Your browser does not support HTML video. Il metano è un gas importante nell’atmosfera terrestre, rilasciato dai vulcani ed escreto da molti organismi viventi, compresi i microbi. Diverse missioni su Marte hanno trovato prove di metano nella sua atmosfera, incluso un recente pennacchio di metano di breve durata misurato dal rover Curiosity. In questo webinar del 18 settembre 2019, il dottor Paul Mahaffy, ricercatore principale del Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NGIMS) di MAVEN e dello strumento Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) di Curiosity, descrive gli studi recenti e in corso sul metano nell’atmosfera di Marte. Per maggiori informazioni sulla missione MAVEN, visita: http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/maven Tutti i webinar precedenti possono essere trovati qui: http://bit.ly/MAVENow Fonte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJB3YL25rM This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

At 14:31:58 UTC the Mastcam Left has taken this beautiful picture of the second drilling just performed by Curiosity in the area called “Glen Etive 1”.To my knowledge, this is the first time that Curiosity performs a second drilling on the same rock and this is of great interest because it could mean that the preliminary results of the analysis made on the material excavated from the first drilling have shown something “strange” such as to require a second excavation to confirm or refute the results of the first analysis.What could be so interesting about this rock?If I may hazard a guess, I would say that such a finely laminated sedimentary rock could have something in common with terrestrial stromatolites (see https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stromatoliti), generated by the activity of photosynthetic benthic microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria (blue algae).I wouldn’t be surprised if some indiscretions leak out over the next few days….To show colors more similar to what the human eye would see, I subjected the image to noise reduction due to Jpeg compression, white balance, and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation. Original image: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02527/mcam/2527ML0133270010805294E01_DXXX.jpg This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

At 12:49:27 UTC the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) took this new photo of the drilling performed by Curiosity in the area called “Glen Etive 1” more than a month ago (see https://www.facebook.com/PianetaMarte.MdM/photos/a.1625578140858706/2337403693009477/). The photo was taken from a distance of 26.16 cm with a definition of 0.1005 mm/pixel, thus covering an area of 11.98 cm X 16.09 cm.This is one of the first color photos sent to Earth by Curiosity after the Mars-Sun conjunction that, as I had already announced, has prevented communication with Mars for more than two weeks.I find very interesting the comparison with the photo of the same subject taken more than a month ago, where you can see that the excavated material surrounding the hole has remained almost intact, contrary to what has been found in other drillings where the excavated material visibly degraded just a few days after the drilling itself.On what can this singular behavior depend?From a different wind speed in the interested period?A different degree of humidity?On a different hygroscopicity of the excavated material?For the moment let’s ask the questions, sooner or later the answers will come.To show colors more similar to those that the human eye would see, I subjected the image to a reduction of noise due to Jpeg compression, white balance and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation.Finally, the photo was rotated 90° counterclockwise to facilitate comparison with the previously published image. Original image: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02523/mhli/2523MH0001970010903134C00_DXXX.jpg This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

