Mars forecast: Floating CO2 blocks, spontaneous pit formation

Researchers now believe they know what’s responsible for strange wiggly lines forming down the surface of dunes on Mars, like these found at the bottom of Endurance Crater captured by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity

“Today will be hazy with a heavy possibility of sand furrow formation. Also keep your eyes peeled for floating chunks of carbon dioxide, spontaneous pit formation and, as always, don’t leave home without your hab suit.” That could some day be the winter weather forecast Martian colonists wake up to, based on new research out of Trinity College Dublin.

A study conducted there homed in on strange linear gullies on the sides of Martian sand dunes.

“Several years ago I discovered unique markings on the surface of Martian sand dunes,” said geomorphologist Mary Bourke who helped lead the study. “I called them sand furrows as they were elongated shallow, networked features that formed and disappeared seasonally on Martian dunes. What was unusual about them was that they appeared to trend both up and down the dune slopes, which ruled out liquid water as the cause.”

With water being ruled out, the researchers turned their attention to carbon dioxide, a gas found in abundance on the Red Planet. The team’s theory was that the furrows were caused by the gas going through the process of sublimation – turning from a solid to a gas without going through an intermediary liquid stage.

“Mars’ atmosphere is composed of over 95 percent CO2, yet we know little about how it interacts with the surface of the planet,” said Bourke. “Mars has seasons, just like Earth, which means that in winter, a lot of the CO2 in the atmosphere changes state from a gas to a solid and is deposited onto the surface in that form. The process is then reversed in the spring, as the ice sublimates, and this seasonal interplay may be a really important geomorphic process.”

Bourke initially thought the grooves were created by a process known as cryo-venting, in which carbon dioxide trapped and pressurized beneath the planet’s surface escapes in dust and gas geysers. However, a new PhD candidate, Lauren McKeown, had a different idea and, to test it out, the team created a sand-filled low-humidity chamber that closely replicated the Martain landscape and environment.

Blocks of frozen CO2 were then placed on the surface and it was found that they could indeed form the furrows – and they could do it by levitating.

“The difference in temperature between the sandy surface and the CO2 block will generate a vapor layer beneath the block, allowing it to levitate and maneuver downslope, in a similar manner to how pucks glide on an ice-hockey table, carving a channel in its wake,” said McKeown. “At the terminus, the block will sublimate and erode a pit. It will then disappear without a trace other than the roughly circular depression beneath it.”

The team even saw some pits form in under 60 seconds as chunks of CO2 rapidly sublimated.

The pits found in the experiments closely matched the pits found at the ends of the furrows observed on Mars. With a bit more study, the team was able to accurately match block size to pit size on Mars, using previous observations from the Russell Crater megadune.

The team will now head to the Large Mars Chamber at the Open University in England. There, in the sealed environment that mimics conditions on the surface of the Red Planet – complete with UV radiation – the researchers will continue studying the influence Mars’ atmosphere has on the formation of the furrows.

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Take A Walk On Mars From The Comfort Of Your Living Room

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6978&utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NASAJPL&utm_content=daily20171019-2

Why NASA Needs To Establish Martian Law

Future Mars colonists may want to form their own legal system. What would stop them?

Off to court… 

Six people recently returned from an eight-month long isolation experiment to test human endurance for long-term space missions. Their “journey to Mars” involved being isolated below the summit of the world’s largest active volcano in Hawaii (Mauna Loa), and was designed to better understand the psychological impacts of manned missions.

NASA, which aims to send expeditions to Mars by the 2030s, is hoping that the results could help them pick crew members for a future mission to Mars. And it’s not just NASA that has an eye on Mars. Maverick millionaire Elon Musk and aerospace firm Lockheed Martin have heralded separate missions and stations for the red planet between 2022 and 2028.

Indeed, scientific discovery is making a Martian El Dorado a feasible dream at breathtaking speed. Last month, China claimed to have developed a “physics-defying EmDrive,” which would allow humans to journey to Mars in weeks. With or without this engine, it seems humans are on the inevitable trajectory to colonize Mars.

It is therefore becoming as important to ask what laws will govern humans on Mars as it is to ask whether we could survive on the planet’s surface. Unexpectedly, this may be something that isolation experiments could help with.

Settled law on space stations

Space law has always supported the position that objects and stations placed on celestial bodies are to remain under national ownership, jurisdiction and control. Private companies or other entrepreneurs cannot therefore have legitimacy or mine these bodies for resources unless they exercise lawful control through a sovereign state.

Current rules say the establishment of a space station and the area required for its operation should be notified to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. These would then be under the exclusive jurisdiction of the state where the spacecraft is registered or the state bringing the component parts of the station.

The participants of the HI-SEAS mission (HI-SEAS/NASA)

In many ways, this makes sense – it is difficult to see how a permanent station on Mars may be maintained without some form of tenure of the ground. The same goes for tenure over areas around the station sufficient for its maintenance (such as creating fuel from nearby resources). In fact, the closest practical analogies to a future Mars station in current jurisdictional terms would be the Antarctic stations maintained by Antarctic claimant states.

