tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33910316661403666202024-03-26T17:23:49.873-07:00Planetary Volatiles LaboratoryArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-49869024226748502972024-03-26T17:09:00.000-07:002024-03-26T17:16:09.161-07:00De-mystifying Martian Clouds<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirhJYxTjneC5f80yrjxztyP7eRO3-bM4eCPXOxm9v4cuxexPXam30K1td50eJXoFdPHoi_O5hyphenhyphenrhzALN_DuDA58HgmeeR_BPKCIjIaXU-h1iCdgkZ_tJbhdaulzutRwZMWc399zUHJfE7LcShxJjya7CQAkef5viGdCX0RKSen_L2edkhS14CvrDVSaCI/s1000/image001.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirhJYxTjneC5f80yrjxztyP7eRO3-bM4eCPXOxm9v4cuxexPXam30K1td50eJXoFdPHoi_O5hyphenhyphenrhzALN_DuDA58HgmeeR_BPKCIjIaXU-h1iCdgkZ_tJbhdaulzutRwZMWc399zUHJfE7LcShxJjya7CQAkef5viGdCX0RKSen_L2edkhS14CvrDVSaCI/w400-h400/image001.gif" width="400" /></a><i> </i><br /></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i> Two of the lab's PhD students have just published analysis on how Martian clouds interact with sunlight in companion papers over in the Planetary Science Journal! The results represent work on thousands of images of the sky taken by the Curiosity Rover over more than ten (Earth) years and describe the thickness of the clouds we saw and give information on the crystals that make up those clouds. How can you use pictures of clouds to figure out what they are like on the scale of less than a thousandth of a cm? Read on to learn more! </i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Alex Innanen & Conor Hayes</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Here at PVL, we’re a big fan of Martian clouds. For over eleven (Earth) years, we’ve tasked our favourite PVL-er, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover, with staring up at the sky for a handful of minutes every few sols to capture the clouds drifting over its home in Gale Crater. Recently, we had two papers accepted that discuss some of these cloud observations. Our papers are very similar – both look at how light interacts with water-ice clouds during the same time of year (the Aphelion Cloud Belt, or ACB, season) using the same cameras (Curiosity’s Navigation Cameras, or Navcams). Between our papers we have 33 figures and over 15 000 words. Reading through that much material can be a daunting proposition! So, presented below for the cloud-curious is a brief and hopefully engaging summary. <br /><br /><a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2017/03/discerning-details-from-big-picture.html">Over</a> <a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2021/09/head-in-martian-clouds-research-update.html">the</a> <a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2022/03/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-clouds.html">years</a>, clouds have made frequent appearances on this blog, but as a quick refresher, yes, there are clouds on Mars! Some are made of dust, some are made of carbon dioxide, and some are made of water-ice. The water-ice ones are the ones we’re interested in, particularly those that form as part of the ACB. Every year, when Mars approaches its furthest point from the sun, it sees an increase in water-ice cloud formation around the equator. Gale Crater, where Curiosity lives, is just five degrees south of the equator, so it sees the southern edge of this belt of clouds. This is really great for those of us on the environmental science team – we get an opportunity every year to study these clouds and look for patterns in their behaviour from year-to-year. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguAVlU9YzikAYzwThf0QiapJOK6XUydo9xQZd5vbCu11Oeulkv63FkrKk6HygBKAJlHcqD9bSzDXZV5Cinx07iJo5vRmMW2XcfliLyU3oC9UzJgwoDKhvjqTGoGINs0gg7Gtf1HvaT5ru38WYCep45qYwM5_tCIeLLdq8i_eW3zecAa7PBVrQPFgj4mZQ/s1038/Alex+ConorB.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="779" data-original-width="1038" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguAVlU9YzikAYzwThf0QiapJOK6XUydo9xQZd5vbCu11Oeulkv63FkrKk6HygBKAJlHcqD9bSzDXZV5Cinx07iJo5vRmMW2XcfliLyU3oC9UzJgwoDKhvjqTGoGINs0gg7Gtf1HvaT5ru38WYCep45qYwM5_tCIeLLdq8i_eW3zecAa7PBVrQPFgj4mZQ/s320/Alex+ConorB.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">ACB clouds above Gale crater tend to be fairly tenuous – think of those wispy cirrus clouds you might see on Earth (shown above). Like cirrus clouds, they’re made of tiny crystals of water ice. (On Earth we don’t tend to specify what kind of ice, but on Mars the atmosphere can be cold enough for both water and carbon dioxide to freeze, so it’s helpful to differentiate between the two.) These crystals form when water vapour in the atmosphere condenses on some kind of nucleus – usually dust particles. <br /><br />On Earth, atmospheric water vapour tends to freeze into a certain set of shapes depending on the specific conditions present when the ice crystals are forming. These shapes have been catalogued thanks to the fact that we can actually fly into and directly sample our clouds taking close-up pictures of the ice crystals. While it may be possible that the ice crystals in Martian clouds have similar shapes to those in terrestrial clouds, we unfortunately cannot (yet) directly image them like we can here on Earth. Instead, we have to rely on some physics tricks. One of these tricks is looking at how light interacts with the clouds. These light interactions can produce a <a href="http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2020/07/rainbows-and-their-cousins.html?m=0">myriad of cool optical effects</a>, but more importantly can give us information about the size and shape of these particles. This information is captured by what’s called a ‘phase function’. The phase function is a mathematical description of how much light is scattered by some particle at different angles from 0 to 180°, visually represented by a curve. The exact shape of that curve depends on the shape and size of the ice crystals in the clouds, so we can attempt to determine the nature of martian ice crystals by comparing our phase function measurements to those that have been made for ice crystals on Earth.<br /><br />To see how light is scattered by the clouds across different angles, former PVL member Brittney Cooper came up with the phase function sky survey: Curiosity takes a series of 9 small cloud movies looking in different directions all around the rover, like you can see in the gif below. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3P3oLtEzieeIf8yej0qLKmB4XJ983v3GfnPg5ePolxtKzeM-v7MF01Z7BO422GMGuGhR8QtBASVQ4tjnhfe0zyPOpHkwzTlyU3PeBODLgT2KR1Z9z9bnUquhheVMqT5e_92VIdTw5rDCBH73zL1unhu_GKy3V-0_eTQIkPw-X2IsKJ54ys42wuvd_Ac/s840/image003.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="840" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3P3oLtEzieeIf8yej0qLKmB4XJ983v3GfnPg5ePolxtKzeM-v7MF01Z7BO422GMGuGhR8QtBASVQ4tjnhfe0zyPOpHkwzTlyU3PeBODLgT2KR1Z9z9bnUquhheVMqT5e_92VIdTw5rDCBH73zL1unhu_GKy3V-0_eTQIkPw-X2IsKJ54ys42wuvd_Ac/w400-h300/image003.gif" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">From this we get information about how sunlight is scattered by the clouds at different locations around the rover and put together an average phase function for the clouds we observe throughout the cloudy season at Gale Crater. We’ve been doing this observation through four Mars years so far, which means that we can compare different Mars years to see if there’s any change in the phase function. The ACB is a very stable feature – it doesn’t change much from year to year. Likewise, the average phase function at Gale doesn’t change much either. Nor does it show much difference between morning and afternoon observations. So, what does that tell us? Mostly it’s just that – the phase function doesn’t change much from year to year, or from morning to afternoon. But this could also suggest that the water-ice crystals that make up the clouds aren’t changing. <br /><br />Which brings us back to the question of what those crystals look like. This problem has been tackled a number of ways in the past, often by comparing an observed phase function with one for a known ice crystal shape. Brittney took this approach, as did Alex in their Master’s work. However, we found that none of the modeled ice crystal shapes fit our curves very well. This could be for a couple reasons – the particles Brittney looked at were much bigger than the water-ice particles that we tend to see on Mars. It’s also likely that the water-ice crystals are not forming the same shapes they do on earth. <br /><br />In the phase function paper, instead of forging along directly comparing our curves to known water-ice crystal shapes, we took a slightly different approach. It turns out you can make a simple approximation of a phase function mathematically using what’s called a Henyey-Greenstein (or HG) function. There are two values that go into making an HG function – the creatively named ‘b’ and ‘c’. Helpfully for our purposes, the b and c values also give information about the particle shape. If we look at the b and c values we see in the Gale Crater phase functions, they’re close to b and c values for rough, irregularly shaped particles – not those relatively simpler geometries we see in Earth clouds. It’s not as exciting as actually having a picture of what a martian water-ice crystal looks like, but it is still a solid starting point.<br /><br />The phase function is important not just because it gives us information about the shapes and sizes of the ice crystals in the clouds, but also because it is a critical input into various models. These include Martian global climate models (GCMs), which must include the effects of clouds on the amount of light that is transmitted through the atmosphere. It is also important for the topic of our second paper: the opacity of the ACB.<br /><br />A cloud’s opacity basically describes how thick it is. An opacity (or “tau”) of zero means that there are no clouds and all light passes through. As tau increases, more and more light is blocked, either through absorption or reflection into new directions (also called elastic scattering). In theory, tau can be arbitrarily high, but at a certain point so much light is blocked that it can barely be measured. During the Mars Year 34 global dust storm in 2018, Curiosity measured a tau as high as 8.5, meaning that about 99.98% of the Sun’s light was blocked by atmospheric dust (hence why the solar-powered Opportunity rover did not survive the storm).<br /><br />We use a fairly simple model to determine the opacity of water-ice clouds. The math is not particularly exciting, but in essence it takes the amount of sunlight reaching Mars at the top of its atmosphere and determines how much “stuff” there has to be between the top of the atmosphere and the ground to explain the amount of light that Curiosity measures. The phase function is important here because it tells us how much of that light is being indirectly scattered towards the rover by the clouds. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDAMOn5CRK5TITDgf6kdN9aeFetGEiRvDHytPzIDCU-7uhxmIAdXQQV6pK8IgJTgAxhb4sDZWgFx2L3wQrgQTbpNWll-Se3XMjS-Zpz5LWmNEw4IKURiXbfclv5i3VRQHMQKnXIlSLcInQ3GDR2UaMIqUAfFMFWahB_Jhhjq-Udh0CjY2rlDpkh4iGy9I/s1100/Alex+ConorD.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="623" data-original-width="1100" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDAMOn5CRK5TITDgf6kdN9aeFetGEiRvDHytPzIDCU-7uhxmIAdXQQV6pK8IgJTgAxhb4sDZWgFx2L3wQrgQTbpNWll-Se3XMjS-Zpz5LWmNEw4IKURiXbfclv5i3VRQHMQKnXIlSLcInQ3GDR2UaMIqUAfFMFWahB_Jhhjq-Udh0CjY2rlDpkh4iGy9I/s320/Alex+ConorD.png" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;">The opacity of ACB clouds has been the topic of a number of PVL papers before this one, most recently by former member Jake Kloos in 2018. That paper covered the first two Mars Years of measurements. When we began writing this paper, we had just passed five Mars Years at Gale, so we were very much due for an update! We had initially hoped that this would be a fairly straightforward paper to put together. Because our model had already been well-established in our previous papers, we thought it would just be a matter of running the new data through the old model. Unfortunately, once we did so, the results pretty obviously made no sense. As previously noted, the ACB doesn’t change much from one year to the next, so we’d expect that the opacities would stay pretty much the same from year-to-year. Instead, the opacities output by our model for the new data were all over the place! They were neither consistent with each other nor with the old data, so we had to go hunting for a reason why.<br /><br />It didn’t take much digging to find the cause. When we plotted the opacities as a function of each measurement’s distance from the Sun on the sky, there was a sharp increase as we got closer to the Sun. There’s no physical reason why clouds near the Sun should be thicker than those elsewhere, so our model was clearly breaking down in this area. The culprit, as it turned out, was the phase function. All of our previous opacity papers had assumed that the phase function was flat, taking on a single value of 1/15 at all angles. The results from the phase function sky survey have shown that this is very much not the case near the Sun, where the value of the phase function rapidly increases. <br /><br />By assuming that the cloud opacities shouldn’t change very much over the ACB season, we were able to derive another phase function for ACB clouds, one that is reasonably similar to the one found using the phase function sky survey (which is good since we're all looking at the same clouds using the same cameras on the same rover!). After adding this new phase function into our opacity model, we were finally able to take a proper look at how ACB opacities have changed over five Mars Years.<br /><br />In short, much like the phase function itself, they don’t really change at all, which makes sense given the consistency of the ACB between years. Notably, these new results invalidated one of the findings of Jake’s 2018 paper: that ACB clouds in the morning tend to be thicker than those in the afternoon. Although thicker clouds do appear more frequently in the morning in our new data, it doesn’t seem that this is the case generally. In fact, we found that observations in the morning tend to be taken closer to the Sun than those in the afternoon, which was artificially increasing their opacity values when using a flat phase function. Why didn't Jake include this in his paper? Without access to as much data as we have now, he simply didn't know that martian clouds behaved this way! (no one did) Therefore, while it can feel a little awkward calling out a former labmate’s paper as incomplete, science ultimately moves forward through incremental methodological improvements. <br /><br />Just for fun, we also compared our opacity measurements with those taken by two cameras orbiting Mars: the MARs Colour Imager (MARCI) onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and the Emirates Exploration Imager (EXI) onboard the Emirates Mars Mission (EMM) Hope probe. Our methods did feel a little cyclical (assume the opacities don’t change much to derive a phase function, then use that phase function to conclude that the opacities don’t change much), so if we can match our ground-based measurements with those taken from orbit, we can have more confidence in our results.<br /><br />Happily, the agreement between the MSL and MARCI/EXI measurements ended up being excellent, matching almost exactly with a few differences that can generally be explained by regional dust storm events that aren’t accounted for in the orbital data’s models. Thus, we can confidently say that our results reflect reality and probably aren’t a consequence of any assumptions that we made. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>And don't forget to check out the papers themselves, available open-access at <br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Hayes et al. (2024) <br /><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad2202">Five Mars Years of Cloud Observations at Gale Crater: Opacities, Variability, and Ice Crystal Habits</a><br />&<br />Innanen et al. (2024)<br /><a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad2990">Three
