain administration needs to do to ensure that good science gets brought back into the policy process and that we remain competitive in an age where scientific understanding is becoming increasingly important in everyday life. As a student at the HHH Institute, I will be volunteering at the conference in various capacities, and so will be right in the middle of the action, but registration is now also open to the general public. Check the links at the end for more information. I hope to see some of you there.
Now that my PSA has concluded, on to today's topic. Last year I wrote about two robotic missions that had recently launched. One of them, Dawn, is still in its cruise phase and will not start its primary mission for another three years. The other, Phoenix, is nearing the end of its useful lifetime. How do we know this? Last week the headlines read that it was snowing on Mars. Successfully landing in the north polar region of Mars on May 25th, the Phoenix lander has spent a little over four Earth months on the Martian surface conducting a variety of measurements and experiments that continue to deepen our understanding of the Red Planet. While the snow observation was groundbreaking and had a bit of a poetic quality to it, unfortunately it means that the Martian winter is on its way, and since Phoenix is stationary it will eventually be subsumed under the growing icecap.
Phoenix has been busy in its relatively short lifetime, so I will only be able to touch on a few of the major highlights, but first I have to acknowledge the PR savvy of the mission team (they set up a Twitter feed from the lander's point-of-view), which has done a better job than most at keeping the public interest level high and the media informed about the latest findings. Probably the most significant of those findings was confirming the presence of water on Mars, something that many earlier missions had hinted at but never definitively affirmed. Phoenix did this by using its robotic arm to scoop up a soil sample and put it in the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA), NASA's version of an Easy-Bake Oven. TEGA heated the sample, melting ice contained within the soil, and was able to detect the resulting water vapor. Other soil samples gave evidence of some of the chemical nutrients that would be necessary for life as we know it to survive such as magnesium, sodium, and potassium. Could Mars be the future breadbasket of the Solar System? Finally, Phoenix has found evidence of clay and calcium carbonate in the soil, compounds that on Earth form only in the presence of liquid water. This is the strongest indication yet that Mars once had flowing water on the surface in some areas, and is a promising finding for those hoping that Mars may one day support a permanent human presence.
While there are still a few things the lander might be able to do, the solar energy that powers all of the instruments has been diminishing of late, and by the end of the month it will drop precipitously. Before the end it will turn on a microphone to pick up any sounds that might be there for the listening, and once that experiment is done the mission will conclude.
Links of interest:
http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/stpp/events/innovation2008/index.html (Innovation 2008 Conference information and registration)
http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php (Science Debate 2008)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html (NASA Phoenix home page)
http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php (Univ. of Arizona Phoenix home page)
Question to contemplate: If you could ask Sen. Obama and/or McCain a science related question, what would it be and what would be your preferred answer?
See you next time.
Norm