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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 2 min read
Sols 4336-4337: Where the Streets Have No Name
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Sol 4329 — Martian day 4,329 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 10, 2024 at 04:19:55 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024
Curiosity continues to drive along the western edge of the upper Gediz Vallis channel. After exiting the channel a few weeks ago, we turned north to image the “back side” of the deposits that we investigated on the eastern side before the channel crossing. As a member of the Channel Surfers working group, we believe that acquiring these views will help further our understanding of the geometry, nature, and evolution of these landforms. The bumpy terrain in front of us, however, plays a role in determining our route and length of drive. The rover planners on the team always do a fantastic job in charting the course on this once-in-a-lifetime road trip. I like to imagine Curiosity with the windows down, blaring U2, as she steadily blazes a new path across the sulfate unit.
With an eye towards imaging in this two-sol plan, Mastcam crafted a large mosaic of “Fascination Turret” that rises above the channel floor. ChemCam fit an unprecedented number of long distance RMI images in the plan that will document the upper extent of the white stone deposit, the nature of the “Kukenan” mound, and characterize the rocks in Fascination Turret at targets named “Chimney Tree” and “Forgotten Canyon.” In our immediate workspace, ChemCam used the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument on a laminated (very thinly bedded) bedrock in the workspace at “Puppet Lake” to determine its chemical composition, which will be documented with a coordinating Mastcam image. MAHLI and AXPS teamed up to analyze a cluster of small gray rocks in front of us at “Jumble Lake.”
The second sol includes a 25-meter (about 82 feet) drive to the west/northwest as we continue along our path adjacent to the channel. The Environmental theme group included a range of activities such as a Mastcam tau that will measure the optical depth of the atmosphere and constrain aerosol scattering properties, dust devil movies, and a suprahorizon movie to monitor clouds.
Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
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Last Updated Oct 18, 2024 Related Terms
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Jacquelyn Shuman visually assesses a prescribed fire at Ft. Stewart in Georgia, working with partner organizations as part of the Department of Defense Ft. Stewart 2024 Fire Research Campaign. USFS/Linda Chappell Jacquelyn Shuman, FireSense Project Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, originally wanted to be a veterinarian. By the time she got to college, Shuman had switched interests to biology, which became a job teaching middle and high school science. Teaching pivoted to finance for a year, before Shuman returned to the science world to pursue a PhD.
It was in a forest ecology class taught by her future PhD advisor, Herman “Hank” Shugart, that she first discovered a passion for ecosystems and dynamic vegetation that led her into the world of fire science, and eventually to NASA Ames.
While Shuman’s path into the world of fire science was not a direct one, she views her diverse experiences as the key to finding a fulfilling career. “Do a lot of different things and try a lot of different things, and if one thing isn’t connecting with you, then do something different,” Shuman said.
Diving into the World of Fire
Shuman’s PhD program focused on boreal forest dynamics across Russia, examining how the forest changes in response to climate change and wildfire. During her research, she worked mainly with scientists from Russia, Canada, and the US through the Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative (NEESPI), where Shugart served as the NEESPI Chief Scientist. “The experience of having a highly supportive mentor, being a part of the NEESPI community, and working alongside other inspiring female scientists from across the globe helped me to stay motivated within my own research,” Shuman said.
After completing her PhD, Shuman wanted to become involved in collaborative science with a global impact, which led her to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). There, she spent seven years working as a project scientist on the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment NGEE-Tropics) on a dynamic vegetation model project called FATES (Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator). As part of the FATES team, Shuman used computer modeling to test vegetation structure and function in tropical and boreal forests after wildfires, and was the lead developer for updating the fire portion of the model.