Years of ACB Phase Function Observations from the Mars Science
Laboratory: Interannual and Diurnal Variability and Constraints on Ice
Crystal Habit</a></i></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-65727446168926513932024-01-19T07:43:00.000-08:002024-01-19T07:43:49.525-08:00The Crunch<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oKEbB49MM7IkIvn0P0WZDtv0v_SfjPF-ILj10kOLCFU8H-FuKSj0pA1ng4CxP4F1eZezMFG2aNIqv-Ye4aD3o3awnJa1tEbel_VcUQhPT5uLutKHibXvqBJIC6-THMu8M3iY6JVoecRO5OwP4haOXGeSZeUly3GJtuo9DgzhCnQreV3cuOgogjh0kxA/s1430/KAxelrod_Jan2024A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1078" data-original-width="1430" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0oKEbB49MM7IkIvn0P0WZDtv0v_SfjPF-ILj10kOLCFU8H-FuKSj0pA1ng4CxP4F1eZezMFG2aNIqv-Ye4aD3o3awnJa1tEbel_VcUQhPT5uLutKHibXvqBJIC6-THMu8M3iY6JVoecRO5OwP4haOXGeSZeUly3GJtuo9DgzhCnQreV3cuOgogjh0kxA/w400-h301/KAxelrod_Jan2024A.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><i><br /></i><div style="text-align: center;"><i>There comes a point when working on any large project when you can run into roadblocks or motivation can flag. This is almost guaranteed with something as long and as challenging as a PhD. Indeed, statistics suggest that <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/the-phd-is-in-need-of-revision/#latest_data">in Canada about a quarter of science and engineering PhD students do not complete their degrees</a> within 9 years </i><i>(as of 2013)</i><i>. Sometimes, the greatest challenge can arise just before the end in "The Crunch" to finish, as Dr. Kevin Axelrod, our new Postdoctoral Fellow attests in this week's very personal post below. But if you find yourself in this situation, don't loose hope! As the saying goes, it's often darkest just before the dawn. </i><br /><br /><i>(Photo above courtesy of Dr. Axelrod: "The view from the roof of the main building of the Desert Research Institute. I spent a lot of time up here over five years, all four seasons. It’s that nice.")</i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Dr. Kevin Axelrod</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, it’s been a pretty crazy 12 months. In January of 2023 (one calendar year before this blog is being posted), I was lying on the couch for two straight weeks in my shared house in Reno, Nevada, recovering from leg surgery, high on hydrocodone, and needing my housemates to get food from the kitchen for me (thanks, Heather and Brie). Not appearing in the lab at the Desert Research Institute for two full weeks, I still had not completed the experimentation for my second publication of my Ph.D. research at the University of Nevada at Reno. I still did not have a set date for when I would defend my dissertation and graduate from school, and quite frankly I did not yet know where my life was going. And, believe it or not, I had never heard of York University. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I had spent the last year and a half worrying about where my research was headed and how it was going to help me take the next step in life after graduation (if I even graduated). At this point, I was supposed to be in “the crunch” - the last year of a Ph.D. tenure in which a student is supposed to devote their life, body, mind, spirit, overall being, consciousness, life-force, qi, etc. to their research and nothing else. Instead, for two weeks, I watched <i>Clarkson’s Farm</i> on Amazon Prime (not sponsored, by the way) while eating chocolate pudding. Not exactly the demeanor of someone who had spent the last 4.5 years of their life in graduate school and was now supposed to be in the crunch. Of course, I could not walk and thus could not come into lab to work on my experiments, and I struggled to write anything because most of the time, I could not even sit up. I felt stuck – I was seriously questioning whether I could graduate in August of 2023, which was a date delayed from a previous goal of May 2023, which was a date delayed from my original goal of December 2022 that I laid out in my prospectus defense. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">This was just 12 months ago. And now, I am writing a blog for the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory, supervised by Dr. John Moores, at YorkU in Ontario. Back in January, I would not have guessed that I would be here now. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, this blog is not about how cool my Ph.D. research is, a summary of an important meeting or event, or a case study of a planetary atmosphere. This blog is about Ph.D. students in “the crunch”, who are anxious, unsure of their future, feeling consistently unprepared or inadequate, and always being very busy while still feeling like they get nothing done. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Hopefully, that is not the case for most Ph.D. students who read this. Hopefully, most Ph.D. students are constantly ecstatic about their research, enjoying all the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that they had dreamed about since childhood when they first watched <i>Bill Nye the Science Guy</i> or <i>Mythbusters</i>. That was not me, however, and I know I am not the only one. I had been working on this one singular project (bioaerosol chemistry, and more specifically pollen chemistry) for 4.5 years, and though it came with a lot of intrigue and enjoyment, I had also made many mistakes, suffered setbacks, and was disappointed with what I viewed to be a low level of progress. As a result, I was feeling very stressed and burned out – I just wanted to finally complete it and move onto new things.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">After I got to the point where I could walk again, I returned to the lab with a new motivation - to get my life together. And that involved two tasks: finishing my research on the volatility of bioaerosol constituents in the atmosphere, and also looking past my Ph.D. and finding a place where I could continue my passion for scientific research on a new project which would allow me to expand my knowledge further. And I ended up finding such an opportunity with the PVL via a flyer that Dr. Moores posted on the American Geophysical Union website’s career listings. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Upon my first interview with Dr. Moores, I knew right away that I wanted to join the lab – I was completely overwhelmed when he extended the offer to join. I accepted. It would be an exciting change of pace - a new project on the development of a functioning methane spectrometer for the Martian atmosphere (and so far, it has been a very exciting change of pace). But, in March 2023 when I first interviewed, in the back (and front) of my head was a lingering doubt – would I actually be able to finish my Ph.D. research in time to move to Toronto and start research at YorkU in September 2023?</p><p style="text-align: justify;">One thing was for certain – the pressure was on like never before. Pressure not just to produce manuscripts, but to start a new chapter in life. To self-improve, if you will. In my opinion, that was the subject of my dissertation writing, even though self-improvement is never mentioned in it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">And, for the most part, that pressure was good for me. It made me more focused and motivated towards my bioaerosol research. And as my leg improved, so did the state of my dissertation. By the end of March, I completed the experimentation for my second publication and was busy writing the manuscript for it, while simultaneously taking care of in-lab work for my third research chapter in my dissertation. By May, I had finished the writing of the publication and was wrapping up the in-lab research. And by July 10, I was holding my dissertation defense.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Granted, the defense was far from perfect (almost nothing ever is in academia). The night before was my most disturbed night of “sleep” ever. The morning of, I woke up at 4:30 AM and was instantly wide awake – something that had only happened one other time in my life, which was the morning of my prospectus defense two years earlier. I held off on coffee that morning because it would have had no effect. My jitteriness was already at a maximum due to the nervous energy surging through me. <br />I was in a state of extreme anxiety. But, I took solace in the fact that I had given the past year, “the crunch”, my best effort – motivated by my desire to make it to my postdoctoral fellowship. And if my best effort was not enough, then oh well. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The defense was an absolute fever dream – I don’t even remember most of it. But it went well, and after two and a half hours I walked out of the presentation room with the blessings of my committee. After living in Reno for five years, I was finally going to start a new chapter in life. Provided, of course, that I take care of a few other things before I left, such as updating some of my writing and attempting to gather some results via a secondary analysis of some of my aerosol samples because one of my previous experiments failed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But before any of that, I had another immediate task: attending my first in-person conference as a graduate student (no thanks to you, COVID), at the International Conference for Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere (ICCPA) in Berkeley, California. After my defense, my next task was to drive for four hours (on two hours of sleep) to California. Though I was driving at night and did not arrive at the conference hotel until 2AM, it was one of the most euphoric drives of my life. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The next day, I finally got to enjoy an in-person conference, as a reward for passing the defense. It was a great time – I presented a poster on my research, sat in on an absurd number of exciting platform presentation sessions, met several new people and research groups, and certainly did not skimp on the catered wine. By all estimates, it was one of the most enjoyable excursions of my time as a graduate student.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And one month later, I stuffed all my belongings into my sedan and left Reno, driving them back to my parents’ house before jumping onto a plane two weeks later. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I will miss Reno. I will miss the incredible natural landscapes around Lake Tahoe. I will miss the excitement that I had back when I first moved there in 2018 as a grad student, realizing that I was about to take part in cutting-edge research for the first time. And I will also miss a lot of the time I spent in lab over those 5 years. I am forever grateful that I had a great advisor, a great program director, and great co-researchers and classmates, without all of whom I would not have graduated. I will forever cherish the research topics that I was able to take part in while at the Desert Research Institute. But there were certainly things that I will not miss: the many times that I made mistakes in my experimentation, the many re-do’s that needed to be done, the eternal frustration of trial and error, followed by finally obtaining a set of results that I thought were interesting enough to be published (and then writing about them for several months), only to have the manuscript murdered by some very truculent reviewers. This cycle of frustration made it feel like I was stagnating – that I was not moving forward in research or in life. It made bioaerosol research, a topic that I intrinsically enjoy, into something that stressed me out. It’s the part of the scientific method that they do not show on <i>Mythbusters</i>. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, to any current Ph.D. student who feels the same way right now, I would say: try to think about what you want to do after your graduation, even though it can be difficult to think about. A visualization of your “next chapter” will get you over the hump. Scientific research has both excitement and disappointment. A Ph.D. may sometimes seem like it has more disappointment than excitement. But after completion, you will feel just like the <i>Mythbusters </i>right after they blow something up: total ecstasy. And that feeling will fuel my motivation for further research here at YorkU - hopefully I can keep it going for a while. <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-76724802891219487182023-11-29T07:36:00.000-08:002023-11-29T07:36:40.424-08:00The Center of the Universe – My Experience Interning at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1R193BqRn9Qw4MTLsy5NBKEHnbj6fZ78UzTc8YMcb53ejXMfcV4s_TGgKsCu_UthCUsq3YXNb-cNvJ-cAXnEhODkxtKdgHG87eLQWBKsaPJfHpAIrD0piSk2KQctmvMVMXqi6oIRCaMoXLOp2kItX-dX5Rl9u9PQ9-Bo1BzHUpQcRvnpmn1plCL4_l1Q/s1906/BlogPicture.