Astronomy

Here are the best scenic spots and ideal locations across Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East to see the total solar eclipse on Aug. 2, 2027.

Pulsars that emit radio waves “glitch” as they rotate – this seems to be caused by interruptions to swirling vortices inside these ultra-dense stars

Pulsars that emit radio waves “glitch” as they rotate – this seems to be caused by interruptions to swirling vortices inside these ultra-dense stars

ESA’s experimental OPS-SAT CubeSat mission came to an end during the night of 22—23 May 2024 (CEST).

An AI that watches you while you eat can estimate how much you’re consuming, and could help people track their calorie intake

An AI that watches you while you eat can estimate how much you’re consuming, and could help people track their calorie intake

China says its Chang’e-6 spacecraft has gathered up soil and rocks from the far side of the moon and has lifted off from the surface, beginning a journey to bring the samples back to Earth. The probe’s payload represents the first lunar samples ever collected from the far side.

In a status update, the China National Space Administration said the Chang’e-6 ascent module successfully reached lunar orbit, where it’s due to transfer the samples to a re-entry capsule hooked up to the probe’s orbiter.

If all goes according to plan, the orbiter will leave the moon’s orbit, head back to Earth and drop off the re-entry capsule for retrieval in China’s Inner Mongolia region sometime around June 25.

This mosaic of color images was taken by the panoramic camera on China’s Chang’e-6 lander, looking toward the north. One of the lander’s legs is seen in the foreground of the fisheye view, and the upper part of the image shows Chaffee Crater, north of the landing site. (Credit: CLEP / CNSA)

Chang’e-6 was launched on its mission on May 3 and landed in the South Pole-Aitken Basin region on June 2 (Beijing time). Using its drill and its robotic arm, the lander collected as much as 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of rocks and soil from the landing site. Meanwhile, a mini-rover rolled out onto the surface and took pictures looking back at the lander.

CNSA said scientific readings were also collected, using a lunar mineral spectrometer, a negative ion analyzer, a radon detector and a lunar structure detector. An Italian-built retro-reflector, installed on the top of the lander, served as a position control point that can be used for distance measurement. Data and telemetry were transmitted back to Earth via China’s Queqiao-2 relay satellite.

“After the collection was completed, the five-star red flag carried by the Chang’e-6 lander was successfully unfolded on the far side of the moon,” CNSA said. “This is the first time that China has independently and dynamically displayed the national flag on the far side of the moon, The flag is made of new composite materials and special technology.”

Here's a taste of the sampling action from the past couple of days, since the Chang'e-6 landing late on June 1 UTC. pic.twitter.com/jw2DlPToVf

— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) June 4, 2024

The space agency said the Chang’e-6 ascent module lifted off at 7:38 a.m. June 4 Beijing time (11:38 p.m. GMT June 3) and fired its engine for about six minutes to reach lunar orbit. After the ascent module’s rendezvous with the orbiter and the transfer of the samples, the orbiter and the re-entry capsule will continue to circle the moon, “waiting for the right time to return for the lunar-to-Earth transfer,” CNSA said. The flight plan follows the model that was set in 2020 when Chang’e-5 brought back samples from the moon’s Earth-facing side.

The findings from Chang’e-6 could provide new insights about the moon’s south polar region. That area is of particular interest because it’s thought to contain water ice reserves that could support lunar settlement. NASA is targeting the south polar region for its upcoming VIPER rover mission — and for a crewed lunar landing that’s currently scheduled for 2026. China’s space program has its own ambitions for increased lunar exploration — including another robotic mission planned for 2026, known as Chang’e-7, and a crewed landing that it’s aiming to accomplish by 2030.

The lunar surface has been a popular destination for robotic probes over the past year or so. The successful missions include India’s Chandrayaan-3, Japan’s SLIM and Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus. Russia’s Luna 25, iSpace’s Hakuto-R and Astrobotic’s Peregrine were among the not-so-successful missions.

The post Chinese Probe Collects Moon Samples and Heads for Earth appeared first on Universe Today.

The Artemis Program represents NASA’s effort to return to the Moon. One of the goals of the project is to set up long-term exploration of the Earth’s only natural satellite. This will need much bulkier equipment than what the Apollo astronauts carried though, and this equipment needs to be transported to the Moon’s surface. Blue Origin and SpaceX, contracted by NASA to provide human landing systems, have begun developing vehicles that can safely deliver this equipment from space to the Moon’s surface.