But there are areas where the law may need to be updated. With increased interest in multiple, permanent space stations on Mars and potentially dozens of objects in its orbit, the possibility of debris that could kill or damage Martian property also increases. What laws should govern this? It is in fact only a matter of time before damage to a space station caused by debris will lead to legal and political conflict?

Property rights and crime

It is also likely there will be questions regarding what states and corporations may be permitted to do on Martian colonies. Space manufacturing of drugs and other materials that may require absolutely sterile atmosphere could be carried out in space stations. Discoveries may under current laws be patented and commercialized. But the main question will be that of legitimacy of mining operations.

Although the use of resources for the conduct of scientific exploration and for the sustenance of a Martian mission is permitted under contemporary space law, creating property rights over space-based resources is not. That means the mining of resources for the purpose of commercial repatriation to Earth is forbidden until appropriate changes are made to space treaties.

However, the likelihood is that the law may end up be ing ignored – as shown by recent attempts to introduce appropriation of natural resources in space by the U.S. and Luxembourg. Both countries have enacted domestic legislation essentially granting a blank cheque to private companies to embark on a winner-takes-all gold rush on celestial bodies.

When it comes to civil and criminal jurisdiction, there are tested examples – such as Intergovernmental Agreements of 1988 and 1999 which regulate the Columbus Space Station Project and the ISS. Partners to these agreements developed a code of conduct for space station crews in free space. The rules specified many things including the power to punish crimes, registration of space objects, safety of nationals and repatriation/scheduled return of offenders to Earth.

Criminal jurisdiction will continue to have to be strict and hierarchical. It is increasingly common that there are astronauts of different nationalities on board a spacecraft or space station, and they are often subordinate to the disciplinary authority of one commander. The commander in all likelihood will have been appointed by the state of registry of the spacecraft or space station. The authority of this person is typically absolute and unquestionable.

In many ways, a space station’s commander inherits powers from older bodies of law such as that of a ship’s captain. The connecting thread in all these traditions is the obvious need to ensure the safety and survival of crew and passengers and eventually “space colonists.” Hopefully, recent isolation experiments could reveal a preference for a more democratic and less hierarchical regime for modern space stations.

American space tourist Dennis Tito (right) with Russian cosmonauts (NASA)

This is not least because if collaborating countries all have their own commander, there could be conflict. A good indication would be how Russia and the U.S. dealt with the transportation of Dennis Tito, an American millionaire, into orbit on Space Station Alpha as the first commercial space tourist. To win NASA’s approval, the passenger, who won the privilege to travel there on a Russian rocket, had to promise not to wander through American segments of the station without an escort. He also agreed to pay for anything he broke.

On the flip side, Russian cosmonauts were also curiously banned from using American astronauts’ toilets on the ISS in 2008.

Ultimately, there’s the possibility that colonists won’t be happy being governed by Earth law. What should happen to them – would they be neo-colonialists or simply “alien” in legal terms? Would they or should they form or evolve their own juridical systems while in long-duration flight? Should parliaments on Earth deal with Martian earthlings’ issues on an arm’s-length basis? These are all questions that need to be answered.

Luckily, psychological studies like NASA’s will be very useful because the confined and stressful environments “astronauts” face may challenge current legal frameworks. The soup of legal issues that will emerge in future Martian space stations will be a curious thing indeed.

Mars Once Had A Giant Lake That Dwarfed The Great Lakes

cience

Massive Martian waterbody that dwarfed the Great Lakes once dominated Mars

 Mike Wehner,BGR News 14 hours ago

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Scientists have known for some time that Mars once had lots and lots of water — in fact, some of it is still there — but exactly where it existed on the planet has been pretty difficult to figure out thanks to billions of years of surface erosion. Now, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered one place on the red planet that held a whole bunch of the life-giving liquid: an incredibly massive lake that, during its peak, held ten times the amount of water of all the Great Lakes, combined.

It’s an incredible discovery, and one that could help inform future exploration of Mars in the hopes of finding evidence that life once existed there. The idea that Mars was one a life-giving planet much like our own is one that has tantalized scientists for a long, long time, and if they ever hope to prove it, they now have a promising lead on where to start looking.

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But even if Mars never hosted living organisms, its colossal lake could still help inform researchers painting the picture of life’s origins here on Earth. “Even if we never find evidence that there’s been life on Mars, this site can tell us about the type of environment where life may have begun on Earth,” Paul Niles of NASA’s Johnson Space Center explains. “Volcanic activity combined with standing water provided conditions that were likely similar to conditions that existed on Earth at about the same time — when early life was evolving here.”

The lake was discovered thanks to the detection of huge mineral deposits hiding underneath the surface. It is believed that those minerals were the byproduct of volcanic underwater vents, much like those that exist deep in Earth’s oceans. On our planet, those hydrothermal vents actually host life, but it’s unclear whether the same was true for ancient Mars.