by Tilman Spohn, Chief Scientist for the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) experiment aboard NASA’s InSight mission(see https://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/authors/Tilman-Spohn.aspx) After some warm “happy summer” wishes, Tilman Spohn summarizes the successful removal of HP3’s Support and Assembly Structure (SSA) early last July in order to expose the MOLE penetrator and facilitate the restoration of its journey to the subsurface.It was thus seen that MOLE was stuck with still 5 cm of the penetrator itself out of the ground, confirming the team’s suspicions about MOLE getting stuck soon after exiting the SSA guides.In particular, the width of the hole created by MOLE (about 6 cm wide, or twice the diameter of the probe itself) and the consequent absence of friction with the Martian sand, seem to confirm this theory. In fact, the images show us how MOLE has rotated 135° on itself in a clockwise direction, causing also a multiple rebound of SSA evidenced by the footprints left on the Martian soil by the feet of the structure itself during the operations of pounding of the soil. Also from the images, it was seen that the cavity created by MOLE was about 7-8 cm deep. It was understood that a layer about 5-10 cm thick of solid soil or cemented sand had been found.In July, it was believed that this layer of “solid crust” was easily crushed and it was decided to continue by pressing the surrounding soil to cause a collapse of the material around MOLE in order to increase its friction with the soil itself. Three attempts were made during the month of August, unfortunately without being able to cause a total collapse but only partial. From these attempts it was concluded that under a layer about 1 cm thick of sand there was a layer of “hard crust” resistant to a pressure of several hundred Chilopascals equivalent to several kilograms per square centimeter.The statement concludes by saying that, due to the Mars-Sun conjunction and the consequent absence of communication with Mars, the InSight team will go on vacation until September 10. In the meantime Tilman Spohn will think about other strategies to solve the problem, including the possibility of acting directly with the robotic arm on MOLE, even if the operation could put at risk the integrity of the penetrator itself.After September 10, Tilman Spohn will let us know the final decision that will be made by his team. Free translation of the post:“Logbook entry August 27, 2019” https://www.dlr.de/blogs/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-5893/9577_read-1090/ Personal Considerations:I find the design error of HP3 and MOLE truly absurd, based on the absurd assumption that the penetrator would only encounter soft sand or at most a few small, easily scalable pebbles.Elysium Planitia, the landing site of InSight, is known as a volcanic area where, in spite of its smooth and regular appearance, there may be layers of hard rock just below the sandy surface.As if that wasn’t enough, Elysium Planitia is rich in frozen water as we read from Wikipedia:“A photo of Elysium Planitia taken by the Mars Express spacecraft in 2005 shows that it may be covered with water ice. It has been estimated that the volume of ice may be 800 to 900 km across and 45 m deep, very similar in width and depth to the North Sea.The ice is thought to be the result of the remnants of some water flooding and lava flows in the Cerberus Fossae (Cerberus Pits), surface cracks dated to approximately 2 to 10 million years ago.”(see https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_Planitia). So MOLE may very well have encountered a massive ice layer as well!In any case, ice layer or rock layer, I have very strong doubts that MOLE can resume drilling the Martian soil and reach the five meters of depth expected, simply it has been poorly designed or it has chosen the wrong site only for the ease of landing.When will they realize this? This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

Chroococcidiopsis (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroococcidiopsis) are photosynthetic cyanobacteria that have been exposed for two and a half years to both open space conditions and conditions similar to those found on the Martian surface, surviving without too many problems in both situations.This experiment was performed on the International Space Station (ISS stands for International Space Station).The results of these experiments should make us think about the actual habitability of a planet like Mars, which is too often defined as an arid and inhospitable planet for life.Not only of the known bacterial strains could survive the current conditions of Mars, but in the past the red planet possessed the same conditions that led to the birth of life on Earth; this does not suggest anything to you? Full article in Astrobiology Magazine: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2018.1900 Full article in free downloadable PDF: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/ast.2018.1900 This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

On September 2 at 10:00 UTC (12:00 Italian time), Mars will be in “conjunction” with the Sun, i.e. at the minimum angular distance from it (1.08°).This circumstance will make impossible any communication with Mars for a period of about two weeks, probably from August 26 to September 9.In fact, since the Sun also emits a strong flux of radio waves, when the radio telescopes used for communication with the probes around Mars can no longer frame Mars itself without also framing the Sun, the radio signal emitted by the Sun will completely cover any other signal to and from Mars.So don’t be surprised if there will be little news or no new photos during that time. This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

At 15:44:02 UTC the Mastcam Right has captured this very particular rock, below which a small strip of darker material seems to come out, oriented to the right; also two small stones, much closer to the right edge, present the same phenomenon that perhaps is simply due to a small relief of sand.The rock in the center has a turquoise coloration, totally out of context compared to the surrounding stones; could it be a meteorite?Even the morphology is quite unique, extremely smooth and blunt but with edges that seem very sharp.Hopefully closer images will come along….The original image is a black and white encoding of the Bayer mask that has been converted to color through a process called “debayering” or “demosaicing”. In addition, the photo has undergone noise reduction due to Jpeg compression, white balance and a slight increase in microcontrast and color saturation in order to make the colors more similar to what the human eye would see. Original image: https://mars.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/msss/02494/mcam/2494MR0132490080305146C00_DXXX.jpg This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.

If you remember, about a month ago came out a research in which, to explain the presence and sudden disappearance of methane on Mars, it used the phenomenon of “salting” and wind erosion of rocks (see https://phys.org/news/2019-07-methane-mars-mechanism-explanation.html). Well, this new research disproves all that with lots of data in hand!Another failed attempt to dismantle the hypothesis of biological origin.As you can see, even in this case, the scientific community is far from unanimous and the question of methane remains unresolved! Popular article: https://phys.org/news/2019-08-methane-mars-experts.html Complete research in PDF downloadable for free: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44616-2.pdf This post has been automatically translated. See the original post here.