The Artemis program is far more ambitious than Apollo. The goal is not simply to land more humans on the moon, but to conduct scientific research, build a space station in lunar orbit, and lay a foundation for future expeditions to Mars. Artemis III, the first phase in which humans will land on the Moon, is currently expected to launch at a date no earlier than September 2026. NASA have contracted Blue Origin and SpaceX to build lander craft for Artemis III, and all future Artemis missions. The lander will dock with the lunar Gateway, bring the astronauts safely to the surface of the Moon, and then bring them back into orbit, where they will return to the Gateway station. But future Artemis missions will have much more demanding requirements, and involve much longer stays on the Moon. This will require a lot of heavy equipment that needs to be delivered from the Earth to the Moon.

“It’s essential that NASA has the capability to land not just astronauts, but large pieces of equipment, such as pressurized rovers, on the Moon for maximum return on science and exploration activities,” says Lisa Watson-Morgan, Human Landing System Program Manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Beginning this work now allows SpaceX and Blue Origin to leverage their respective human lander designs to provide cargo variants that NASA will need in the future.”

Since the vehicles that can fill this requirement do not exist yet, NASA has contracted SpaceX and Blue Origin to begin designing heavy cargo versions of their human lander craft. They must be able to cope with loads with a mass of 12 to 15 tonnes, in order to fulfill mission requirements, and must be ready to fly in time for Artemis VII. NASA does not expect a completely new design, however. They expect that the cargo landers will be modified versions of the human lander. The cargo version will need to include deployment mechanisms to unload the cargo, as well as payload interfaces. They will be uncrewed, though, which means that they will not need to include heavy and complicated life support systems.

The work is currently at an early stage. Both companies are working on preliminary designs, which will be submitted for review. Feedback from this process will inform further design work, and establish a baseline from which the final detailed designs can be created.

Artemis will allow NASA to explore the moon more completely than was ever possible with Apollo. Astronauts will spend far more time on the Moon’s surface, and learn how to live and work on another world. They will conduct research on previously unexplored regions of the Moon, and lay the critical groundwork to establishing a permanent base — a vital step on the road to building a settlement on Mars. It is a highly ambitious program, combining the efforts of space agencies around the world, private companies, and the academic sector. It requires massive investment and innovation, combining the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, the Orion spacecraft, the human and cargo landing systems, next generation space suits, pressurized rovers, and the Gateway lunar orbital space station. If successful, Artemis will mark the beginning of humanity’s settlement of deep space.

The Artemis program is supported by Space Policy Directive 1, which changed US space policy to work on a program to return humans to the Moon. It is meant to be a US-led international mission, involving the private sector, and calls on NASA to “lead an innovative and sustainable program of exploration with commercial and international partners to enable human expansion across the Solar System and to bring back to Earth new knowledge and opportunities” The goal is to build a foundation for the eventual human exploration of Mars.

Artemis 1, which launched in November 2022, was a test flight of the SLS, which ended with the Orion spacecraft splashing down into the Pacific Ocean. Artemis 2, currently scheduled for September 2025, will fly a crewed Orion spacecraft in a Lunar flyby. Artemis 3 will land astronauts on the Moon, and is planned to launch in September 2026. Artemis 4 is hoped to launch in September 2028. It will deliver the first components of the Lunar Gateway station, and also land a crew of astronauts on the Moon. Artemis 5 and 6, scheduled for 2030 and 2031, will both dock an Orion spacecraft with the Lunar Gateway, add additional segments to the station, and land astronauts on the Moon.

Reference: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/esdmd/artemis-campaign-development-division/human-landing-system-program/work-underway-on-large-cargo-landers-for-nasas-artemis-moon-missions/

The post NASA Wants Heavy Cargo Landers for the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.

Rock art along the Orinoco river in South America is made up of some of the largest etchings we know of and could date back 2000 years

Rock art along the Orinoco river in South America is made up of some of the largest etchings we know of and could date back 2000 years

Enormous engraved rock art of anacondas, rodents and other animals along the Orinoco River in Colombia and Venezuela may have been used to mark territory 2,000 years ago

Here’s a familiar question: how’s the weather? We’re familiar with the weather on Earth and telescopes and missions are watching the weather on other planets in the Solar System. But for the first time in history, astronomers can now answer that question for exoplanets, located light-years away from us.

One of the Hubble Telescope's three gyroscopes started glitching recently. On June 4, NASA is likely to share an update about the device's status.