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1140" data-original-width="1906" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1R193BqRn9Qw4MTLsy5NBKEHnbj6fZ78UzTc8YMcb53ejXMfcV4s_TGgKsCu_UthCUsq3YXNb-cNvJ-cAXnEhODkxtKdgHG87eLQWBKsaPJfHpAIrD0piSk2KQctmvMVMXqi6oIRCaMoXLOp2kItX-dX5Rl9u9PQ9-Bo1BzHUpQcRvnpmn1plCL4_l1Q/w400-h239/BlogPicture.png" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>We often encounter kids in our outreach work who can't wait to be astronauts when they grow up. Somehow this didn't have the same pull for me. Instead, I was mesmerized by the robotic spacecraft exploring the distant reaches of the solar system. One facility came up over and over again in watching documentary after documentary on PBS about those probes: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It was a thrill to visit while I was in graduate school. I still don't think I'm completely recovered from having a badge and a parking pass during the 90-sol prime mission of MSL while I was a postdoc!! Because of that, it's always a joy when one of our own here at PVL gets to experience this place for themselves. First there was Raymond, then Emily and, later on, Brittney. Recently, one of our PhD students, Grace Bischof (pictured above), had the opportunity to spend the winter working projects on-lab. She relates her experience below.<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Grace Bischof </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In late 2020, I submitted a scientific proposal to the Technologies for Exo-Planetary Science (TEPS) program, with hopes of becoming a TEPS trainee. Upon a successful application, I was able browse through a list of TEPS collaborators with whom I could carry out a four-month long internship (assuming they accepted my inquiry to work with them). There was quite an appealing list of places to intern with – from national collaborators at Canadian universities and within industry, to international collaborators in institutions as far as Japan. There was one collaborator, however, that immediately jumped out of the page for me: Michael Mischna, who is a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I had seen Michael’s name previously through a former PVL member – Brittney Cooper – who carried out an internship at JPL a couple years before I had arrived in the lab, and whose internship project with Michael inspired the bulk of my master’s thesis. Not only that, but as a member of the Mars Science Laboratory team since 2020, JPL was a place of legends to me, as JPL is the section of NASA that manages planetary robotic missions including the Curiosity rover. The idea of working there myself was something of a dream. In the summer of 2021, John reached out to Michael on my behalf to inquire if there was a place for me to carry out my internship with him, and luckily there was! Not only would I have the opportunity of working with Michael, but I would also be working with Leslie Tamppari, who had been project scientist on the Phoenix mission. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">After a year’s worth of delays due to the lingering pandemic, in January 2023, I packed two giant suitcases and flew down to Pasadena, California to start my adventure. After hopping off the plane at LAX (haha!), I was immediately greeted to views of the San Gabriel mountains, palm trees, and warm weather. I made my way to the house I was renting with four strangers, which luckily was not an internet scam, and spent the first couple of days unpacking and settling into my new home. </p><p></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30fKTRfT4KQRuJt0NS845XHF6yqQB3h55FkiEHBswA8UWs0Trox7RJYimrld1rPImrY5bgvBul9t6DSmOQydHZ1JOgXM2P_BQFfQTv2pSCfN-at7S0o_2trw6JCSmpl66anOvBgFipO301NGyJh5lSjSXFLvphIQmLhVUCNoXos7ML4-8903b2bcejus/s678/GB_29Nov23A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="626" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj30fKTRfT4KQRuJt0NS845XHF6yqQB3h55FkiEHBswA8UWs0Trox7RJYimrld1rPImrY5bgvBul9t6DSmOQydHZ1JOgXM2P_BQFfQTv2pSCfN-at7S0o_2trw6JCSmpl66anOvBgFipO301NGyJh5lSjSXFLvphIQmLhVUCNoXos7ML4-8903b2bcejus/s320/GB_29Nov23A.jpg" width="295" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>(The first picture I took upon arrival in Pasadena. I couldn’t get over the palm trees.)</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Although I had somehow found myself in LA during SoCal’s rainiest winter in a couple decades, nothing could rain on my parade that first day at JPL. Even the 5:30 am wake up call to ensure I was on-time for the first day’s onboarding activities felt exciting. I can clearly remember sitting on the LA city-bus as it approached the JPL gates and feeling awe at the opportunity ahead of me. The first day was spent filling in forms, giving my fingerprints, and taking a photo for my new JPL badge. Afterward, I met with Leslie and Michael to discuss the work I would be completing over the next few months, and then I was given a tour of the 168-acre lab by Michael. At JPL, you often need to have your walking shoes on to get from building to building.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Now, I should probably mention the actual science I did while I was at JPL before returning to the fun stuff. The plan was to work on two projects: the first was polishing some work I did in my master’s, using a radiative transfer model to determine the water-ice opacities at the Phoenix mission landing site. The second was to use the Mars Weather, Research, and Forecasting (MarsWRF) general circulation model to simulate the atmospheres of planets around stars with different stellar type, with future plans to expand this work to investigate the effect this would have on land-ocean distribution.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As science so often goes, the first project encountered many issues. A bug was found in the radiative transfer model which resulted in spending much of my time compiling and re-compiling, running and rerunning the model to determine the source of the issue. The MarsWRF work, however, went much more smoothly. I first spent a couple weeks becoming comfortable using the model. MarsWRF is a giant model, with many moving parts. I was set up with a NASA Supercomputing account so that I could run the model with relative quickness (often, this still took hours to days). Once I had the hang of using the model, I ran some cases simulating the ancient Martian environment to send to a team at Rice University who would use the inputs I provided for a Paleo-Mars lake model. Then, I got to work on the stellar-type investigation. I learned how to make changes to the source code of the model (which could be quite a task – altering several files to ensure that all the correct inputs were feeding into the correct scripts). Once I edited MarsWRF such that the user can define the temperature of the star they wish to simulate around, I ran the model for a Mars-like planet with a thin atmosphere around F-, G-, K-, and M-type stars. From this, we determined that, for the atmosphere that was set up, hotter stars will have more shortwave flux reach the surface of such a planet. This work was the first step in understanding exoplanet atmospheres around different stellar type and will eventually be applied more widely to understand the habitability of exoplanets based on star-type. Working on these projects with Leslie and Michael was such a delight, as they were incredibly supportive during this work.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Not only was the work I was doing at JPL extremely cool, but also the lab itself is one of the most incredible places to work. I was fortunate enough to have an office in the Science building (yes, there was big sign atop the front door reading Science). Although the office was very small and windowless, it got the job done, and I had two great office-mates. There was also ample seating around lab when I was craving a change of scenery. Sometimes I would work in the main cafeteria to be around the buzz of people conversing over their morning coffee, but my favourite place to work was the JPL mall. The mall is a big open area near the front of lab, which had plenty of tables set out to work or eat lunch outside in the fresh air. Working all day on the mall was how I managed to get a sunburn in February – a phenomenon I am not used to during Februarys in Canada. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">At JPL, cool things are happening all the time. In the main cleanroom, High Bay 1, they were assembling the Europa Clipper spacecraft when I was there. How amazing it was to look upon the brilliant people putting together a spacecraft that will one day be orbiting the moon of another planet so far out in the solar system. As cool as it is, this was one of the buildings I was only able to access if I brought an American with me. As a foreign national, there were several areas of lab that were off limits without an American escort – they take security very seriously at JPL. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJkZ6DtXFW43G1C1AIjnkQAU7cqR_TXtoKe6YFkjYnXifszk1E3c5V7otRwbfXoxaJftTisGx1CdK7mwIyKgDi4yrDEKA00xEt758deMYB_AudDR8Q_wpBwjbpQH0ZtJfA2YmCrg4Htkbw5xyM941pXPxuCOkdbp4jfN2TPXpYBhb4O-GaBhrxhTiW86c/s1206/GB_29Nov23B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="1206" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJkZ6DtXFW43G1C1AIjnkQAU7cqR_TXtoKe6YFkjYnXifszk1E3c5V7otRwbfXoxaJftTisGx1CdK7mwIyKgDi4yrDEKA00xEt758deMYB_AudDR8Q_wpBwjbpQH0ZtJfA2YmCrg4Htkbw5xyM941pXPxuCOkdbp4jfN2TPXpYBhb4O-GaBhrxhTiW86c/s320/GB_29Nov23B.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>The main cleanroom where the Europa Clipper Spacecraft was being assembled. If you look closely, you can see the workers in their bunny suits. Don’t be fooled by the worker at the front left of the picture – that’s a mannequin known as High Bay Bob, who is often moved around to appear to be carrying out various tasks. Currently, Europa Clipper has been removed from the cleanroom for testing, but a livestream of the cleanroom can typically be found on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKDA6smS9_k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKDA6smS9_k</a></i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">One of the most memorable days for me was when I was able to visit the Mars Yard to watch the Perseverance Rover’s twin, OPTIMISM (Operational Perseverance Twin for Integration of Mechanisms and Instruments Sent to Mars) out into the yard completing some mobility testing. The Mars Yard is a big, sandy yard that is used to mimic the terrain of Mars. Here, OPTIMISM and MAGGIE (Mars Automated Giant Gizmo for Integrated Engineering – also known as Curiosity’s twin), are brought out for a multitude of testing purposes, including mobility and instrument testing, sample collection, or testing new autonomous algorithms. This day, I was also able to go into the garage to see MAGGIE, which was so incredible after working with the Curiosity rover for the past 3 years. <br /></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7luAlg3IeJ15oSm1SByBXndf2-kUui6hldcTtGecPWQvAurEQNKgEIv0PVcN1gdJDk4P0lrUz4YkO3Ivv0yNVssoXuIloAUuINvBQW1WET36S_FVOzdgX7ieibOMxxi_X4PSlfcKUHnGlXL4GkdpTp_Jlu7cUGqSEoanY3x-u6fRnWlZHxcRoSpaowyk/s687/GB_29Nov23C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="687" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7luAlg3IeJ15oSm1SByBXndf2-kUui6hldcTtGecPWQvAurEQNKgEIv0PVcN1gdJDk4P0lrUz4YkO3Ivv0yNVssoXuIloAUuINvBQW1WET36S_FVOzdgX7ieibOMxxi_X4PSlfcKUHnGlXL4GkdpTp_Jlu7cUGqSEoanY3x-u6fRnWlZHxcRoSpaowyk/s320/GB_29Nov23C.jpg" width="320" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid6u64ll5_Ps6VBhEuof9P2WQ53-RFo-A_P5wffKQst3PZO54AyGM3Ca_6WKk9i4Zun_YqLvb1HOfcLREECKzgTz6RngZofy4x502-1JZzz6w0j6xkuGsKNcCBoZY4I7D_QPTMQlf5vL_A1VjUXyMgumsbcgr8jJEcdi3-4tv1i1AuVcpvfK2tzkNh7Ks/s696/GB_29Nov23D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="525" data-original-width="696" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid6u64ll5_Ps6VBhEuof9P2WQ53-RFo-A_P5wffKQst3PZO54AyGM3Ca_6WKk9i4Zun_YqLvb1HOfcLREECKzgTz6RngZofy4x502-1JZzz6w0j6xkuGsKNcCBoZY4I7D_QPTMQlf5vL_A1VjUXyMgumsbcgr8jJEcdi3-4tv1i1AuVcpvfK2tzkNh7Ks/s320/GB_29Nov23D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>(Top: Outside in the Mars Yard with OPTIMISM as it completes mobility testing. Bottom: Inside the garage with MAGGIE)</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Now, why is the blogpost titled, “The Center of the Universe”? Well, within the Space Flight Operations Facility on lab is the Mission Control Center. Here is where the data from the Deep Space Network antennas in Canberra (Australia), Goldstone (California), and Madrid (Spain) are managed. These giant dishes talk to the spacecraft that are currently exploring the solar system (and beyond for the Voyagers), and that communication is all funneled through the mission control room at JPL. This is also the room from which spacecraft, such as the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, were landed on the surface of Mars. The story goes that former-JPL director, Charles Elachi, upon thinking about how all the information from the solar system comes into this room once said, “This must be the center of the universe!" There is now a big plaque in the floor in this room declaring it as the Center of the Universe. The JPL mission control center has someone within it, monitoring data around the clock to ensure there are no issues. In fact, since Southern California is so Earthquake-prone, Space Flight Operation Facility was built to be Earthquake-proof to protect the precious control center inside. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtzT49UujGpFux1_qfO1fVv56-w7VVElp_YGNxSEAyyMHvXCnMv14-RpcNP5xKz8jnNFwOgxbDyrDLfCo6MiHjo_FTUFUbzYsNyppYusIy93CEKyLRl0AGztS6XOrseifop0diUtt8gAtRb1mveOAsocelQI7EQkKTFSNz348BoLfDqnXX6MiFKXppk_o/s745/GB_29Nov23E.