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By NASA
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Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Researchers think meltwater beneath Martian ice could support microbial life.
The white material seen within this Martian gully is believed to be dusty water ice. Scientists believe this kind of ice could be an excellent place to look for microbial life on Mars today. This image, showing part of a region called Dao Vallis, was captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009.NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona These holes, captured on Alaska’s Matanuska Glacier in 2012, are formed by cryoconite — dust particles that melt into the ice over time, eventually forming small pockets of water below the glacier’s surface. Scientists believe similar pockets of water could form within dusty water ice on Mars.Kimberly Casey CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 While actual evidence for life on Mars has never been found, a new NASA study proposes microbes could find a potential home beneath frozen water on the planet’s surface.
Through computer modeling, the study’s authors have shown that the amount of sunlight that can shine through water ice would be enough for photosynthesis to occur in shallow pools of meltwater below the surface of that ice. Similar pools of water that form within ice on Earth have been found to teem with life, including algae, fungi, and microscopic cyanobacteria, all of which derive energy from photosynthesis.
“If we’re trying to find life anywhere in the universe today, Martian ice exposures are probably one of the most accessible places we should be looking,” said the paper’s lead author, Aditya Khuller of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Mars has two kinds of ice: frozen water and frozen carbon dioxide. For their paper, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, Khuller and colleagues looked at water ice, large amounts of which formed from snow mixed with dust that fell on the surface during a series of Martian ice ages in the past million years. That ancient snow has since solidified into ice, still peppered with specks of dust.
Although dust particles may obscure light in deeper layers of the ice, they are key to explaining how subsurface pools of water could form within ice when exposed to the Sun: Dark dust absorbs more sunlight than the surrounding ice, potentially causing the ice to warm up and melt up to a few feet below the surface.
The white edges along these gullies in Mars’ Terra Sirenum are believed to be dusty water ice. Scientists think meltwater could form beneath the surface of this kind of ice, providing a place for possible photosynthesis. This is an enhanced-color image; the blue color would not actually be perceptible to the human eye.NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Mars scientists are divided about whether ice can actually melt when exposed to the Martian surface. That’s due to the planet’s thin, dry atmosphere, where water ice is believed to sublimate — turn directly into gas — the way dry ice does on Earth. But the atmospheric effects that make melting difficult on the Martian surface wouldn’t apply below the surface of a dusty snowpack or glacier.
Thriving Microcosms
On Earth, dust within ice can create what are called cryoconite holes — small cavities that form in ice when particles of windblown dust (called cryoconite) land there, absorb sunlight, and melt farther into the ice each summer. Eventually, as these dust particles travel farther from the Sun’s rays, they stop sinking, but they still generate enough warmth to create a pocket of meltwater around them. The pockets can nourish a thriving ecosystem for simple lifeforms..
“This is a common phenomenon on Earth,” said co-author Phil Christensen of Arizona State University in Tempe, referring to ice melting from within. “Dense snow and ice can melt from the inside out, letting in sunlight that warms it like a greenhouse, rather than melting from the top down.”
Christensen has studied ice on Mars for decades. He leads operations for a heat-sensitive camera called THEMIS (Thermal Emission Imaging System) aboard NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter. In past research, Christensen and Gary Clow of the University of Colorado Boulder used modeling to demonstrate how liquid water could form within dusty snowpack on the Red Planet. That work, in turn, provided a foundation for the new paper focused on whether photosynthesis could be possible on Mars.
In 2021, Christensen and Khuller co-authored a paper on the discovery of dusty water ice exposed within gullies on Mars, proposing that many Martian gullies form by erosion caused by the ice melting to form liquid water.
This new paper suggests that dusty ice lets in enough light for photosynthesis to occur as deep as 9 feet (3 meters) below the surface. In this scenario, the upper layers of ice prevent the shallow subsurface pools of water from evaporating while also providing protection from harmful radiation. That’s important, because unlike Earth, Mars lacks a protective magnetic field to shield it from both the Sun and radioactive cosmic ray particles zipping around space.