One underappreciated aspect of the current flood of exoplanet discoveries is the technical marvels that enable it. Scientists and engineers must capture and detect minute signals from stars and planets light years away. With the technologies of even a few decades ago, that would have been impossible – now it seems commonplace. However, there are still some technical hurdles to overcome before finding the “holy grail” of exoplanet hunting – an Earth analog. To help that discussion, a team of researchers led by Bertrand Mennesson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released a paper detailing the current experimental and theoretical work around one of the most critical technical aspects of researching exoplanet atmospheres – starshades.

In particular, the paper discusses the technical hurdles of one of the most interesting upcoming space technology concepts. The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) was called for as part of NASA’s recent decadal survey. While it is still early in its development cycle, the general outlines of how the HWO will work are evident, even if some technical details aren’t. And those general outlines point to the need for a starshade or coronagraph – or both.

The paper details the difference between a starshade and a coronagraph. By its definition, a starshade is a filter placed between the primary telescope mirror and the object it is observing. In contrast, a coronagraph is a filter placed between the primary mirror and the telescope’s sensor. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages regarding the data they allow the telescope to collect, but they can also be combined.

Starshades aren’t only useful for space telescopes, as Fraser discusses with Dr. Markus Janson in this video.

Several labs worldwide have been working on developing starshade and coronagraph technology. However, several nuances to the test set-ups affect their work’s applicability to the HWO project. Some tests are performed in a vacuum, while others are performed in air. Some tests are performed on monolith mirrored telescopes, while others are performed on segmented mirrors. Currently, the baseline operational mode of HWO is a space-based telescope, which, given current launch size constraints, also means it has to be segmented. So, only some tests performed to validate coronagraph and starshade technologies apply to the HWO use case.

For the relevant tests, there are three particular “key performance parameters” (KPPs), as the paper calls them, which can impact the technology’s viability. These are the image’s “raw” contrast, the “post-calibration” contrast, and the “off-axis throughput.” Each of these has thoroughly technical definitions described in the paper. But the first two can be thought of as how easy it is to see an exoplanet before (“raw”) and after (“post-calibration”) an image is run through a data processing algorithm. Off-axis throughput is the percentage of light from the planet through the starlight suppression system.

Each of these three KPPs represents a trade-off with the other two. Optimizing a starlight suppression system, such as a coronagraph or starshade, requires understanding and validating those design trade-offs. The paper mentions that the details of the HWO are still in flux, so it is impossible to determine what trade-offs must be made to have a fully functional system. Factors such as the number of exoearths the HWO is expected to observe, their orbital parameters, and how long the observatory will be allowed to capture data on any particular planetary system will all feed into the simulated trade-offs considered in the paper.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is another candidate for exoplanet hunting with an advanced starlight suppression system, as Fraser discusses in this video.

Most importantly, the paper’s authors stated they intended to inform the technical committees of the HWO project about these trade-offs and to help guide the selection of mission parameters that might fit in with the current (or near-term) state of technical development of one of the most critical technologies for the optimal operation of the system. HWO is still in the early planning stages and has no expected launch date. Work has started around defining the teams that will make the technical determinations to inform the selection of a starlight suppression system for the HWO. Dr. Mennesson, the paper’s lead author, also happens to be one of the co-chairs of one of the committees.

But for now, there is plenty of time to flesh out the HWO design and continue developing and testing different starlight suppression technologies. If the remarkable pace of exoplanet discovery is any indication, with a little more time and attention, the telescope development community will develop an optimally designed system to help find one of the most sought-after discoveries in modern science.

Learn More:
Mennesson et al. – Current laboratory performance of starlight suppression systems, and potential pathways to desired Habitable Worlds Observatory exoplanet science capabilities
UT – Astronomers Identify 164 Promising Targets for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
UT – The Habitable Worlds Observatory Could See Lunar and Solar ‘Exo-Eclipses’
UT – Planning is Underway for NASA’s Next Big Flagship Space Telescope

Lead Image:
Image of exoplanets

The post Suppressing Starlight: How to Find Other Earths appeared first on Universe Today.

Back in December, NASA officials, space industry experts, members of the academic community, and science communicators descended on Washington, D.C., for the Achieving Mars Workshop X (AM X). This workshop is hosted by Explore Mars Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing leading experts from disparate fields together to contribute to creating the first crewed missions to Mars. On May 17th, the results of this year’s workshop were summarized in a report titled “The Tenth Community Workshop for Achievability and Sustainability of Human Exploration of Mars.”