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="559" data-original-width="745" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtzT49UujGpFux1_qfO1fVv56-w7VVElp_YGNxSEAyyMHvXCnMv14-RpcNP5xKz8jnNFwOgxbDyrDLfCo6MiHjo_FTUFUbzYsNyppYusIy93CEKyLRl0AGztS6XOrseifop0diUtt8gAtRb1mveOAsocelQI7EQkKTFSNz348BoLfDqnXX6MiFKXppk_o/s320/GB_29Nov23E.jpg" width="320" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfgBvz62o3NVjivVlpCE_hQIWYNHx23Ha9vfPILFQGfpq4YMhMp8YzsCCgRnZo7CPM8pzfb4wLAVDTf8aB87XuO_f_87tOKxvjHqQDydkNosNvwZMzkfgKzy_gfbW1t2hFqMxKj-7eLKqV5ho23XU2SxwPKhffa-ybuLQCiTcACgvnP0JlzOJ1p1cX2c/s562/GB_29Nov23F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="424" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbfgBvz62o3NVjivVlpCE_hQIWYNHx23Ha9vfPILFQGfpq4YMhMp8YzsCCgRnZo7CPM8pzfb4wLAVDTf8aB87XuO_f_87tOKxvjHqQDydkNosNvwZMzkfgKzy_gfbW1t2hFqMxKj-7eLKqV5ho23XU2SxwPKhffa-ybuLQCiTcACgvnP0JlzOJ1p1cX2c/s320/GB_29Nov23F.jpg" width="241" /></a></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>(Top: The Mission Control Center, where you can watch the DSN dishes communicating with spacecraft all over the solar system and beyond. Bottom: There is a superstition at JPL that peanuts must be passed around to ensure that launches and landings are successful, dating back to the 1960s. The lucky peanuts were eaten for Curiosity and Perseverance’s landings, among many others)</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">From my first day, the other interns who I met were incredibly kind and open. The JPL researchers and staff were all supportive and encouraging. I was lucky to experience only friendly and inviting people. The interns I met came to JPL from all over the world – Singapore, Australia, Italy, and Iceland, to name only a few – and were all open to having the most fulfilling experience at JPL, and in Southern California, as possible. I felt satisfied with not only the work I was doing at JPL, but also felt enriched by the experiences and memories I was making with my fellow colleagues. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVTG3iAc2qj05pDPZ9DN1Af8G2vxQ95hh_c77J4sLxkLqaavi4xNM0XkDjx05pAiG5Af2e1oMPV30SCnqTlQsibXvhSlww5jclJjR7m4902r819lHAD9K_00CnxgOluzQguo8G5WRIE_2MWs67Ove1V0KNKNrDo1qUZVxNH9yDSYRr8UwCNU2LacLvV4/s788/GB_29Nov23G.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="446" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUVTG3iAc2qj05pDPZ9DN1Af8G2vxQ95hh_c77J4sLxkLqaavi4xNM0XkDjx05pAiG5Af2e1oMPV30SCnqTlQsibXvhSlww5jclJjR7m4902r819lHAD9K_00CnxgOluzQguo8G5WRIE_2MWs67Ove1V0KNKNrDo1qUZVxNH9yDSYRr8UwCNU2LacLvV4/s320/GB_29Nov23G.jpg" width="181" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHJs842Ujo3CaE1R5UIyRHUIJddYzLzTfVdB-J1hXHBWPhxAJLXfyszKy_e6lrjmroTbcnVxFHdiS8IKmZzazsLMQmsD7W61iTgesDn43rHRCPI9dg5Xy7iy6BRDnKYJ7KKOBRujcYXxvl7K6hBSX40Q205PMNZI6QuilnDc3odvYqAyAXwgy1Iej3fk/s788/GB_29Nov23H.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="592" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLHJs842Ujo3CaE1R5UIyRHUIJddYzLzTfVdB-J1hXHBWPhxAJLXfyszKy_e6lrjmroTbcnVxFHdiS8IKmZzazsLMQmsD7W61iTgesDn43rHRCPI9dg5Xy7iy6BRDnKYJ7KKOBRujcYXxvl7K6hBSX40Q205PMNZI6QuilnDc3odvYqAyAXwgy1Iej3fk/s320/GB_29Nov23H.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Top: A hike up Echo Mountain trail which begins just north of Pasadena. This hike was organized by the Australian interns who had heard there was snow at the top of the hike. By the time we got there, one singular patch of snow about 0.25 square meters in size remained. They still made a few snowballs out of it to throw. Bottom: The view of the sunset from Joshua Tree National. My first time in the desert! We spent two nights camping in Joshua Tree, filling the days with hiking and rock-climbing (which I observed from the ground….). </i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The month of May came quicker than I could’ve imagined, and soon I was flying back to Toronto to continue my PhD back at York. While it was great to be back seeing my family, friends, and pets, my experience at JPL is one I will cherish forever. I feel incredibly grateful to have spent four months at such an amazing place, working with people who have such a hunger to explore what is out there in the universe. I will take the lessons I learned there with me through the rest of my degree – and hey, maybe in 2.5-years’ time when I’ve graduated with my PhD, JPL will have not seen the last of me (wink, wink, someone hire me!!). <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-1266095997332469872023-10-08T17:57:00.007-07:002023-10-08T17:57:55.512-07:00Two Weeks in Killarney<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2XY5TAzQEKSbWXxw1ARIBEpqQ4A-8c3DSEikdWYpt83zO0iq2n_-GnS4OiUqOT-6Pza_-vmop6OS3pojsgXjk-qcQRFlosC-fm_lRffz99ik6SCj1mJ4CV8JOaa1I9bq2CrfQelHXJ1ghJbZoQCbhpRZ6-PfDCZ8gZXZpiYMYkt58v8nXI_oLTCdpgo/s1540/Cover_CH.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1158" data-original-width="1540" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK2XY5TAzQEKSbWXxw1ARIBEpqQ4A-8c3DSEikdWYpt83zO0iq2n_-GnS4OiUqOT-6Pza_-vmop6OS3pojsgXjk-qcQRFlosC-fm_lRffz99ik6SCj1mJ4CV8JOaa1I9bq2CrfQelHXJ1ghJbZoQCbhpRZ6-PfDCZ8gZXZpiYMYkt58v8nXI_oLTCdpgo/s320/Cover_CH.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Outreach is a key component of what we do at the PVL. So when PhD student Conor got the chance to serve as the Astronomer in Residence in Killarney Provincial Park they jumped at the opportunity. <br />Above: The Sun setting over the Killarney Provincial Park observatory.</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Conor Hayes</i><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Earlier this summer, I spent two weeks at Killarney Provincial Park, located four hours north of Toronto, as part of the Astronomer in Residence (AIR) program run by the York Observatory. The AIR program is very new, having started just last year. I had considered applying last year, but ultimately decided against it given that I was very busy writing up my Master’s thesis at the time. With that not being a concern this summer, I submitted an application to the program that was successfully approved. I had originally planned to head up to Killarney at the beginning of the summer, but that plan was foiled by me catching COVID for the second time three days before I had planned to leave. Although I felt normal by the time I was supposed to start, we decided to delay my term as AIR out of an abundance of caution.<br /><br />My actual responsibilities as the AIR were not very heavy. Over the two week period, I was expected to help the park staff run six events: two public talks, two solar observing sessions, and two nighttime observing sessions. This schedule meant that I had a lot of free time to explore the park and the town of Killarney itself, which is about a 15 minute drive from the park. I got a lot of hiking in, which is something that I haven’t been able to do much of since moving to Toronto in 2020. The trails in the park were a bit more challenging than those I was used to, as they involved a lot of climbing up and down steep rock formations. The challenge was always worth it though, as I’d get stunning views of the surrounding area, including Georgian Bay and the La Cloche Mountains.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxeCSn3mraCfO-xzFw5ITrMQEVFPVq7x261jXRFn32yRdRhPei0-it85WV3gJvP2owdK7FwSORMqnS602CGPMQ_FXCWFklDSe81ghdVjukvR-7X5TWSq54PfNSCSmNFYf24J6Em7V4jYB0EsLOh8121VZdI3XPiIY8LHhR6ko_-FlWs38Qt3Goir47f4/s1600/Figure%201_CH.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMxeCSn3mraCfO-xzFw5ITrMQEVFPVq7x261jXRFn32yRdRhPei0-it85WV3gJvP2owdK7FwSORMqnS602CGPMQ_FXCWFklDSe81ghdVjukvR-7X5TWSq54PfNSCSmNFYf24J6Em7V4jYB0EsLOh8121VZdI3XPiIY8LHhR6ko_-FlWs38Qt3Goir47f4/s320/Figure%201_CH.jpeg" width="320" /></a></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>[Figure 1: Looking out over Georgian Bay from the Chikanishing Trail.]</i><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Heading into the program, I was expecting that the public talks would be the most straightforward part of my time there, since I’ve given several in the three years that I’ve been here at York. The observing sessions were a little more intimidating because I haven’t done much visual astronomy recently and I wasn’t certain how well I’d be able to talk about the sky itself and point people around at interesting objects that they can see just by looking up. Instead, it very much ended up being the opposite. <br /><br />Part of the reason for the difference between my expectations and reality may have been the fact that this was the first time (other than my Master’s defence) that I was giving talks in-person, rather than online. The mood of the audience can really make or break your confidence, and I was really challenged during my first talk (on our Curiosity cloud observation campaign) by the fact that it began at 8 PM, well after the Sun had set. This meant that I couldn’t actually see the audience at all, so it felt like I was just speaking into a void. The second talk, about the history of the search for lunar water, was almost derailed by a thunderous downpour that broke open the skies about five minutes after I started, but we gathered everyone under the roof of the amphitheatre stage, which turned it into a more intimate classroom-style presentation rather than a public talk given to a large space full of people.<br /><br />The observing sessions were very different than the public talks. Obviously I did point out things on the sky like various constellations as well as Jupiter and Saturn, but they were more of an opportunity for people to ask me questions about whatever astronomy-related topics they were interested in. I had been expecting this, but I will admit that I was a little worried that three years of focusing on a very small and specific set of subjects for my Master’s and the first year of my PhD had degraded my general astronomy knowledge. However, this didn’t seem to be the case, and the several hours I spent both weeks talking to visitors about any astronomy-related topics that they had on their minds were honestly probably the best parts of my AIR tenure.<br /><br />While I did enjoy all of my interactions with the visitors and park staff, the real reason why the AIR program is hosted in Killarney is that it is a certified dark sky site, far away from any major population centres (something that you become acutely aware of when you realize that the nearest large grocery store is an hour away in Sudbury). Although I had been to some fairly dark sites (e.g. the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia), I had never seen the night sky look like it did in Killarney. The familiar constellations, which are about all you can really see in Toronto, were drowned out by the sheer number of other stars. On several occasions, I just had to lie down on the ground and stare up at the Milky Way stretching itself across the sky. One thing that really surprised me was the number of satellites I could see during the night. In Toronto, it’s easy to see the ISS, but you’ll never really see any more than that. In Killarney, I would see one steadily marching across the sky about once every ten minutes for an hour or so after sunset. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirt3nytKHwP1bBgUuQVgkqcOfyPFO8_vCgj3fj9bI_55TYjBm4bgqxS2jP_SzhatvUDDMLdQ-qK7YvIGzx1-KMd8GPAiBwop74_RERwt0OyQYY8y95r77wUhblI1R7uJJtDbuQp1adk1Fsi_9qoAtdJ3Ch6CSjF-BOy5yp_nPM0fb84vx4y6MWRApCWo/s1600/Figure%202_CH.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1182" data-original-width="1600" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgirt3nytKHwP1bBgUuQVgkqcOfyPFO8_vCgj3fj9bI_55TYjBm4bgqxS2jP_SzhatvUDDMLdQ-qK7YvIGzx1-KMd8GPAiBwop74_RERwt0OyQYY8y95r77wUhblI1R7uJJtDbuQp1adk1Fsi_9qoAtdJ3Ch6CSjF-BOy5yp_nPM0fb84vx4y6MWRApCWo/s320/Figure%202_CH.png" width="320" /></a></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>[Figure 2: Close-ups of the Moon as seen through the Killarney 16-inch telescope, named Kchi Waasa Debaabing, Anishinaabemowin for “Seeing very far (as the eye can see).”</i><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">At night, when I wasn’t either staring up at the sky in awe or holding public observing sessions, I was engaging in astrophotography using the on-site 16-inch telescope. The weather during my time as AIR was phenomenal with only two nights clouded out, so I was out at the observatory every night, often until 2 or 3 AM. I came in with exactly zero astrophotography experience other than occasionally taking a photo with my phone’s camera through a telescope’s eyepiece. With 6+ hours of practice almost every night for two weeks (plus more than a few phone calls with Bruce Waters, the father of the AIR program), I improved quite dramatically, as can be seen below.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoSs5OzOeanF60Vl03r-yYdFa9LSepLopJUhIywWHbAYddoJSayD09WqcxFmcsaLnq-Dmapp7HZCOUu1Ksiy3RW43DPP-HPjOfR-oF4E4Jl_ChyphenhyphengzI3hQDoV-Sq7ZBIHngmETsiFxud0FEb9Y1ugA-xGUkVqcwJ4EICdMAhUhrIgawzyNB3-pzGOjLxc/s2156/Figure%203_CH.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1222" data-original-width="2156" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEoSs5OzOeanF60Vl03r-yYdFa9LSepLopJUhIywWHbAYddoJSayD09WqcxFmcsaLnq-Dmapp7HZCOUu1Ksiy3RW43DPP-HPjOfR-oF4E4Jl_ChyphenhyphengzI3hQDoV-Sq7ZBIHngmETsiFxud0FEb9Y1ugA-xGUkVqcwJ4EICdMAhUhrIgawzyNB3-pzGOjLxc/s320/Figure%203_CH.png" width="320" /></a></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>[Figure 3: Top row – views of Saturn and Jupiter at the start of my time in Killarney. Bottom row – Saturn and Jupiter again, now with two weeks of astrophotography practice.]</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Having been back in Toronto for about a month now, there are some conveniences that I definitely missed up in Killarney, like cheap(er) groceries that I can walk to and cell service that’s better than a single bar of 3G connectivities. However, the sky here now looks depressingly bright and empty at night. If the AIR program continues into its third year, I will almost certainly be headed back to Killarney in the summer of 2024.<br /><br />If you want to see more of the photos I took in Killarney, check out the AIR blog at <a href="https://www.yorku.ca/science/observatory/air/astronomer-in-residence-blog/">https://www.yorku.ca/science/observatory/air/astronomer-in-residence-blog/</a></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-43572535823415086412023-07-05T18:39:00.000-07:002023-07-05T18:39:23.492-07:00Completing an Internship at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQ0eCFDUn5Hcj2Q46426zLYtYY0I-di71Fg6FaSsJTrj6eij1eU2hmqJlZdqTaoFoTEkp5-_1daRNVi6QVS4M0rYF67jYWWIfW1aEBp3XlGYQPgYQthcBJEWNe-27Gm5yC8dr78OWACsTd6dEz3xZk6-UQNRYlWGCX9HSGO_W_B_jTJNkWTkjDWia-0k/s1556/CSA_Title.