Mars Curiosity Thread.

[Recusant]

A NASA briefing on the Perseverance mission. The slick video intro isn't useful; skip forward to about 1:30 to start the actual briefing.

[Tank]

Interesting piece on the BBC about this today.

[Tank]

It's off the ground and heading to orbit!

[Randy]

And I missed it. I forgot about it for some reason. Today is also chemo day so maybe that was on my mind. I can't wait for the landing in February.

[Recusant]

Curiosity has worn wheels. Not that surprising after eight years of what definitely qualifies as extreme off-road use. This story is about special zip-ties though.

"This Photo of Curiosity Is Real! Here's Why NASA Uses Zip Ties on Mars Rovers" | ScienceAlert

Image Credit: NASA

Have you heard the one about NASA spending millions to develop a pen that would write in space, while the Soviet Union used pencils?

Well, that story is a big fat myth, but the refrain 'simple is best' isn't wrong. For example, to secure any loose cables, pipes, or even equipment on Mars rovers, NASA does indeed use zip ties - quite similar to the ones you can buy at the hardware store.

This fact recently bemused our Instagram fans, with many deciding that the photo of Curiosity's worn-down wheels we recently published was fake - due to some zip ties clearly visible in the shot.

This isn't the first time the internet has been enthralled with NASA's use of zip ties, either. Back when Perseverance landed on the red planet in February, there was a similar wave of surprise sloshing across social media.

[. . .]

If you're wondering how plastic can survive a 560-million-kilometer (350-million-mile) journey, a 1,300 C (2,370 F) fall to the surface, and - in Curiosity's case - almost nine years of ultraviolet radiation (UV) and harsh Martian conditions, you've come to the right place.

NASA can assure all amateur cable tie enthusiasts that space engineers thought of this before sending their expensive equipment to another planet.

The zip ties intended for extraterrestrial use are made of Tefzel ETFE (ethylene-tetrafluoroethylene) resins designed for extreme temperatures, high UV levels, and 2,000 times more radiation than what you'd find in the standard plastic nylon version.

[Continues . . .]

[Tank]

[Dark Lightning]

We didn't use those fauncy NASA style Zip-ties, but regular ones are used extensively to hold the electrical wiring in place on spacecraft. As is lacing tape, which is just nylon braid that looks like a thin shoelace. It's all about keeping the weight to a minimum while restraining the parts. They could have made special brackets, but those would be 10s of thousands of dollars in design and production, on top of the weight.

[Randy]

We didn't use those fauncy NASA style Zip-ties, but regular ones are used extensively to hold the electrical wiring in place on spacecraft. As is lacing tape, which is just nylon braid that looks like a thin shoelace. It's all about keeping the weight to a minimum while restraining the parts. They could have made special brackets, but those would be 10s of thousands of dollars in design and production, on top of the weight.

Billy Rubin knows all about zip-lock ties.

[Magdalena]

We didn't use those fauncy NASA style Zip-ties, but regular ones are used extensively to hold the electrical wiring in place on spacecraft. As is lacing tape, which is just nylon braid that looks like a thin shoelace. It's all about keeping the weight to a minimum while restraining the parts. They could have made special brackets, but those would be 10s of thousands of dollars in design and production, on top of the weight.

Billy Rubin knows all about zip-lock ties.

His lovely wife knows a lot more about zip-lock ties than he does. 

[Recusant]

Still truckin' 

An unusual formation imaged last month by Curiosity.

[Icarus]

That thing looks like an Orca.  What the hell are killer whales doing out there in near space?

[Tank]

Ten years on and still going strong.

10 Years Since Landing, NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Still Has Drive

"Despite signs of wear, the intrepid spacecraft is about to start an exciting new chapter of its mission as it climbs a Martian mountain.

Ten years ago today, a jetpack lowered NASA's Curiosity rover onto the Red Planet, beginning the SUV-size explorer's pursuit of evidence that, billions of years ago, Mars had the conditions needed to support microscopic life.

Since then, Curiosity has driven nearly 18 miles (29 kilometers) and ascended 2,050 feet (625 meters) as it explores Gale Crater and the foothills of Mount Sharp within it. The rover has analyzed 41 rock and soil samples, relying on a suite of science instruments to learn what they reveal about Earth's rocky sibling. And it's pushed a team of engineers to devise ways to minimize wear and tear and keep the rover rolling: In fact, Curiosity's mission was recently extended for another three years, allowing it to continue among NASA's fleet of important astrobiological missions."

[Recusant]

A postcard from Curiosity:


Image Credit: NASA/JPL


"NASA's Curiosity Captures Martian Morning, Afternoon in New 'Postcard'" | JPL/NASA

After completing a major software update in April, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover took a last look at "Marker Band Valley" before leaving it behind, capturing a "postcard" of the scene.

The postcard is an artistic interpretation of the landscape, with color added over two black-and-white panoramas captured by Curiosity's navigation cameras. The views were taken on April 8 at 9:20 a.m. and 3:40 p.m. local Mars time, providing dramatically different lighting that, when combined, makes details in the scene stand out. Blue was added to parts of the postcard captured in the morning and yellow to parts taken in the afternoon, just as with a similar postcard taken by Curiosity in November 2021.

The resulting image is striking. Curiosity is in the foothills of Mount Sharp, which stands 3 miles (5 kilometers) high within Gale Crater, where the rover has been exploring since landing in 2012. In the distance beyond its tracks is Marker Band Valley, a winding area in the "sulfate-bearing region" within which the rover discovered unexpected signs of an ancient lake. Farther below (at center and just to the right) are two hills – "Bolívar" and "Deepdale" – that Curiosity drove between while exploring "Paraitepuy Pass."