Erik Antonsen, Bruce Jakosky, and Lisa May co-chaired the workshop, which took place from December 5th to 7th at George Washington University. Antonsen is the CTO of Advancing Frontiers, a consulting company providing spaceflight integration services, and an Associate Professor of Space Medicine and Emergency Medicine with the Center for Space Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). Jakosky is a Professor Emeritus of Geological Sciences and the Associate Director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at UC Boulder. May is the Chief Technologist for Lockheed Martin’s Commercial and Civil Space Advanced Programs.

As always, the workshop featured presentations and discussions that addressed the challenges, benefits, and ongoing efforts to realize the human exploration of Mars. But this year was special in several ways, not just because it was the tenth anniversary of the AM series. In addition, AM X took place during an auspicious time for NASA, space agencies, international organizations, and commercial space companies supporting human spaceflight. Between the impending return to the Moon through the Artemis programs and uncertainties about the first crewed missions to Mars, there was a lot to discuss!

For instance, last year’s workshop (AM IX) addressed the pressing question of whether NASA would be able to mount a crewed mission to Mars by 2033. This has been a key aspect of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars (M2M) mission architecture, detailed in the agency’s annual Architecture Concept Reviews (ACRs). It is also in keeping with Explore Mars’ goal of advancing the “human exploration of Mars and beyond no later than the 2030s.” Alas, in recent years, there has been growing skepticism that several key technologies will be ready to meet this deadline.

As Universe Today reported at the time, these doubts were raised at AM IX, and there was no consensus regarding potential solutions. This included the possibility of a flyby mission by 2033 and whether or not a nuclear-thermal propulsion (NTP) system, which can potentially reduce transit times to Mars (45 to 100 days), would be ready in time. In addition, there were the comments of Deputy Administrator Jim Reuters, who acknowledged that sending astronauts to Mars by 2040 was “an audacious goal for us to meet… It may sound like a lot, but it is [a] very short time to develop technologies we need to develop.”

As with previous AM workshops, cooperation and effective communication were emphasized. This includes coordinating robotic and human spaceflight missions and broader cooperation between space agencies, government, and industry. A key concern that was identified was the process through which NASA’s mission architecture evolves. While participants agreed that the M2M ADD “provides a strong starting point for an iterative architecture process,” they also concluded that the development process was insufficient. As stated in the AM X Report:

“Participants observed that despite recent progress, existing channels were insufficient to adequately integrate human capabilities and limitations as well as science objectives into the architecture development process. Similarly, sustainable human exploration of the Moon and Mars will not occur unless science and human exploration objectives are infused early and continuously into the systems engineering processes.”

Artwork for the AM X Workshop Report. Credit: Explore Mars Inc.

To address these concerns, the workshop participants came up with four recommendations for improving existing channels and the architecture development process. They include:

Public Outreach & Involvement

First, the AM X Workshop Report recommended that public interactive forums be more frequent to develop inputs to NASA’s Architecture Definition Documents. The communities emphasized for engagement include operations, human research, science, international organizations, and others “that empower cross-disciplinary teaming, welcome broad participation from external experts, and provide a pathway to incorporate community recommendations and findings into Mars mission planning.”

The need to coordinate with diverse science communities to prioritize and narrow science objectives was also noted, as was the possible need for certification paths for external groups “to provide input in
smaller settings and more frequently than once a year at the ACR.”

The Report also emphasizes the need for initiatives and workshops that focus on the development and integration of “intelligent systems” and “data analytics” that will be critical for missions operating farther from Earth for extended periods. According to NASA’s mission architecture, this applies to Phase III of the Moon to Mars plan (aka. “Earth Independent”), where operations will shift from cislunar to deep space. This will include transits to and from Mars using the Deep Space Transport (DST) and science operations on the Martian surface.

Risk Mitigation

Second, the Report acknowledges the historical trend where certain priorities (like discovery science, technology, and infrastructure development) are often sacrificed for short-term needs. To this end, it is recommended that NASA acknowledge and address tensions between scientific investment for “risk mitigation purposes and investment for discovery science in planning for M2M missions.” While there is no reference to the sacrifices made to realize the Artemis Program and a return to the Moon by 2024, there are some hints that this could be the case.

An illustration of the Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element and Habitation and Logistics Outpost in orbit around the Moon. Credits: NASA

The shifting priorities brought about by the expedited timetable have led to the deprioritizing of mission elements crucial to reaching Mars by the 2030s – like the Lunar Gateway. As acting Deputy Administrator Doug Loverro explained in March of 2020 during a NASA Advisory Council science committee, the Gateway was deprioritized to “de-risk” Artemis so NASA could focus on meeting the mandatory goals of Artemis and its 2024 deadline. Meanwhile, no design or feasibility studies have been performed for the DST or a Mars orbital habitat (a la the Mars Base Camp) since 2018/19, coinciding with the Artemis “shake-up.”