At the moment, the idea of a massive Martian lake with hydrothermal features is incredibly exciting, but we’re still a long way from actually finding anything suggesting the existence of life there. There are no current plans to actually investigate the site, dig, or study the area beyond what is already being done, but that could change.

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See the original version of this article on BGR.com

Secret NASA Study Advocates An All-Female Crew For A Manned Mars Mission

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-all-female-mars-missions-secret-plan-astronauts-sexual-dynamics-study-space-a7974416.html

This is fascinating. Unbeknownst to most people, in 1958 NASA scientist did a study on who the ideal astronaut would be,They rejected the “male fighter jock.” They came to the logical conclusion that women would be the best astronauts. They said this was because women generally have a smaller physical stature than males and could fit in the Mercury capsule better. Women consumed less oxygen and water. Women could bear physical pain better than males (Child birth is an excellent example.), Women could stand extremes of temperature better than males. Women adapted to new circumstances faster than males. 12 high-powered women pilots applied to be astronauts. All 12 were rejected. In the late 1970’s I worked north of the Arctic Circle in Prudoe Bay at the oil and gas production facility of SOHIO. It was well ahead of its time.To make the environment more humane, 60% of the workers were male and 40% female. Sex did happen. I never heard of any unwanted pregnancies or STD’s. I never heard of violence erupting over jealousy over sex partners. But let us say that female workers often received very generous gifts from their male colleagues. There is also the book Sex In Space about sexual contacts between astronauts in space. Picking a Mars crew will be a very difficult task. First you have to pick people with a very low risk of serious health problems. Then there is intense psychological screening. Then we have to discuss the concept of sex between crew members. Evan an all-female crew might have sexual contact.

Large Water Deposit Found In An Unlikely Place On Mars

https://futurism.com/scientists-just-found-water-on-mars-where-they-thought-none-could-exist/

Examining Phobos From A Different Light

NEWS | OCTOBER 4, 2017

Examining Mars’ Moon Phobos in a Different Light

This image combines two products from the first pointing at the Martian moon Phobos by the THEMIS camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, on Sept. 29, 2017. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
› Full image and caption

NASA’s longest-lived mission to Mars has gained its first look at the Martian moon Phobos, pursuing a deeper understanding by examining it in infrared wavelengths.

The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter observed Phobos on Sept. 29, 2017. Researchers have combined visible-wavelength and infrared data to produce an image color-coded for surface temperatures of this moon, which has been considered for a potential future human-mission outpost.

“Part of the observed face of Phobos was in pre-dawn darkness, part in morning daylight,” said THEMIS Deputy Principal Investigator Victoria Hamilton of the Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio.

Looking across the image from left to right presents a sequence of times of day on the Martian moon, from before dawn, to sunrise, to increasing amounts of time after dawn. This provides information about how quickly the ground warms, which is related to the texture of the surface. As barefoot beach walks can confirm, sand warms or cools quicker than rocks or pavement.

“Including a predawn area in the observation is useful because all the heating from the previous day’s sunshine has reached its minimum there,” Hamilton said. “As you go from predawn area to morning area you get to watch the heating behavior. If it heats up very quickly, it’s likely not very rocky but dusty instead.”

Phobos has an oblong shape with an average diameter of about 14 miles (22 kilometers). Cameras on other Mars orbiters have previously taken higher-resolution images of Phobos, but none with the infrared information available from THEMIS. Observations in multiple bands of thermal-infrared wavelengths can yield information about the mineral composition of the surface, as well as the surface texture.

One major question about Phobos and Mars’ even smaller moon, Deimos, is whether they are captured asteroids or bits of Mars knocked into the sky by impacts. Compositional information from THEMIS might help pin down their origin.

Since Odyssey began orbiting the Red Planet in 2001, THEMIS has provided compositional and thermal-properties information from all over Mars, but never before imaged either Martian moon. The Sept. 29 observation was completed to validate that the spacecraft could safely do so, as the start of a possible series of observations of Phobos and Deimos in coming months.

In normal operating mode, Odyssey keeps the THEMIS camera pointed straight down as the spacecraft orbits Mars. In 2014, the spacecraft team at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver; and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California; and the THEMIS team at Arizona State University, Tempe, developed procedures to rotate the spacecraft for upward-looking imaging of a comet passing near Mars. The teams have adapted those procedures for imaging the Martian moons.

“We now have the capability of rotating the spacecraft for THEMIS observations,” said Odyssey Project Scientist Jeffrey Plaut of JPL. “There is heightened interest in Phobos because of the possibility that future astronauts could perhaps use it as an outpost.”

With the first observation now in hand, plans are advancing for additional opportunities at different illumination phases of Phobos and Deimos.

“We want to get observations under all types of lighting — fully daylit, a small crescent, during eclipse,” Hamilton said. “We hope this is the first of several observations that will help us understand Phobos and Deimos.”
News Media Contact

Guy Webster
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Karin Valentine / Robert Burnham
Arizona State University, Tempe
480-965-9345 / 480-458-8207
karin.valentine@asu.edu / rburnham@mars.asu.edu