[Continues . . .]

[Recusant]

From the Perseverance rover, an observation of aurora on Mars. Wouldn't really be visible to human eyes, but still intriguing. I wouldn't have thought Mars had any aurora given its thin atmosphere and absence of a magnetic field.

"The Martian Night Sky Was Seen Turning Green in a Stunning First" | Science Alert

An aurora gently glowing in wavelengths visible to the human eye has been captured on Mars for the first time – and a robot was the only one to see it live.

On 18 March 2024, as the night sky over Jezero Crater turned a faint, luminous green, the Perseverance rover sat ready with its eyes peeled. What it recorded opens new ways to study Mars. Although Mars is known to have auroras of various kinds, all the others we've seen have been in invisible hues of ultraviolet.

"Auroras are the visible manifestations of how our Sun affects planets. The confirmation that visible auroras on Mars exist opens up new, hopefully simpler and cheaper, ways that we can study these processes," physicist Elise Wright Knutsen of the University of Oslo explained to ScienceAlert.

"So far we have only reported our very first detection of this green emission, but observations of auroras can tell us a lot about how the Sun's particles are interacting with Mars's magnetosphere and upper atmosphere."

Every planet in the Solar System has its own type of aurora, but the auroras on Mars are something really interesting. Auroras are the result of energetic interactions between extraplanetary and planetary particles (usually atmospheric, but not always), mediated by a magnetic field.

Particles (usually from the Sun, but not always) are guided by the field towards the planet (usually the poles, but not always) where they collide with other materials, knocking about electrons and creating a glow in wavelengths that depend on the conditions.

The atmosphere of Mars is very thin, roughly 2 percent of the density of Earth's. Moreover, the red planet has, at best, a patchy and feeble magnetic field that hangs around only certain localized areas, where magnetized minerals in the crust preserve remnants of the magnetic field Mars once had. It's nothing like the glorious magnetospheric bubble protecting Earth.

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access:

"Detection of visible-wavelength aurora on Mars" | Science Advances

Abstract:

Mars hosts various auroral processes despite the planet's tenuous atmosphere and lack of a global magnetic field. To date, all aurora observations have been at ultraviolet wavelengths from orbit.

We describe the discovery of green visible-wavelength aurora, originating from the atomic oxygen line at 557.7 nanometers, detected with the SuperCam and Mastcam-Z instruments on the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. Near–real-time simulations of a Mars-directed coronal mass ejection (CME) provided sufficient lead-time to schedule an observation with the rover.

The emission was observed 3 days after the CME eruption, suggesting that the aurora was induced by particles accelerated by the moving shock front. To our knowledge, detection of aurora from a planetary surface other than Earth has never been reported, nor has visible aurora been observed at Mars. This detection demonstrates that auroral forecasting at Mars is possible, and that during events with higher particle precipitation, or under less dusty atmospheric conditions, aurorae will be visible to future astronauts.

[Recusant]

Curiosity is still working and still discovering interesting things on Mars. 

"NASA Curiosity rover finds mysterious life linked molecules on Mars" | ScienceDaily

NASA's Curiosity rover has identified a wide range of organic molecules on Mars, including compounds that scientists consider key ingredients for the origin of life on Earth.

The discovery comes from a chemical experiment carried out on another planet for the first time. Results show that the Martian surface is capable of preserving molecules that could act as potential signs of ancient life. However, the experiment cannot determine whether these organic compounds came from past life on Mars, natural geological processes, or meteorites that struck the planet.

To confirm any true evidence of past life, scientists would need to bring Martian rock samples back to Earth for detailed study.

The research was led by Amy Williams, Ph.D., a geological sciences professor at the University of Florida and a member of both the Curiosity and Perseverance rover science teams. Curiosity arrived on Mars in 2012 to investigate whether the planet once had conditions suitable for microbial life. Perseverance, which landed in 2021, is focused on searching for direct signs of ancient life.

"We think we're looking at organic matter that's been preserved on Mars for 3.5 billion years," said Williams, who helped develop the experiment. "It's really useful to have evidence that ancient organic matter is preserved, because that is a way to assess the habitability of an environment. And if we want to search for evidence of life in the form of preserved organic carbon, this demonstrates it's possible."

Williams and an international team published the findings April 21 in the journal Nature Communications.

The experiment identified more than 20 different chemicals. Among them was a nitrogen-containing molecule with a structure similar to compounds involved in building DNA, something never before detected on Mars. The rover also found benzothiophene, a large sulfur-containing molecule with two connected rings, which is commonly delivered to planets by meteorites.

"The same stuff that rained down on Mars from meteorites is what rained down on Earth, and it probably provided the building blocks for life as we know it on our planet," Williams said.

[Continues . . .]

The paper is open access:

"Diverse organic molecules on Mars revealed by the first SAM TMAH experiment" | Nature Communications

Abstract:

The search for organic matter on Mars has rapidly evolved in the past decade with simple aromatic, S-heterocycles, and aliphatic organic molecules detected in Gale crater. We report the in situ detection of >20 organic molecules from clay-bearing sandstones in the ~3.5-billion-year-old Knockfarrill Hill member of Glen Torridon, Gale crater, by the Sample Analysis at Mars instrument suite onboard the Curiosity rover.

These molecules were liberated by the onboard tetramethylammonium hydroxide wet chemistry experiment. Diverse thermochemolysis products, including benzothiophene, methyl benzoate, and single and dicyclic aromatic molecules were released and detected by evolved gas analysis and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Results indicate the experiment successfully released molecules preserved in ancient macromolecular or free organic matter within Martian bedrock despite ~3.5 billion years of diagenesis and radiation exposure.