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1556" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVQ0eCFDUn5Hcj2Q46426zLYtYY0I-di71Fg6FaSsJTrj6eij1eU2hmqJlZdqTaoFoTEkp5-_1daRNVi6QVS4M0rYF67jYWWIfW1aEBp3XlGYQPgYQthcBJEWNe-27Gm5yC8dr78OWACsTd6dEz3xZk6-UQNRYlWGCX9HSGO_W_B_jTJNkWTkjDWia-0k/w400-h308/CSA_Title.png" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Last fall and into the winter term, PVL PhD student Charissa Campbell completed an internship with the Canadian Space Agency. Internships with industry, other academic labs and government are a key part of life at the PVL, giving graduate students the opportunity to get to know career paths close up during their studies. <br />(Above: CSA headquarters in St-Hubert, QC with the Agency's new logo in the top-left corner)</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Charissa Campbell</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">From September 2022 until April 2023, I was completing an internship at the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on top of my grad studies. Being a part of the Technologies for ExoPlanetary Science (TEPS) NSERC CREATE gave me the opportunity to do an internship in another (or similar) area of space exploration. This could be with another researcher or with a company such as MDA who created the Canadarm that is on the International Space Station. However, one area of expertise in space missions that I was particularly interested to learn more about was how the government prepares for a mission through their space agency. Luckily, we were able to find someone at the CSA who connected me with someone who could teach me these skills. <br /><br />Based on my experience with the Curiosity rover and surface missions, I was added to the team working on the Lunar rover. Even though my expertise is with Mars, it was great to learn on the differences between Mars and the Moon. One big change is that the Lunar rover will be at the south pole, while Curiosity is at Mars’ equator, so solar lighting is extremely different than what I’m used to. This lighting is not unlike what you would find on Earth if you were to travel far up north. There are even some parts of the year that do not see the Sun for several months. However, if you are at the equator then the amount of sunlight throughout the year is very consistent. When planning for a rover at the pole, knowing how the sun lights up your workspace is very important for understanding power conditions. <br /><br />There are several objectives for the rover, but the main one is to find water-ice on the Moon. Water has been thought to be in Permanently Shadow Regions (PSRs) on the Moon due to the little-to-no sunlight these regions receive. Having water directly on the Moon would significantly help future crewed missions as not only do we need water to live, but the Hydrogen in water could be used as a source of energy for rockets launched from the Lunar surface. Knowing that finding water-ice is the main objective of the rover, 6 payloads will be added. Five will be Canadian and the other will be provided by NASA. Canadensys Aerospace Corporation was selected as the Canadian company to build the rover and develop the Canadian payloads. These payloads include:<br /><br /><span> </span>1) Lunar Hydrogen Autonomous Neutron Spectrometer will detect Hydrogen to help indicate if water-ice is nearby.<br /><span> </span>2) Frozen Regolith Observation and Science Tools (FROST) imaging suite contains three specific payloads:<br /><span> </span><span> </span>i. Lyman-Alpha Imager will identify surface water-ice by investigating lunar surface sunlight reflectance.<br /><span> </span><span> </span>ii. Multi-Spectral Imager will identify minerals in the lunar soil<br /><span> </span><span> </span>iii. Multi-Spectral Imager Macro is similar to (ii) but with much higher resolution<br /><span> </span>3) Radiation Micro-Dosimeter will measure the amount of radiation at the surface to help determine the safety for future human crewmembers on the Moon. <br /><br />Even though the launch isn’t till 2026 at the earliest, it is amazing to see Canadian technology and knowledge being developed for scientific missions. It will be the first time that Canada will send something to the Moon. The announcement for the Canadian rover can be seen here: <a href="https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/moon-exploration/first-canadian-rover-to-explore-the-moon.asp">https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronomy/moon-exploration/first-canadian-rover-to-explore-the-moon.asp</a><br /><br />Overall, I really enjoyed the internship and learned a lot that could help my future career prospects. For the first four months of my internship, I dedicated my entire time to the CSA and moved to Montreal to attend my internship in-person. Many interns were still virtual, but I wanted to fully experience what it was like working at an agency. This includes getting my own cubicle (with my name!) and my own badge that I had to scan multiple times to reach my office. The opportunity to do this in-person was too hard to pass up, even though it was relatively hard on my family as my husband and 2-year old son stayed back in Ontario. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7CwKxoESJLPSyGDGFTLtwKSqAcCRr0v1Co3tznRblMcUpthR7EkIl37NrJOnMUWVZ-L3_CtCO5XGCfSGJfTtX4N0-DxW6aHlLXaWN4mRNm6XA_DW7xh4gsqH6PcgTjYanQbC0V-_Xew-ddl94QT-C6f1BXrjlAeez_0NWZPSKUt9vKwceCMKKFG09YnQ/s1650/CSA_1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1120" data-original-width="1650" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7CwKxoESJLPSyGDGFTLtwKSqAcCRr0v1Co3tznRblMcUpthR7EkIl37NrJOnMUWVZ-L3_CtCO5XGCfSGJfTtX4N0-DxW6aHlLXaWN4mRNm6XA_DW7xh4gsqH6PcgTjYanQbC0V-_Xew-ddl94QT-C6f1BXrjlAeez_0NWZPSKUt9vKwceCMKKFG09YnQ/w400-h271/CSA_1.png" width="400" /></a> <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">However, the CSA was extremely generous and allowed me to work-from-home every second Friday so that I could take the VIA train back home for that weekend to see my husband/son. I loved taking the train back/forth between Oshawa and Montreal and learned it was a great way to get some extra work done on the 4-hour one-way trip. At one point, my husband came down to Montreal with Arthur so he could see where Mommy was working for the past few months. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">One perk of working in-person at the CSA is the extensive library. They have a variety of books and offer weekly colloquium sessions. This was my son’s favourite part as he got to read and play with their space shuttles while I completed a meeting. Even though I did love being in-person and really getting to network (including meeting astronauts!) I decided to do the last four months part-time and virtual so that I could be home with my family and work on finishing up my PhD. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbLey_Nzz9JnL7_aHijTnGyymolZ7FiDbDeKXmRWQEFqm1Jako-vftMvauCSF-udn1WXln4sd5GrYOGIOGNOSNAtGLc7vpsd0DOVQRalXVM7v3hEPF_mOE_UCIv2F2Yd3I3HI1-pRaHVu4l8U04vbR_jrIX7acBaeB_LLxXPx_nV4fCVP3fjBS5MnE9w/s1182/CSA_Arty.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1182" data-original-width="786" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIbLey_Nzz9JnL7_aHijTnGyymolZ7FiDbDeKXmRWQEFqm1Jako-vftMvauCSF-udn1WXln4sd5GrYOGIOGNOSNAtGLc7vpsd0DOVQRalXVM7v3hEPF_mOE_UCIv2F2Yd3I3HI1-pRaHVu4l8U04vbR_jrIX7acBaeB_LLxXPx_nV4fCVP3fjBS5MnE9w/w266-h400/CSA_Arty.png" width="266" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">Now that my time at the CSA is complete, I feel very happy with my decision to pursue this type of internship so that I could understand the finer details about how a mission goes from its early stages to being developed. It is rather a unique experience and I would recommend that if you are interested in an internship with the CSA to check out this webpage: <a href="https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/jobs/internships-and-student-jobs.asp">https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/jobs/internships-and-student-jobs.asp</a>. I look forward to watching the news in 2026 (or later) on the Canadian Lunar rover and its success on investigating water-ice at the Moon’s southern pole. </p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-4106549666718848562023-04-28T12:14:00.000-07:002023-04-28T12:14:10.900-07:00Coffee Cupping for the Novice<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsYNpL7MxUlhCddPyXI0U8kjpUfwFFo47V_Un6SAUSokU4dT1BKQx5fYcq75DruHFHBINUeMT0IVd0rHkbpDdZ-9Av4YEU0lr-6G5PaWm-yAZ7H-12kHJQOhstJKlicMgbVCMshTJ70JshWMbiyczfesUhpAKXWb4ehI5pwO3WRYZuTp9K7in2g5y/s4000/IMG_20230413_160050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="3000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXsYNpL7MxUlhCddPyXI0U8kjpUfwFFo47V_Un6SAUSokU4dT1BKQx5fYcq75DruHFHBINUeMT0IVd0rHkbpDdZ-9Av4YEU0lr-6G5PaWm-yAZ7H-12kHJQOhstJKlicMgbVCMshTJ70JshWMbiyczfesUhpAKXWb4ehI5pwO3WRYZuTp9K7in2g5y/s320/IMG_20230413_160050.jpg" width="240" /></a></i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Ahh, coffee! It's practically a religion in science. Cups often fuel a late night working on a proposal or finishing a paper. Carafes are never far at research seminars and conferences. Chances are good that when you last made a new collaborator they were holding it in their hands. While some aren't picky about what they drink, others have very defined preparations and purveyors. For this week's post, PhD student Elisa Dong decided to take a deeper dive and reports back on a coffee cupping event that she recently attended. (see the bottom of the post for a description of the image above)<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Elisa Dong </i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The best description I have for the act and event that is coffee cupping, is to align it with the better known wine tasting. One sips at the drink at specific temperatures in standardized vessels, makes notes, and repeats this task to compare with another offering. Techniques vary a bit from taster to taster, but for coffee cupping, it is normal to have a shallow spoon that dips into the coffee, and suck it in quickly to aerate the liquid.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I went to my first (and to date, only) coffee cupping event some weeks back. The event details were forwarded from a friend of mine that I had introduced to pour-overs (a way to make coffee) some years ago. I reached out on my dusty instagram account (that definitely has a suspicious sounding fake name) asking to attend, and was informed that I was welcome. So, I showed up to a coffee machine distributor's workplace in the middle of the day and work week somewhere in the east end of Toronto. It took a few minutes to find my way through the building, which was partially office, partially showroom, and partially restaurant. There were maybe 25 of us, including the hosts of the event.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It became apparent very quickly that I was the only one who hadn't "cupped" before, so there was a brief explanation of the general process and what the plans for the day where. Here's what I got out of the process.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Prep:<br />- there are 14 coffees on the table in similar sized and shaped vessels<br />- each of the coffees had been ground minutes before, with the same mass and grind size</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sniff round:<br />- we went around sniffing the freshly ground coffee and agitating the grains within the cups to get a deeper sniff </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Bloom:<br />- each of the coffees was bloomed at the same temperature, and agitated with the same manner<br />- the foamy surface was removed and we were left with coffee immersing in water, settling to the bottom of the cup<br />- a water wash cup was available at each coffee to rinse off the sample spoon<br /> <br />Cupping:<br />- we did three rounds of tastings.<br />- The first was blind, shortly after the bloom (higher temperature),<br />- round two/three took place when the coffees cooled to just above room temperature,<br />- and after we were informed about what it was we were tasting (country, farm, origin, processing, extra details) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBvefrqxa-CXsPNM_pfE9BHb8cbEpNzuzuxrRcADtBYuFoZz005qrqfazsDzjIQibO0Vc-cQxU7EbJzLAclBq_WDPsfSDcrfSkCiO1n0QI7IXAnQTKyjP_Ud4gAFI5KfZ28k_F9ib7h6IymDj7MX2-G8zQ1dKLk-09ZJi93sKLnjWgNlDp7Yvh9ak/s1106/coffeecupping.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1106" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXBvefrqxa-CXsPNM_pfE9BHb8cbEpNzuzuxrRcADtBYuFoZz005qrqfazsDzjIQibO0Vc-cQxU7EbJzLAclBq_WDPsfSDcrfSkCiO1n0QI7IXAnQTKyjP_Ud4gAFI5KfZ28k_F9ib7h6IymDj7MX2-G8zQ1dKLk-09ZJi93sKLnjWgNlDp7Yvh9ak/s320/coffeecupping.png" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Figure 1. Me with a spoon. Circles show placement of coffee cups on a very long table.