The study authors say the water ice that would be most likely to form subsurface pools would exist in Mars’ tropics, between 30 degrees and 60 degrees latitude, in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
Khuller next hopes to re-create some of Mars’ dusty ice in a lab to study it up close. Meanwhile, he and other scientists are beginning to map out the most likely spots on Mars to look for shallow meltwater — locations that could be scientific targets for possible human and robotic missions in the future.
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Andrew Good
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NASA Headquarters, Washington
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Last Updated Oct 17, 2024 Related Terms
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4 min read New Team to Assess NASA’s Mars Sample Return Architecture Proposals
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Mars Sample Return MSR Home Mission Concept Overview Perseverance Rover Sample Retrieval Lander Mars Ascent Vehicle Sample Recovery Helicopters Earth Return Orbiter Science Overview Bringing Mars Samples to Earth Mars Rock Samples MSR Science Community Member Sign up News and Features Multimedia 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 4 min read
New Team to Assess NASA’s Mars Sample Return Architecture Proposals
NASA announced Wednesday a new strategy review team will assess potential architecture adjustments for the agency’s Mars Sample Return Program, which aims to bring back scientifically selected samples from Mars, and is a key step in NASA’s quest to better understand our solar system and help answer whether we are alone in the universe.
Earlier this year, the agency commissioned design studies from the NASA community and eight selected industry teams on how to return Martian samples to Earth in the 2030s while lowering the cost, risk, and mission complexity. The new strategy review team will assess 11 studies conducted by industry, a team across NASA centers, the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The team will recommend to NASA a primary architecture for the campaign, including associated cost and schedule estimates.
“Mars Sample Return will require a diversity of opinions and ideas to do something we’ve never done before: launch a rocket off another planet and safely return samples to Earth from more than 33 million miles away,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “It is critical that Mars Sample Return is done in a cost-effective and efficient way, and we look forward to learning the recommendations from the strategy review team to achieve our goals for the benefit of humanity.”
Returning samples from Mars has been a major long-term goal of international planetary exploration for more than three decades, and the Mars Sample Return Program is jointly planned with ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Perseverance rover is collecting compelling science samples that will help scientists understand the geological history of Mars, the evolution of its climate, and potential hazards for future human explorers. Retrieval of the samples also will help NASA’s search for signs of ancient life.
The team’s report is anticipated by the end of 2024 and will examine options for a complete mission design, which may be a composite of multiple studied design elements. The team will not recommend specific acquisition strategies or partners. The strategy review team has been chartered under a task to the Cornell Technical Services contract. The team may request input from a NASA analysis team that consists of government employees and expert consultants. The analysis team also will provide programmatic input such as a cost and schedule assessment of the architecture recommended by the strategy review team.
The Mars Sample Return Strategy Review Team is led by Jim Bridenstine, former NASA administrator, and includes the following members:
Greg Robinson, former program director, James Webb Space Telescope Lisa Pratt, former planetary protection officer, NASA Steve Battel, president, Battel Engineering; Professor of Practice, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Phil Christensen, regents professor, School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe Eric Evans, director emeritus and fellow, MIT Lincoln Lab Jack Mustard, professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Science, Brown University Maria Zuber, E. A. Griswold professor of Geophysics and presidential advisor for science and technology policy, MIT The NASA Analysis Team is led by David Mitchell, chief program management officer at NASA Headquarters, and includes the following members:
John Aitchison, program business manager (acting), Mars Sample Return Brian Corb, program control/schedule analyst, NASA Headquarters Steve Creech, assistant deputy associate administrator for Technical, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA Headquarters Mark Jacobs, senior systems engineer, NASA Headquarters Rob Manning, chief engineer emeritus, NASA JPL Mike Menzel, senior engineer, NASA Goddard Fernando Pellerano, senior advisor for Systems Engineering, NASA Goddard Ruth Siboni, chief of staff, Moon to Mars Program Office, NASA Headquarters Bryan Smith, director of Facilities, Test and Manufacturing, NASA Glenn Ellen Stofan, under secretary for Science and Research, Smithsonian For more information on NASA’s Mars Sample Return, visit:
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-sample-return
Dewayne Washington
Headquarters, Washington
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dewayne.a.washington@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Oct 16, 2024 Related Terms
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NASA, NOAA: Sun Reaches Maximum Phase in 11-Year Solar Cycle
In a teleconference with reporters on Tuesday, representatives from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the international Solar Cycle Prediction Panel announced that the Sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue for the next year.