Regardless, the Report cites the need for increased funding to ensure “technology maturation, demonstration, and infusion to incorporate capabilities.” This is understandable, given that budget concerns have been an issue since NASA began planning missions to the Moon and Mars. In addition to speeding the development of technology, an increase in funding is also desirable to incorporate rapidly advancing technologies such as “artificial intelligence, data management, in-space manufacturing,” and others that are still relatively early in the development process.

Another important factor emphasized here is Health and Human Performance (HPP), which clearly refers to strategies for mitigating the health risks associated with deep space transits. These include extended periods spent in microgravity and long-term exposure to elevated levels of solar and cosmic radiation. To date, NASA has explored multiple possibilities for addressing these concerns, but no concrete plans have emerged just yet.

Evolving Architectures

Further to Recommendation I, the Report states that NASA and commercial companies invested in Mars exploration should continue designing “evolvable mission and campaign architectures.” The purpose of this is to allow for new technologies to be incorporated along the way and prevent the current state of technology from limiting plans. As per the Report, this will help ensure that “we do not design architecture and hardware applicable only for the first mission without allowing both to evolve for subsequent missions.” To this end, NASA and commercial industries are encouraged to:

• Develop common standards, requirements, and interfaces to allow the incorporation of multiple technologies, capabilities, and/or solutions as technology progresses over the next two decades.
• Create and implement a Human and System Readiness Level verification process to assess if the human, hardware, software, and planning systems are sufficiently mature as an integrated system.
• Ensure that the architecture is sufficiently flexible that it can address a wide range of missions beyond the first one.

Artist’s representation of NASA’s “Moon to Mars” mission architecture. Credit: NASA Commercial Partnerships

Finally, the Report encourages NASA to continue investing and cooperating with commercial partners to realize lunar capabilities and technologies that will help them reach Mars. This goes to the heart of the M2M mission architecture, which prioritized a return to the Moon during the 2020s to develop the necessary technologies, systems, and expertise to create a pathway to Mars by the 2030s. “The Moon is how we learn to get to Mars,” it reads, “and we want companies thinking not just about getting to the Moon but, at the same time, how getting there prepares us for the more challenging missions to Mars.”

As usual, the prospect of sending crewed missions to Mars raised many concerns at this year’s workshop. This should come as no surprise, as the goal itself is incredibly ambitious and presents many major challenges. If there is a takeaway from this year’s workshop, it is that there is plenty of work to be done before a mission can be realized. This work must take place at the architectural level, emphasizing wider public engagement, advancing technologies, and a commitment to long-term goals.

Further Reading: Explore Mars

The post Highlights from the 10th Achieving Mars Workshop appeared first on Universe Today.

SpaceX plans to launch its huge Starship rocket on Thursday (June 6), provided it clears the required regulatory hurdles.

The Martian surface shows ample evidence of its warm, watery past. Deltas, ancient lakebeds, and dry river channels are plentiful. When the Curiosity rover found organic matter in ancient sediments in the Jezero Crater paleolake, it was tempting to conclude that life created the matter.

However, new research suggests that non-living processes are responsible.

There are three carbon isotopes on Earth: carbon-12 (12C), carbon-13 (13C), and carbon-14 (14C). Earth’s carbon is almost entirely carbon-12. It makes up 99% of the carbon on Earth, with carbon-13 making up the other 1%. (14C is extremely rare and unstable, so it decays into nitrogen-14.)

In 2022, MSL Curiosity took an inventory of organic carbon in sediments at Gale Crater. Organic carbon is usually described as carbon atoms bonded covalently to hydrogen atoms and is the basis for organic molecules. The carbon in organic carbon can be either carbon-12 or carbon-13, and the amounts are important. At Gale Crater, Curiosity found about 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon. “This is comparable to or even more than the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites,” said Jennifer Stern, a Space Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center when the results came in.

This is the Stimson sandstone formation in Gale Crater on Mars. This is where the Curiosity Rover drilled the Edinburgh hole and found enriched Carbon 12. Image Credit: NASA/Caltech-JPL/MSSS

This carbon is important evidence in understanding Mars’ history. It can tell scientists about the planet’s atmospheric processes and environmental conditions and even shed light on potential life. In fact, understanding Martian carbon can aid our understanding of habitability and prebiotic chemistry on distant exoplanets. The isotope ratio in this carbon is different than on Earth. It has a lower amount of carbon-13 relative to carbon-12 compared to Earth. Why the discrepancy?