</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">My takes:<br />- I enjoyed samples 1-2 the most from sniffing the pre-soaked grounds, they had a "classic" coffee profile that I enjoy. Chocolatey and nutty<br />- samples 3-5 smelled like tea and were barely distinguishable from the background<br />- samples 8-14 smelled like various things, but generally fruity and floral, some more full bodied than others<br />- unsurprisingly, the chocolatey smelling coffees fell a bit flat on tasting. The complex body and richness went away in the brew<br />- sample 5 or 6 didn't remind me of cotton candy, as it did to another person, but it was bright and pungent<br />- samples 7 and 8 tasted extremely similar, one more rounded out than the other in mouth feel. Both more dynamic and berry like<br />- samples 9 through 12 were all variations on florals and stone fruits, one with a strawberry kick, and another with white florals<br />- sample 13 was a more muted floral coffee<br />- our wildhorse, sample 14, was predominantly silt by the time I got to it, but it was quite possibly the most flavourful coffee that wasn't a punch of acid in the mouth<br /><br />Information (from memory):<br />- samples 1-2 were Brazilian coffees from a large scale grower. These were grown and processed with the intent of being crowd pleasers. For purchasing purposes, they were the cheapest of the lots<br />- samples 3-5 were from Rwanda (this was a surprise to many at the event). We received a brief political story discussing the origins of taking back parts of the coffee production from the government<br />- samples 6 and 7 I have forgotten the origins of, but they were coffees that had undergone various types of microbial treatment as part of someone's PhD thesis. They might have been from Ethiopia<br />- samples 8 and 9 were coffees from Mexico (another gasp) that had also received inoculation of sorts for various lengths of time<br />- samples 10-13 were Geishas (alt: Gesha) from various regions in the world. Floral and fruity indeed. I confirmed I didn't see the hype, though I could see the appeal drinking in the range of coffee from time to time<br />- sample 13 was sourced from Taiwan. The most expensive cup there due to the lack of desire to sell outside of the country<br />- sample 14 was a guest brought coffee, allegedly from some producer that only sells to one roaster per country, and said roaster has to fly in to pick up the coffee (in Canada, it's Monogram). Regrettably, I cannot remember what farm it was (Elida perhaps, I'm sure someone can correct me)</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I highly recommend giving cupping a go! Whether it's for coffee or for something else. Having two cups of liquid brewed under similar conditions and throughout cooling is a fun way to train the palate and perhaps your appreciation for various tasting notes. I, for one, am still on the hunt for the perfect chocolate/nutty/toffee combo that actually tastes like it smells. One day. I left the event only slightly caffeinated and with a list of shops to check out to reduce disappointment in the Toronto coffee scene. We also pulled shots of an experimental espresso that tasted like battery acid + mango. Good stuff. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I also found that some of the individuals there shared similar hobbies and had the same complaints about coffee. Spontaneously attending free events that sound fun is not as difficult as I thought it would be, though it does seem that they are mostly run through social media.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Shout-out to Stealth Coffee Systems and Forward Coffee for running the tasting! And all the nice roasters/buyers/hobbyists that were real friendly and happy to share their thoughts. For a future blog post, I might dig up an ancient report I made on coffee shops and their Yelp rating validity throughout San Francisco that I submitted as my work term report that year. A more detailed version of this post may be available later on my own blog at abstract-ED.me.</p><p>___<br /></p><p><i>Caption for the image at the top of this article: In slightly unrelated content, I went coffee-hopping with someone I met at the event the next day. Look at this teeny tiny little Hario setup (can be seen at The Library on Dundas St.)! For scale, the carafe is less than 1 inch tall. Apparently you can buy these via gacha machine, or opened on ebay/etsy. If anyone is looking to send me gifts, you know where to go!</i><br /><br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-84893277364712572452023-04-23T15:09:00.002-07:002023-04-23T15:09:21.809-07:00James Webb Space Telescope Update<p style="text-align: center;"> <i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimidcH7P7f3l_rNP02AgOlQ2U2yHj-pgi-65J_yUnvQQ0_jYdAOFc-kdIMNOIXeNGzCXh2_KboLXamkip6G5zl06qlTOgV4y_wqByYy95BMBeKiHvvt-NWeO9ge8ZrSvqPQfpUjkef61NfAc9j6fiTW88HshWuH1KIKBo39r4WoF-kEINo176mk179/s1200/JWST-galaxies-ba2f7b8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimidcH7P7f3l_rNP02AgOlQ2U2yHj-pgi-65J_yUnvQQ0_jYdAOFc-kdIMNOIXeNGzCXh2_KboLXamkip6G5zl06qlTOgV4y_wqByYy95BMBeKiHvvt-NWeO9ge8ZrSvqPQfpUjkef61NfAc9j6fiTW88HshWuH1KIKBo39r4WoF-kEINo176mk179/w400-h266/JWST-galaxies-ba2f7b8.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The James Webb Space Telescope is able to view the universe in a truly new light. Below, MSc student Madeline Walters takes a look at some of the recent discoveries this new observatory has made. Image above: <i>https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/25/2022/01/JWST-galaxies-ba2f7b8.jpg <br /></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Madeline Walters </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It’s been a while since my last Webb update, but since then the space telescope has been busy! To kick off 2023, NASA released a statement [1] about how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was used to capture the shadows of starlight cast by the thin rings of Chariklo, an ice small body located around 2 billion miles away from the orbit of Saturn. As the JWST observed Chariklo passing in front of a background star, the expected obstruction of that star's light occurred- a phenomenon called occultation- which allowed for the observation of a spectrum of the body’s surface. This showed evidence of crystalline water ice, which was previously only a guess from ground-based observations. <br /> <br />However, what surprised astronomers was that the starlight dipped twice rapidly before Chariklo passed in front of it, and then twice again as Chariklo moved away. These rapid dips in light were caused by the two thin rings of Chariklo - the first to ever be detected around such a small body. Since Chariklo is so small and far away, the JWST isn’t able to directly image the rings, but with occultation and the JWST’s heightened sensitivity, there is a hope that the composition of the rings may be isolated from the main body, allowing for further study. <br /> <br />Along with being able to get a closer look at smaller and more distant bodies with higher precision, the JWST has been showing us other things at higher resolutions than before. Take for example the side by side comparison of the ‘Pillars of Creation’ photos taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and JWST:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69VmBDEQDKztXkmoHWnrUKQWiH3EhSCW2HY1M297Q5hG-BwCBU-y2vjXhTTncmu8OzKGj7MZamP_LLDdue7R-pLfmePMNEN_EVQWwl2AftpOzx6lnKBBJjfQaQRTXeV2eP_SozDg18-9Eeja536Tmf1DU7zbzRFyUyQsYOtykkjwxrfG1SJuyOc_D/s936/MWalters_2023MarchA.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="936" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi69VmBDEQDKztXkmoHWnrUKQWiH3EhSCW2HY1M297Q5hG-BwCBU-y2vjXhTTncmu8OzKGj7MZamP_LLDdue7R-pLfmePMNEN_EVQWwl2AftpOzx6lnKBBJjfQaQRTXeV2eP_SozDg18-9Eeja536Tmf1DU7zbzRFyUyQsYOtykkjwxrfG1SJuyOc_D/w400-h225/MWalters_2023MarchA.png" width="400" /></a></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Image caption: A side by side comparison of the Pillars of Creation taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (left), and the JWST (right). Each image shows the same region taken in different wavelength ranges. The Hubble image is taken in the visible light range with different colors representing different molecules, while the JWST image is taken in the near-infrared range, allowing us to peer through the dust. (<a href="https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01GF44F9Y10HZB8SPV2NZ8H6TZ.png">https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01GF44F9Y10HZB8SPV2NZ8H6TZ.png</a>)</i><br /></p>On the left we have the Hubble image. This incredible and iconic image of towering cosmic dust in the heart of the Eagle Nebula shows us the primary components of what makes up these pillars [2]. Different gasses are represented by different colors here to allow us to visualize it better: blue is oxygen, red is sulfur, and green is both nitrogen and hydrogen. While the colors aren’t what we would see in real life, the structure is similar, since this is taken in the visible light wavelength range. <br /><br />Now compare that to the image on the right of the same location taken by the JWST. Why is this different? It’s not just because the JWST has larger mirrors-it also comes down to the wavelength range between Hubble and JWST. Hubble observes in the ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared ranges, while JWST observes in the near and mid-infrared range. This allows the JWST to pierce through obstructing dust and gas that shows up in the visible range, and show a view of the pillars we aren’t as familiar with, but isn’t any less stunning. More images reveal this difference between Hubble and JWST, such as these images of the Southern Ring Nebula, with Hubble on the left and JWST on the right:<br /> <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xr6vpTUTYyHMCMK1MH4sLLIjL85MMk9Xfhoy7nTjfev6bLu4HvkVXd3XMlJ7GKA_By2TMwIyjc3IkDfJbD7LP-GjlxF8KNTyYXgouc1XJFAzf5DL5fHoG8OODIb_aumXi7EBSpiIhoGRUxnAxeCZ1cyY9_WHxt7OnOn-jT-aIzBTWlnaMmddF1gY/s628/MWalters_2023MarchB.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="624" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6xr6vpTUTYyHMCMK1MH4sLLIjL85MMk9Xfhoy7nTjfev6bLu4HvkVXd3XMlJ7GKA_By2TMwIyjc3IkDfJbD7LP-GjlxF8KNTyYXgouc1XJFAzf5DL5fHoG8OODIb_aumXi7EBSpiIhoGRUxnAxeCZ1cyY9_WHxt7OnOn-jT-aIzBTWlnaMmddF1gY/w398-h400/MWalters_2023MarchB.png" width="398" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;">Image caption: A comparison of the Southern Ring Nebula (NGC 3132) taken by Hubble (left) and the JWST (right)Each is taken in different wavelength ranges with different colors representing different gases, showing varying level of detail of the region. (<a href="https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01EVVFSTZYZJJKAB41KA6AJ0HQ.png">https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01EVVFSTZYZJJKAB41KA6AJ0HQ.png</a>; <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/main_image_stellar_death_s_ring_miri_nircam_sidebyside-5mb.jpg">https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width_feature/public/thumbnails/image/main_image_stellar_death_s_ring_miri_nircam_sidebyside-5mb.jpg</a>)<br /></p>With the JWST, we can see in higher detail the rings of gas and dust thrown out by a dying star that we previously could not see in the Hubble image. Hubble has taught us some amazing things about the universe, but with the JWST, we can shed new light (in longer wavelengths) on objects in space previously unseen. Even just a few days ago, the JWST detected a dust storm raging on an exoplanet about 40 light years away [3]. The more we’re able to see, and the further back in time we are able to peer, the more we can learn about the universe and our place in it.<br /><br />[1] <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2023/01/25/webb-spies-chariklo-ring-system-with-high-precision-technique/">https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2023/01/25/webb-spies-chariklo-ring-system-with-high-precision-technique/</a><br /><br />[2] <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation">https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-pillars-of-creation</a><br /><br />[3] <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/journal/2041-8205?ref=arete-news&gclid=CjwKCAjwq-WgBhBMEiwAzKSH6G3MZX0fVT4xiQAZiYp6FHDyyBnDjxBMEKkGTBhh9LqFhI-whELVTRoCczQQAvD_BwE">https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2023/news-2023-105</a>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-362801793624786892023-02-10T11:59:00.000-08:002023-02-10T11:59:01.498-08:00The Next Generation of New Frontiers Exploration<div style="text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_8AGx59x5OoVk9qEJRdAKMS5mUxNJqQKSeMPyrQdaG3jIgZAsRpSLNVcTt9wF3OzplA5pT2ptyHUAcyoUEcwxXAy__gwSiY-PHuDiMCQSV3ltamB5kLFyiCOGn_u4_o9VOgDcwZWih2GVXSkvptUrdUT4s5z3-yQokSbUbnfCcB_nJNNEXetem7Hh/s1492/NF_Missions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="1492" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_8AGx59x5OoVk9qEJRdAKMS5mUxNJqQKSeMPyrQdaG3jIgZAsRpSLNVcTt9wF3OzplA5pT2ptyHUAcyoUEcwxXAy__gwSiY-PHuDiMCQSV3ltamB5kLFyiCOGn_u4_o9VOgDcwZWih2GVXSkvptUrdUT4s5z3-yQokSbUbnfCcB_nJNNEXetem7Hh/w400-h311/NF_Missions.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>NASA has several different space mission classes for exploring our solar system. These are arranged by funding level as well as by how quickly they can respond to new science. Discovery provides the least funding but is meant to respond to discoveries that may not have even been made at this point. The medium class, New Frontiers, consists of a list of exciting destinations set out in the planetary decadal survey, the latest of which was just completed last year. The largest missions are run directly by NASA and respond to deep and meaningful science questions that cannot be addressed under the other classifications. <br />Image caption: The four members of the New Frontiers family: The New Horizons mission to Pluto and beyond, the Juno mission to Jupiter, the OSIRIS-REx mission to Bennu, and the Dragonfly mission to Titan. In the next few years, they will be joined by a fifth member that currently only exists as an idea on paper. (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI/GFSC)<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Conor Hayes</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As a planetary scientist, proposals for new missions to explore the the Solar System are understandably quite exciting to me, and I’ve recently become interested in understanding how those proposals are prepared and selected. This January, NASA released the draft Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for New Frontiers 5, the first major AO of my time as a graduate student. Although the final AO is not expected to be released until November, this is an excellent opportunity to take a look at what missions we will expect to be proposed over the next year or so.<br /><br />New Frontiers (NF) is the middle tier of NASA’s three-tier Solar System exploration program, sitting between the low-cost Discovery Program and the flagship Large Strategic Science Missions Program. As the NF5 name suggests, there have been four previous NF missions: three that are ongoing (New Horizons, Juno, and OSIRIS-REx), and one under development for launch in 2027 (Dragonfly). The mission selected in NF5 must be launch-ready by no later than the end of 2034. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The science objectives laid out in the NF5 AO can be traced back to the 2013-22 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. The Decadal Survey is a document created every ten years through a collaborative effort of the planetary science community that outlines the highest-priority goals for the next decade. These priorities inform the selection criteria at all three mission levels, depending on what is felt can be accomplished with those levels’ respective budget caps. NASA aims to release two NF AOs for each Decadal Survey but has fallen short of that cadence in recent years, hence why the NF5 AO was released after the completion of the 2023-32 Decadal Survey despite being the second NF AO of the 2013-22 Decadal Survey. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So what are the science objectives of the NF5 AO? There are six mission themes, each of which has its own list of objectives. To be selected, a mission proposal must address a “proponderance of the science objectives” listed for at least one of the themes. The AO specifies that its use of “proponderance” rather than “majority” is meant to reflect the fact that not all of the listed objectives are of equal importance. A successful proposal could target a small number of high-importance objectives or a large number of low-importance objectives.<br /><br />The mission themes are as follows, with a brief explanation of some of the key objectives:</p><p><br /><b>Comet Surface Sample Return</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In recent years, there have been several missions to return samples from asteroids that were at least partially successful: Hayabusa (Itokawa), Hayabusa2 (Ryugu), and OSIRIS-REx (Bennu). One mission has returned samples from the coma of a comet: Stardust (Wild 2). However, there has not yet been a mission to return samples from the surface of a comet. Cometary surfaces are interesting as they are rich in volatile organic molecules that have been modified during the comet’s journey through the Solar System. It has been suggested that Earth’s organics may have been delivered through cometary impacts, providing even more motivation to return surface samples. Although some in-situ studies of cometary surfaces have been conducted remotely (most notably Rosetta at 67P), these studies have been necessarily limited by weight and cost considerations that would not be present if samples were returned to be examined in labs on Earth. Organic molecules can be fragile, so it is critical that missions in this theme are able to transport the samples to Earth without destroying the samples by subjecting them to conditions that would degrade their constituent molecules. A cometary mission should also be able to provide context information about the site the samples were extracted from.</p><p><b>Io Observer</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Io is the most volcanically-active body in the Solar System, and missions in this theme will be focused on understanding why that is the case. From my reading of the objectives, an Io Observer has the widest range of science to choose from, and it is unlikely that any proposal would be able to cover them all. Once the mission proposals are finalized, it will be interesting to compare how different proposals in this theme prioritize the science to be returned. These could include determining what fraction of Io’s mantle is molten versus solid, examining the tidal heating mechanisms that are suspected to drive the volcanism, looking for potential tectonic activity, and studying the interactions between the materials ejected from Io’s volcanos and Jupiter’s extremely strong magnetic field.<br /></p><p><b>Lunar Geophysical Network</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The goal of missions in this theme should be to examine the Moon’s interior. This could include studying its minerology and composition, as well as its interior heat flow and the distribution and origins of the radioactive isotopes that create that heat flow. To more fully understand the Moon’s interior structure, I would expect to see proposals similar to the InSight lander, which probed the interior of Mars through seismometry. Although the Moon, like Mars, is geologically dead, it experiences Moonquakes like the Marsquakes measured by InSight. The most interesting part of this theme (at least to me) is the “network” in its name. Although none of the science objectives explicitly require it, the name suggests the deployment of several spacecraft across the Moon’s surface conducting coordinated observations. With multiple stations in place, such a system would not face the same kinds of challenges that InSight did operating as a solo seismometer. </p><p><b>Lunar South Pole-Aiken Basin Sample Return</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The South Pole-Aiken Basin is one of the largest impact structures in the Solar System, measuring approximately 2,500 km across and 6-8 km deep. It is also the oldest known lunar basin, having formed less than 500 million years after the Moon itself. Consequently, there is interest in understanding its geology as doing so would contribute to our knowledge of the processes that formed the inner Solar System by constraining the specific timing of the Late Heavy Bombardment. Key objectives include providing in-situ validation of remote sensing data, determining the sources of the radioactive isotopes that contribute to the Moon’s internal heat, and comparing the properties of basaltic rock samples returned from the basin with those returned by the Apollo and Luna missions. In addition to returning samples to Earth, a mission in this theme should also provide geologic documentation of the sampling site. <br /></p><p><b>Ocean Worlds (Enceladus)</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Although Jupiter’s moon Europa loves to take all of the media attention for its potential subsurface ocean, it is not the only moon that may be hiding liquid water beneath its thick, icy crust. Saturn’s moon Enceladus is particularly interesting due to the presence of over 100 geysers near its south pole that spray massive plumes of water vapor and other volatiles at velocities sufficient to escape Enceladus’ gravitational influence and enter orbit around Saturn. Exploration of these plumes is a priority because they provide us with an opportunity to examine the contents of the potential subsurface ocean without having to drill through the crust. The goals of such a mission would be to determine if the ocean is potentially habitable and, if it is, whether or not life currently exists within it.<br /></p><p> <b>Saturn Probe</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Although Cassini orbited Saturn for over 13 years, it did not include an atmospheric entry probe to perform in-situ measurements of the Saturnian atmosphere like Galileo did at Jupiter. A Saturn probe mission would rectify this by launching at least one probe into the atmosphere with the goal of studying both its physical structure and its elemental composition.</p><p><br />~~~~<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Is there one mission theme that is more likely to succeed than any of the others? At this point, it’s difficult to say, given that no missions have been proposed. Although it may be my own bias as someone who studies the Moon speaking, I would guess that either of the lunar missions might have a slight leg up over the other themes, just considering the fact that you can do a lot more science by sending $900M to the Moon rather than the outer Solar System. The target date for proposal submission is currently April 2024, with initial Step-1 selections announced by the end of 2024, so the shape of the playing field will become much clearer over the next year.<br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-1440328972178956942023-01-23T11:23:00.000-08:002023-01-23T11:23:05.845-08:00My Summer Trip to MARS<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfSULPaI-BduIZHJQd5ATf62fxcBKnUBw98as7stJ5JUdwMVeaJ3ZD4xQ6wqblogq0ZXdH0q77Zmh90sKeJDnPlzFIJgs2VCWV31gn7bHX-sLxO058cMgMSfEMWjsMyMu-hQKuj2gpkkivar4ihtIPNnPznjeSAUmROSztzC3GNJjYTroIhh9SdZt/s1430/AInnanenJan2023A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1430" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfSULPaI-BduIZHJQd5ATf62fxcBKnUBw98as7stJ5JUdwMVeaJ3ZD4xQ6wqblogq0ZXdH0q77Zmh90sKeJDnPlzFIJgs2VCWV31gn7bHX-sLxO058cMgMSfEMWjsMyMu-hQKuj2gpkkivar4ihtIPNnPznjeSAUmROSztzC3GNJjYTroIhh9SdZt/w400-h268/AInnanenJan2023A.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>This past summer, PVL PhD student Alex Innanen traveled up to the high arctic (on an expedition led by Prof. Haley Sapers) to test an instrument called MAGE which may someday fly to Mars. Ironically, the name of the research base at which they were stationed is itself named MARS! Given the harsh conditions, the name is perhaps merited and many space agencies use this area to test out technologies they hope to use in exploration activities. (Image above: MARS as seen from up on Gypsum Hill. You can see the edge of Colour Lake below, and Wolf Mountain rising above the ridge, with Crown Glacier beside it.)</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Alex Innanen</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">As part of my PhD work, I have been working with an instrument called MAGE (the Mars Atmospheric Gas Evolution experiment), which is intended to study trace gases in the martian atmosphere (including methane). The instrument is an off-axis spectrometer, which I won’t get into detail about here, but it is able to measure very small amounts of and changes in methane and other trace gases.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In July, I was lucky enough to be able to take a version of the instrument up to Nunavut for testing – specifically to Umingmat Nunaat (ᐅᒥᖕᒪᑦ ᓄᓈᑦ), or Axel Heiberg Island, where the McGill Arctic Research Station (MARS) is located. MARS is at 79° N and change, which is not quite as far north as you can go in Canada but is pretty darn close. There were three of us going up: myself, Haley, and Calvin, a grad student from CalTech. Up north, we were joined by two grad students from McGill, whose group was then amalgamated with ours.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The reason for going so far away to test the instrument is because of two sites near MARS that are potential martian analogues – Lost Hammer and Gypsum Hill. Both are hypersaline (very salty) cold springs, which are home to methane seeps. The polar desert also has lots of polygonal terrain, which is formed from the freeze-thaw cycle in the ground and has also been seen on Mars. Polygonal terrain can also show interesting methane dynamics, with the troughs acting as a source of methane and the centre of the polygon acting as a sink. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFeoKOC2ca_6Jfb85fkD70c1gxkNjsTjGwVi_Ye_Ky5cOkCbcDA9YtBk1JgO47GCtc9mC6UluXZIVc7LglFJuA-9iqjL4RwjTCa0we7ji-onub_0E5RyqyTplJM-d0jb5A6Lq17_f_0TMz904WUb0zWdvOt1R67IJqAOo62bsiuQphPhBCH6e2CN2U/s670/AInnanenJan2023B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="670" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFeoKOC2ca_6Jfb85fkD70c1gxkNjsTjGwVi_Ye_Ky5cOkCbcDA9YtBk1JgO47GCtc9mC6UluXZIVc7LglFJuA-9iqjL4RwjTCa0we7ji-onub_0E5RyqyTplJM-d0jb5A6Lq17_f_0TMz904WUb0zWdvOt1R67IJqAOo62bsiuQphPhBCH6e2CN2U/w400-h343/AInnanenJan2023B.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Polygonal terrain on Umingmat Nunaat seen from the air. </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But before we could get to taking measurements and making sure the instrument worked in such a remote location, we had to get there. The first leg of our journey was from Toronto to Ottawa, from where our flight would leave. We spent a couple days in Ottawa doing last minute shopping and packing and repacking out many coolers and bags of equipment and food. We had to bring not only the personal things we would need for around three weeks in the north, but also all the scientific equipment for the MAGE experiment and biological sampling that would also be done, and food to last us for our time at MARS. Altogether we had nine pieces of luggage, most of which was oversized by the airline’s standards, as well as a 40-50 L backpack apiece.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">From Ottawa, we took the Canadian North airline up to Iqaluit. Iqaluit is already above the tree line and, having never been in the arctic, as soon as we set down I was blown away by the landscape, which is absolutely unlike any other place I’ve ever been. We had three hours in Iqaluit, so we left the airport to do a little looking around before it was time to get on a (smaller) plane to our next stop, <br />Mittimatalik (ᒥᑦᑎᒪᑕᓕᒃ, Pond Inlet). We had a brief stop there, then a quick hop to Ikpiarjuk (ᐃᒃᐱᐊᕐᔪᒃ, Arctic Bay), and then finally on to Qausuittuq (ᖃᐅᓱᐃᑦᑐᖅ, Resolute). This is where the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP) has a base, and from where we would be flying out to MARS. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The plan was to spend a few days at PCSP before flying to MARS. However, this plan was quickly derailed by the weather. It was a very wet year, and aside from us, many other teams had not been able to get to their field sites because of a combination of fog, thunderstorms, and, at MARS, an inability to land the small twin otter planes because the ground was too wet. Being stuck at PCSP was not the worst thing in the world. We got to meet lots of other scientists and learn about what they were up to, go for many hikes and appreciate the beautiful arctic landscape, and pack and repack and prepare for when we eventually were able to go to MARS. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52NYjtSFcKKoMiadzJmOINi_7_vvavf85qJiLA7CA8XIB_CFTDgQKBXEnCBJpqS0KKLtaZx60z-OC4IqXLvWh4I-Vgi8fNbqhDTtvHqAtJWPJU3dfLFjJ3y7cxUs3Sv8khSSRtwsm_Ta_6J-WW9FfFPTYDoD0os0KqNj2Y8EAn5WE_ol6OOCOv0yh/s413/AInnanenJan2023C.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="413" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52NYjtSFcKKoMiadzJmOINi_7_vvavf85qJiLA7CA8XIB_CFTDgQKBXEnCBJpqS0KKLtaZx60z-OC4IqXLvWh4I-Vgi8fNbqhDTtvHqAtJWPJU3dfLFjJ3y7cxUs3Sv8khSSRtwsm_Ta_6J-WW9FfFPTYDoD0os0KqNj2Y8EAn5WE_ol6OOCOv0yh/w400-h300/AInnanenJan2023C.png" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Our field team in front of the Twin Otter that took us to and from MARS. From left to right: Calvin, Haley, Louis-Jaques, Scott and Me.