This figure shows fire characteristics from an Earth system model that uses vegetation structure and interactive fire. The FATES model captures the fire intensity associated with burned land and grass growth in the Southern Hemisphere. Shuman et al. 2024 GMD Fire has also played a powerful role in Shuman’s personal life. In 2021, the Marshall Fire destroyed neighborhoods near her hometown of Boulder, Colorado, causing over $513 million of damage and securing its place as the state’s most destructive wildfire. Despite this, Shuman is determined to not live in fear. “Fire is part of our lives, it’s a part of the Earth system, and it’s something we can plan for. We can live more sustainably with fires.” The way to live safely in a fire-inclusive ecosystem, according to Shuman, is to develop ways to accurately track and forecast wildfires and smoke, and to respond to them efficiently: efforts the fire community is continuously working on improving.
The Fire Science Community
Collaboration is a critical element of wildland fire management. Fire science is a field that involves practitioners such as firefighters and land managers, but also researchers such as modelers and forecasters; the most effective efforts, according to Shuman, come when this community works together. “People in fire science might be out in the field and carrying a drip torch and marching along in the hilltops and the grasslands or be behind a computer and analyzing remote sensing data,” Shuman said. “We need both pieces.”
Protecting communities from wildfire impacts is one of the most fulfilling aspects of Shuman’s career, and a goal that unites this community. “Fire research poses tough questions, but the people who are thinking about this are the people who are acting on it,” Shuman said. “They are saying, ‘What can we do? How can we think about this? What information do we need? What are the questions?’ It’s a special community to be a part of.”
Looking to the Future of Fire
Currently at NASA Ames Research Center, Shuman is the Project Scientist for FireSense: a project focused on delivering NASA science and technology to practitioners and operational agencies. Shuman acts as the lead for the project office, identifying and implementing tools and strategies. Shuman still does ecosystem modeling work, including implementing vegetation models that forecast the impact of fire, but also spends time traveling to active fires across the country so she can help partners implement NASA tools and strategies in real time.
FireSense Project Scientist Jacquelyn Shuman stands with Roger Ottmar (United States Forest Service), surveying potential future locations for prescribed burns in Fishlake National Forest. NASA Ames/Milan Loiacono
“Right now, many different communities are all recognizing that we can partner to identify the best path forward,” Shuman said. “We have an opportunity to use everyone’s strengths and unique perspectives. It can be a devastating thing for a community and an ecosystem when a fire happens. Everyone is interested in using all this collective knowledge to do more, together.”
Written by Molly Medin, NASA Ames Research Center
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Last Updated Oct 17, 2024 Related Terms
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Curiosity Navigation Curiosity Home Mission Overview Where is Curiosity? Mission Updates Science Overview Instruments Highlights Exploration Goals News and Features Multimedia Curiosity Raw Images Images Videos Audio More Resources Mars Missions Mars Sample Return Mars Perseverance Rover Mars Curiosity Rover MAVEN Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Odyssey More Mars Missions The Solar System The Sun Mercury Venus Earth The Moon Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto & Dwarf Planets Asteroids, Comets & Meteors The Kuiper Belt The Oort Cloud 3 min read
Sols 4334-4335: Planning with Popsicles — A Clipper Celebration!
This image was taken by Left Navigation Camera aboard NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity on Sol 4329 — Martian day 4,329 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 10, 2024, at 05:35:08 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Monday, Oct. 14, 2024
Today was an unusually exciting day during tactical planning on the Curiosity mission because it intersected with a momentous event in space exploration: the launch of Europa Clipper from Kennedy Space Center. Even though the launch window occurred right in the middle of our morning planning meetings, at 9:06 a.m. PDT to be specific, today’s Tactical Uplink Lead and Science Operations Working Group Chair agreed it would be OK for the entire tactical team to take a 15-minute pause to turn on NASA TV and watch the launch together. Down the hall the Perseverance rover tactical team had decided the same, and for a few moments, the two teams paused their planning and watched together in anticipation as the countdown ticked down to T-0. Many of my close friends and co-workers had worked for years — some for decades — to make this mission a reality, and it was amazing to watch the enormous rocket carrying the Clipper spacecraft leap off the pad knowing how hard it was to get to this point. I cannot wait for the mission’s discoveries once it reaches Jupiter’s watery moon Europa!