The solar cycle is a natural cycle the Sun goes through as it transitions between low and high magnetic activity. Roughly every 11 years, at the height of the solar cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip — on Earth, that’d be like the North and South poles swapping places every decade — and the Sun transitions from being calm to an active and stormy state.
Visible light images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory highlight the appearance of the Sun at solar minimum (left, Dec. 2019) versus solar maximum (right, May 2024). During solar minimum, the Sun is often spotless. Sunspots are associated with solar activity and are used to track solar cycle progress. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NASA/SDO Images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory highlight the appearance of the Sun at solar minimum (left, December 2019) versus solar maximum (right, May 2024). These images are in the 171-angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light, which reveals the active regions on the Sun that are more common during solar maximum. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NASA/SDO
NASA and NOAA track sunspots to determine and predict the progress of the solar cycle — and ultimately, solar activity. Sunspots are cooler regions on the Sun caused by a concentration of magnetic field lines. Sunspots are the visible component of active regions, areas of intense and complex magnetic fields on the Sun that are the source of solar eruptions.
“During solar maximum, the number of sunspots, and therefore, the amount of solar activity, increases,” said Jamie Favors, director, Space Weather Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “This increase in activity provides an exciting opportunity to learn about our closest star — but also causes real effects at Earth and throughout our solar system.”
The solar cycle is the natural cycle of the Sun as it transitions between low and high activity. During the most active part of the cycle, known as solar maximum, the Sun can unleash immense explosions of light, energy, and solar radiation — all of which create conditions known as space weather. Space weather can affect satellites and astronauts in space, as well as communications systems — such as radio and GPS — and power grids on Earth.
Credits: Beth Anthony/NASA Solar activity strongly influences conditions in space known as space weather. This can affect satellites and astronauts in space, as well as communications and navigation systems — such as radio and GPS — and power grids on Earth. When the Sun is most active, space weather events become more frequent. Solar activity has led to increased aurora visibility and impacts on satellites and infrastructure in recent months.
During May 2024, a barrage of large solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) launched clouds of charged particles and magnetic fields toward Earth, creating the strongest geomagnetic storm at Earth in two decades — and possibly among the strongest displays of auroras on record in the past 500 years.
May 3–May 9, 2024, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory observed 82 notable solar flares. The flares came mainly from two active regions on the Sun called AR 13663 and AR 13664. This video highlights all flares classified at M5 or higher with nine categorized as X-class solar flares.
Credit: NASA “This announcement doesn’t mean that this is the peak of solar activity we’ll see this solar cycle,” said Elsayed Talaat, director of space weather operations at NOAA. “While the Sun has reached the solar maximum period, the month that solar activity peaks on the Sun will not be identified for months or years.”
Scientists will not be able to determine the exact peak of this solar maximum period for many months because it’s only identifiable after they’ve tracked a consistent decline in solar activity after that peak. However, scientists have identified that the last two years on the Sun have been part of this active phase of the solar cycle, due to the consistently high number of sunspots during this period. Scientists anticipate that the maximum phase will last another year or so before the Sun enters the declining phase, which leads back to solar minimum. Since 1989, the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel — an international panel of experts sponsored by NASA and NOAA — has worked together to make their prediction for the next solar cycle.
Solar cycles have been tracked by astronomers since Galileo first observed sunspots in the 1600s. Each solar cycle is different — some cycles peak for larger and shorter amounts of time, and others have smaller peaks that last longer.