In recent research in Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers tried to understand the difference between Earth’s and Mars’s carbon isotope ratios. The work is titled “Synthesis of 13C-depleted organic matter from CO in a reducing early Martian atmosphere.” The lead author is Yuichiro Ueno, a biogeochemist in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

“Strong 13C depletion in sedimentary organic matter at Gale crater was recently detected by the Curiosity rover,” the authors write. “Although this enigmatic depletion remains debated, if correct, a mechanism to cause such strong 13C depletion is required.” 

The amount of carbon-13 in the Martian sediments is far lower than in Earth’s sediments.

“On measuring the stable isotope ratio between 13C and 12C, the Martian organic matter has a 13C abundance of 0.92% to 0.99% of the carbon that makes it up,” lead author Ueno explained in a press release. “This is extremely low compared to Earth’s sedimentary organic matter, which is about 1.04%, and atmospheric CO2, around 1.07%, both of which are biological remnants and are not similar to the organic matter in meteorites, which is about 1.05%.”

The meteorite data is important because a four billion-year-old Martian meteorite named ALH 84001 is enriched in carbon-13, adding to the enigma of Mars’ carbon. Somehow, carbon-13 became depleted in the intervening billions of years. Solar escape is one possible reason for the carbon-13 depletion, but the authors discount that. There likely wasn’t enough time for enough carbon-13 to escape. “Furthermore, based on geomagnetic observations, early Mars probably had a geomagnetic field before 4?Ga,” the authors write. That field would’ve prevented solar escape.

To determine what’s behind this discrepancy, Ueno and his co-researchers simulated different Martian atmospheric conditions to see what would happen.

Their results show that isotope fractionation by solar UV light is responsible for Mars’ 13C depletion.

This graphic outlines the process that creates atmospheric organic matter that finds its way into the Martian sediments sampled by MSL Curiosity. Image Credit: Ueno et al. 2024.

Carbon-12 and carbon-13 respond differently to UV light. Carbon-12 preferentially absorbs UV, which dissociates it into carbon monoxide that’s depleted in carbon-12. What’s left behind is CO2 enriched with carbon-13.

Scientists have observed this process in the upper atmospheres of Earth and Mars. In Mars’ reducing atmosphere, where oxygen was depleted, the CO2 enriched with carbon-13 would’ve transformed into formaldehyde and possibly methanol. But those compounds didn’t remain stable. In Mars’ early days, the surface temperature was close to the freezing point of water, and it never exceeded about 27 Celsius (80 F.) In that temperature range, the formaldehyde and other compounds could’ve dissolved in water. From there, they gathered in sediments.

But that’s not the end of Mars’ carbon isotope story.

The researchers used models to show that in a Mars atmosphere with a CO2 to CO ratio of 90:10, 20% of the CO2 would have converted to CO, leading to the sedimentary carbon isotope ratio we see today. The remaining atmospheric CO2 would be higher in C-13, and both values are in line with what Curiosity found, and with the ancient Martian meteorite ALH 84001.

This is a plausible scenario that can explain Curiosity’s curious carbon findings.

The team’s study also includes some other important details. For instance, atmospheric CO may not have come solely from photolysis by UV light. Some could have come from volcanic eruptions. And atmospheric CO may not have been the sole source of organics that found their way into the sediments. But either way, the results tell scientists something about Mars’ carbon cycle.

It also tells us to expect to find more organics in Martian sediments in the future.

“If the estimation in this research is correct, there may be an unexpected amount of organic material present in Martian sediments. This suggests that future explorations of Mars might uncover large quantities of organic matter,” said Ueno.

While the research shows us that life needn’t be present to produce these organics, it can’t rule life out. Nobody can, at least not yet.

The research also shows how complex atmospheric chemistry can be and how difficult it can be to draw conclusions from atmospheric studies of exoplanets. The JWST has examined several exoplanet atmospheres and found some interesting results. But there’s so much we don’t know. This research is a reminder that any conclusions are likely premature.

The post Life Probably Played No Role in Mars’ Organic Matter appeared first on Universe Today.

Mice that exercised soon after waking up had stronger and longer bones than those that exercised later in the day  

Mice that exercised soon after waking up had stronger and longer bones than those that exercised later in the day  

India's Agnikul Cosmos successfully launched a test vehicle powered by a homegrown 3D printed rocket engine.