In true JPL tradition, we of course had to commemorate the event with some sweet frozen treats on-lab. Back when Curiosity landed, we had a full fridge of ice cream that was kept stocked for the first 90 sols of the mission. (Eating ice cream cones at 2 in the morning is a core memory of mine from those early days in our mission.) Today, in a clever nod to Europa’s icy surface, we celebrated with some even icier sweets: fruit and coffee popsicles to anyone on-lab. I chose coffee of course; the caffeine was great to help me get through a busy day of planning for Curiosity!
On Mars, things with our rover are going well. We completed our mega ~50-meter drive (about 164 feet) over the weekend, which took Curiosity further north along the western side of Gediz Vallis channel. Our plan today is a “touch and go,” which means we’ll do contact science with APXS and MAHLI on a block in front of us named “Dollar Lake,” some remote sensing, including ChemCam LIBS of a target named “Cape Horn” and a couple Mastcam mosaics, followed by a drive to the north. We’ll continue to follow the western side of Gediz Vallis channel as we descend slightly down Mount Sharp, until we reach a location where we are able to head west towards a more easily traversable valley, and then restart our ascent.
What a fun day of planning today. Congratulations to everyone involved helping Europa Clipper reach this incredible milestone, and go Clipper go!
Written by Abigail Fraeman, Planetary Geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Researchers verified that 3D micro-computed tomography scans can map the orientation of plant roots in space and used the method to demonstrate that carrots grown in actual and simulated microgravity both had random root orientation. These findings suggest that simulated microgravity offers a reliable and more affordable tool for studying plant adaptation to spaceflight.
MULTI-TROP evaluated the role of gravity and other factors on plant growth. Plant roots grow downward in response to gravity on Earth, but in random directions in microgravity, which is a challenge for developing plant growth facilities for space. Results from this investigation could help address this challenge, advancing efforts to grow plants for food and other uses on future space missions as well as improving plant cultivation on Earth.
Preflight image of the BIOKON facility used to grow carrots for MULTI-TROP. Kayser Italia For climate model simulations, researchers developed four parameters of electrical discharges from thunderclouds that produce visual emissions known as Blue LUminous Events or BLUEs. BLUEs are thought to affect regional atmospheric chemistry and climate. The parameters reported by this study could inform models that help test the global and regional effects of thunderstorm corona discharges, including how their geographic distribution and global occurrence rate will change as the atmosphere warms.
ASIM, an investigation from ESA (European Space Agency), studies high-altitude lightning in thunderstorms and the role it plays in Earth’s atmosphere and climate. Scientists need to understand processes occurring in Earth’s upper atmosphere to determine how lightning is connected to Earth’s climate and weather so they can develop better atmospheric models to guide weather and climate predictions.
Lightning in a thunderstorm off the coast of Africa as seen from the International Space Station. NASA/Matthew Dominick A technique to detect sounds generated by the inner ear could be used as a non-invasive tool for monitoring changes in fluid pressure in the head during spaceflight. Increased fluid pressure in the head that occurs in microgravity can cause visual impairment and may also affect the middle and inner ear. Insight into fluid pressure changes could help scientists develop ways to protect astronauts from these effects.
The ESA and ASI investigation Acoustic Diagnostics monitored hearing function in astronauts on long-term missions using otoacoustic emissions (sounds generated by the inner ear in response to specific tones). Researchers compared these measurements before and during flight to indirectly detect changes in fluid pressure in the head. Different body position and fit of the ear probes affected results of the test and the authors note that these issues need to be addressed.
NASA astronaut Drew Morgan participates in a hearing test for the Acoustic Diagnostics investigation. ESA (European Space Agency)/Luca ParmitanoView the full article
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