Sunspot number over the previous 24 solar cycles. Scientists use sunspots to track solar cycle progress; the dark spots are associated with solar activity, often as the origins for giant explosions — such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections — which can spew light, energy, and solar material out into space. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center “Solar Cycle 25 sunspot activity has slightly exceeded expectations,” said Lisa Upton, co-chair of the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel and lead scientist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “However, despite seeing a few large storms, they aren’t larger than what we might expect during the maximum phase of the cycle.”
The most powerful flare of the solar cycle so far was an X9.0 on Oct. 3 (X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength).
NOAA anticipates additional solar and geomagnetic storms during the current solar maximum period, leading to opportunities to spot auroras over the next several months, as well as potential technology impacts. Additionally, though less frequent, scientists often see fairly significant storms during the declining phase of the solar cycle.
The Solar Cycle 25 forecast, as produced by the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel. Sunspot number is an indicator of solar cycle strength — the higher the sunspot number, the stronger the cycle. For these images and more relating to solar maximum, visit https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14683.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center NASA and NOAA are preparing for the future of space weather research and prediction. In December 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission will make its closest-ever approach to the Sun, beating its own record of closest human-made object to the Sun. This will be the first of three planned approaches for Parker at this distance, helping researchers to understand space weather right at the source.
NASA is launching several missions over the next year that will help us better understand space weather and its impacts across the solar system.
Space weather predictions are critical for supporting the spacecraft and astronauts of NASA’s Artemis campaign. Surveying this space environment is a vital part of understanding and mitigating astronaut exposure to space radiation.
NASA works as a research arm of the nation’s space weather effort. To see how space weather can affect Earth, please visit NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts.
By Abbey Interrante
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Sarah Frazier, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov
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Abbey Interrante
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Last Updated Oct 15, 2024 Related Terms
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Making the most of a solar eclipse demands attention to detail. Do you have what it takes? NASA’s Eclipse Megamovie project launched a new coding competition, and they need your help to organize images from the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. This is your chance to make a lasting contribution to solar science!
The Eclipse Megamovie project asked volunteers to take photos of the total solar eclipse that took place on April 8, 2024 to discover the secret lives of solar jets and plumes. Many jets and plumes seem to disappear or change from the time they are formed on the Sun to when they move out into the solar wind. Thanks to the efforts of over 145 citizen scientists, more than 1 terabyte of photographs were collected and are now being analyzed. These images will help scientists track disappearing jets and plumes, shedding light on how these solar events impact space weather and our understanding of the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
One of the standout volunteers in the Eclipse Megamovie project is Hy Tran, a citizen scientist who earned praise from the science team for his detailed feedback and mentorship of fellow volunteers. “We love working with volunteers like Hy,” said Eclipse Megamovie scientist Hannah Hellman. “They bring passion, experience, and technological knowledge to our projects.”
Superstar volunteer Hy Tran helps mentor other eclipse chasers. You can join the Eclipse Megamovie project now by taking part in a coding competition! Tran’s day job is in metrology—the science of measurement (not to be confused with meteorology!). “In my professional life,” said Tran, “I support a measurement standards and calibration program, so we live by having good procedures!” He also volunteers in technical societies, focusing on standards development, engineering, and technology education. Outside of work, Hy mentors and serves as a local leader in science/technology/engineering/mathematics (STEM) outreach. He loves woodturning and dabbles in amateur astrophotography and underwater photography. The technical challenges of participating in eclipse science projects so far have hit his sweet spot.
Although it will be a while until the next eclipse, the Eclipse Megamovie team still needs your help. Join volunteers like Hy and participate in their coding competition! Your mission is to create the most accurate sorting machine that categorizes a solar eclipse photograph into a specific solar eclipse phase. Not only will your code help organize the massive amounts of data collected, but you’ll also have the chance to win some prizes.
Prizes for the Competition
First Place: Image-stabilized binoculars with solar filters, a feature on the Eclipse Megamovie website, an Eclipse Megamovie Team Patch, a NASA calendar, an Eclipse Megamovie sticker, and a First Prize Certificate. Second and Third Place: A feature on the Eclipse Megamovie website, an Eclipse Megamovie Team Patch, a NASA calendar, an Eclipse Megamovie sticker, and a certificate. Think you’ve got the skills to tackle this challenge? Visit the Eclipse Megamovie project website to sign up today!
For more information, visit the Eclipse Megamovie page at Kaggle: http://kaggle.com/competitions/eclipse-megamovie.
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Last Updated Oct 15, 2024 Related Terms
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Sols 4331-4333: Today’s Rover ABC – Aurora, Backwards Driving, and Chemistry, with a Side of Images
This image shows just how variable and interesting the terrain is in the area that NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is currently investigating. Curiosity captured this long-distance Remote Micro Imager (RMI) image using the Chemistry & Camera (ChemCam) aboard the rover on sol 4329 — Martian day 4,329 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 10, 2024 at 02:30:12 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL Earth planning date: Friday, Oct. 11, 2024
This blogger is in the United Kingdom, just north of London, where we yesterday had beautiful night skies with a red aurora that was even visible with the unaided eye, and looked stunning on photographs. That reminded me of the solar storm that made it all the way to Mars earlier this year. Here is my colleague Deborah’s blog about it: “Aurora Watch on Mars.” And, of course, that was a great opportunity to do atmospheric science and prepare for future crewed missions, to assess radiation that future astronauts might encounter. You can read about it in the article, “NASA Watches Mars Light Up During Epic Solar Storm.” But now, back from shiny red night skies north of London, and auroras on Mars six months ago, to today’s planning!
Power — always a negotiation! Today, I was the Science Operations Working Group chair, the one who has to watch for the more technical side of things, such as the question if all the activities will fit into the plan. Today there were many imaging ideas to capture the stunning landscape in detail with Mastcam and very close close-ups with the long-distance imaging capability of ChemCam (RMI). Overall, we have two long-distance RMIs in the plan to capture the details of the ridge we are investigating. You can see in the accompanying image an example from last sol of just how many stunning details we can see. I so want to go and pick up that smooth white-ish looking rock to find out if it is just the light that makes it so bright, or if the surface is different from the underside… but that’s just me, a mineralogist by training, used to wandering around a field site! Do you notice the different patterns — textures as we call them in geology — on the rocks to the left of that white-ish rock and the right of it? So much stunning detail, and we are getting two more RMI observations of 10 frames each in today’s plan! In addition there are more than 80 Mastcam frames planned. Lots of images to learn from!
Chemistry is also featuring in the plan. The rover is stable on its wheels, which means we can get the arm out and do an APXS measurement on the target “Midnight Lake,” which MAHLI also images. The LIBS investigations are seconding the APXS investigation on Midnight Lake, and add another target to the plan, “Pyramidal Pinnacle.” On the third sol there is an AEGIS, the LIBS measurement where the rover picks its own target before we here on Earth even see where it is! Power was especially tight today, because the CheMin team does some housekeeping, in particular looking at empty cells in preparation for the next drill. The atmosphere team adds many investigations to look out for dust devils and the dustiness of the atmosphere, and APXS measures the argon content of the atmosphere. This is a measure for the seasonal changes of the atmosphere, as argon is an inert gas that does not react with other components of the atmosphere. It is only controlled by the temperature in various places of the planet — mainly the poles. DAN continues to monitor water in the subsurface, and RAD — prominently featured during the solar storm I was talking about earlier — continues to collect data on the radiation environment.
Let’s close with a fun fact from planning today: During one of the meetings, the rover drivers were asked, “Are you driving backwards again?” … and the answer was yes! The reason: We need to make sure that in this rugged terrain, with its many interesting walls (interesting for the geologists!), the antenna can still see Earth when we want to send the plan. So the drive on sol 4332 is all backwards. I am glad we have hazard cameras on the front and the back of the vehicle!
Written by Susanne Schwenzer, Planetary Geologist at The Open University
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Last Updated Oct 13, 2024 Related Terms
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