</i> </p><p style="text-align: justify;">On July 13, 10 days after we got to PCSP, it finally happened. The fog had finally lifted enough for us to get out, and while the ground was still too soggy to land right at MARS, we were able to land a few kilometers down Expedition Fjord. From there, us and our piles of equipment were ferried up to MARS by helicopter. The helicopters were a very special part of our time at MARS. We had originally planned to have only one helicopter day to take us to Lost Hammer, which is one Fjord south of Expedition. However due to the problems with the twin otter flights and other factors, we ended up having a helicopter at MARS nearly the entirety of our trip. Between us and another group we also had plenty of pilot hours, so we were able to make not only multiple trips to Lost Hammer but also to Crown Glacier and the much nearer Gypsum Hill springs (which are within walking distance, but when you’re bringing a bunch of equipment with you it’s nice to get a lift). <br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3-_ktbj2IeE0IVnbOHOuLQ_6_f9j7lwBqLoiUeAUBfvFsxu2Om4Bh0M_N0TxkGGm3c0w7URm73FCqw0fSPCjAAXCLcg5d8m7h0_m1sHCoWLx-Pyck9my_NI25wg5bjX9W82kb45as3y-vfAPD-bQsol7jHlI_XeSVWE5kEEpVbtVeVGVAH8IIQtYd/s894/AInnanenJan2023D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="670" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3-_ktbj2IeE0IVnbOHOuLQ_6_f9j7lwBqLoiUeAUBfvFsxu2Om4Bh0M_N0TxkGGm3c0w7URm73FCqw0fSPCjAAXCLcg5d8m7h0_m1sHCoWLx-Pyck9my_NI25wg5bjX9W82kb45as3y-vfAPD-bQsol7jHlI_XeSVWE5kEEpVbtVeVGVAH8IIQtYd/w300-h400/AInnanenJan2023D.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>MAGE near the foot of Crown Glacier.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">MARS is on one side of Gypsum Hill, overlooking Colour Lake and a view down Expedition Fjord. Once again I was absolutely blown away by the beauty, especially since when we landed the sun had peaked out of the clouds on its way around the sky. Like Qausuittuq, Umingmat Nunaat is a type of region known as a ‘polar desert’, but it didn’t seem like it. Not only was the tundra soggy from so much unseasonal rain, but it was carpeted with all kinds of artic plants – saxifrage, arctic poppies and even a kind of tree, the arctic willow, which instead of growing upwards sends its branches along the ground. As I was taking measurements with the MAGE instrument in the camp, a bee buzzed past me, and I was surprised to see something that looked like a butterfly. It was a butterfly! One of the great parts of staying somewhere with so many scientists is you get to learn about their areas of expertise, and there was an entomologist at MARS who told us all about the kinds of insects we might see. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The major goal for the MAGE instrument was to be able to bring it up to almost 80° N and turn it on – success! More success followed, and I managed to get readings at MARS, the two spring sites, the polygonal terrain near MARS and at the foot of Crown Glacier. I had a lot of fun figuring out where to put the instrument, how to best run it with its power limitations, and what might make an interesting set of readings. Not only did the instrument successfully collect data on methane abundance, but we also figured out how we might be able to improve the instrument and the data we collected. For instance, I was measuring wind direction by holding up a roll of flagging tape and seeing which way the dangling end blew. An anemometer would let us get much more detailed information about how the wind effects our methane measurements. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW3RXwxMhw0ZFvb3iVThM1M5P0ufv61q5Lhpyev6j5GXnMhOvcoglgACVppTxe7SNay_36Z0duROD0VD17nYeC08H9H2E2VFAvoIXjIzaSguO72F7zv4A0CiPawZAxjlMUOhzvSQFUnR_C3gkINC6hajhuhUN4NvF_kpZPu5WMwvT1F_ZQFNG3Undk/s894/AInnanenJan2023E.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="670" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW3RXwxMhw0ZFvb3iVThM1M5P0ufv61q5Lhpyev6j5GXnMhOvcoglgACVppTxe7SNay_36Z0duROD0VD17nYeC08H9H2E2VFAvoIXjIzaSguO72F7zv4A0CiPawZAxjlMUOhzvSQFUnR_C3gkINC6hajhuhUN4NvF_kpZPu5WMwvT1F_ZQFNG3Undk/w300-h400/AInnanenJan2023E.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>The MAGE instrument taking measurements with Lost Hammer spring in the background. The white cone-like mound is made of Gypsum, with the spring hiding inside.</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Before I left for the trip, I was extremely nervous, not only because I had never undertaken field work like this before, but also because I’d be spending nearly three weeks in one of the most remote parts of the world and had no idea what to expect. But from the moment I set foot in Nunavut I knew I’d made the right choice to go. There were still difficulties, like when it seemed like we might never make it to MARS, or getting frustrated with the limitations of the instrument, but taken altogether not only did MAGE preform admirably but doing fieldwork helped me discover and strengthen skills I didn’t know I had. I’m so grateful to have had this experience. <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-32291492163016642202022-12-06T12:44:00.003-08:002022-12-06T12:44:32.974-08:00Hitching a Ride to the Moon (and Beyond!)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOW7SeAD2EGLU5_6l7JaMjZgXXW3fFLjTrxtRQWSLJsOzOOazWCGj4Oc6V0EVayDKWkU17oT3osQ6zqaPdROhLDXMG2Q6L4ajn2xKiEoPExAfPoGuIcT8h8GSYD9R04r7mxe_6kzXtkXS-E_-eRLesXIzW-ZFiYB8cbxfK_OSSz7BVjkwizQq_k_Nz/s1280/ARTEMIS-1_(CUBESATS).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOW7SeAD2EGLU5_6l7JaMjZgXXW3fFLjTrxtRQWSLJsOzOOazWCGj4Oc6V0EVayDKWkU17oT3osQ6zqaPdROhLDXMG2Q6L4ajn2xKiEoPExAfPoGuIcT8h8GSYD9R04r7mxe_6kzXtkXS-E_-eRLesXIzW-ZFiYB8cbxfK_OSSz7BVjkwizQq_k_Nz/w400-h266/ARTEMIS-1_(CUBESATS).jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i> Above, a series of ten 6-U cubesats can be seen attached to the ring which interfaces between the top of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the payload fairing. It's not unusual these days for spacecraft to use extra mass allowances for these sorts of ride-along launches. It would be very difficult to arrange a special launch just for those spacecraft, so these larger launches provide a vehicle to considerably increase the science return from a space launch and to provide access to (deep) space to others. Here at PVL, we're very excited about the coming small-space era in Planetary Science!<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Conor Hayes</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The launch of Artemis I on November 16, 2022 was a highly-publicized event, and for good reason. It has been 50 years since the last time we left the Moon, and although the first crewed landing of the Artemis program is not expected to take place until 2025, Artemis I is still an exciting step towards our return to the Moon.<br /><br />Much less well-advertised was the fact that the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle was not the only spacecraft riding the SLS rocket to space that night. Accompanying Orion were ten CubeSat microsatellites. The CubeSat standard was established in 1999 and has primarily been used for technology demonstrations and other missions whose higher risks make larger, more expensive satellites challenging to justify. Of course, this means that CubeSats are almost never launched on their own, instead needing to hitch a ride along with some other mission.<br /><br />The ten CubeSats launched along with Artemis I were all in a 6U configuration, meaning that they each consisted of six CubeSat “units” joined together. A CubeSat unit is a box approximately ten centimetres along each edge with a mass of no more than two kilograms. This extremely small volume means that CubeSats have a very limited ability to propel themselves, so they are typically launched along with a mission that has the same target object. In the case for the Artemis CubeSats, this means that five of the ten microsatellites are aiming for the Moon as well.<br /><br />So, what were the ten CubeSats that Artemis I carried into space?<br /><br /><u><b>ArgoMoon</b></u><br />ArgoMoon is a collaboration between the Italian Space Agency and Argotec, an Italian aerospace engineering company. Its primary mission is to take images of the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage – where all of the CubeSats are stored – and to confirm that the other CubeSats successfully deploy. This mission will demonstrate the ability to use a microsatellite to autonomously inspect and maneuver around another spacecraft. Once deployment of the other CubeSats is complete, ArgoMoon will test the resiliency of its communications equipment in the harsh radiation environment outside of Earth’s magnetic field.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>BioSentinel</b></u><br />The BioSentinel CubeSat mission was created by NASA Ames to examine the effects on DNA of long-term exposure to the deep space radiation environment. This is critically important information to have as we prepare for extended missions to the Moon and Mars so that we can develop methods of mitigating DNA damage to reduce the likelihood of astronauts developing various cancers and other threats to their health. BioSentinel will use two different strains of yeast as an analogue for human cells. The health of the yeast cells during the 18 month mission will be assessed by monitoring their growth and metabolic activity and comparing it to the radiation doses measured by sensors onboard the spacecraft. The results will then be compared to three identical copies of the BioSentinel experiment, one of which will be exposed to the low Earth orbit radiation environment onboard the International Space Station.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>CuSP</b></u><br />The CubeSat for Solar Particles (CuSP) is a technology demonstration mission developed by the Southwest Research Institute. It contains three science instruments designed to count the number of energetic particles ejected by the Sun, as well as to measure the strength and direction of the interplanetary solar magnetic field. If all goes well, CuSP could justify the creation of a fleet of similar small satellites positioned throughout the Solar System to form a space weather monitoring system. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>EQUULEUS</b></u><br />The EQUilibriUm Lunar-Earth point 6U Spacecraft (EQUULEUS) is one of two Artemis CubeSats provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Despite its small size, much science has been packed into it. EQUULEUS carries three science instruments as well as an experimental propulsion system. Two of the instruments are designed to detect the presence of dust and micro-asteroids in the space between Earth and the Moon, while the third will characterize the near-Earth plasma environment. Rather than traditional rocket fuel-powered propulsion, EQUULEUS will use water thrusters to propel itself into a halo orbit at the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrangian point and to fly-by any micro-asteroids that it discovers.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>LunaH-Map</b></u><br />The Lunar Polar Hydrogen Mapper (LunaH-Map) was provided by Arizona State University to map water ice at the Moon’s poles. It will use a neutron spectrometer to measure the flux of high-energy neutrons leaving the lunar surface. These neutrons are suppressed by the presence of hydrogen atoms, so areas where LunaH-Map measures fewer neutrons are likely enhanced in hydrogen-bearing molecules like water. This mission will build on results from the Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), building higher-resolution maps thanks to its lower-altitude orbit (5 km for LunaH-Map versus 20 km for LRO). Unfortunately, the satellite experienced a problem with its propulsion system shortly after deployment, meaning that it was unable to insert itself into lunar orbit. However, there are still several months left to diagnose the problem before its current trajectory will make the mission unrecoverable. If the LunaH-Map is able to diagnose and fix the problem and get the spacecraft into orbit, the mission is planned to last for 96 days, after which it will be launched into a polar crater. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>Lunar IceCube</b></u><br />As its name suggests, Lunar IceCube is another mission to search for ice on the Moon, developed by Morehead State University in collaboration with the Busek Company, the Catholic University of America, and NASA Goddard. It will hunt for water ice and other volatile molecules at the Moon’s poles from a 100 km orbit using an infrared spectrometer. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>LunIR</b></u><br />LunIR (formerly known as SkyFire), designed by Lockheed Martin Space, is another lunar mapping mission. Its primary mission objective is to test a low-cost thermal imager that could be used to characterize future landing sites on the Moon and Mars. It will also test the use of an electrospray thruster, in which electrically-charged liquid is expelled to provide thrust, for small orbital adjustments. The LunIR team have not provided updates on the spacecraft’s status post-launch, so it is currently unclear whether or not it is operating as expected. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>NEA Scout</b></u><br />The Near-Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout) is a NASA mission that will use a solar sail to propel itself to 2020 GE, a near-Earth asteroid approximately 18 metres across. Because it is extremely difficult to identify and track objects of this size, not much is known about them, leaving a critical gap in planetary protection plans. This mission carries a single instrument – a camera that will be used to take high-resolution imagery of 2020 GE. Unfortunately, NEA Scout failed to make contact with the Deep Space Network after deployment, so the team is currently attempting to recover the spacecraft.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>OMOTENASHI</b></u><br />The Outstanding MOon exploration TEchnologies demonstrated by NAno Semi-Hard Impactor (OMOTENASHI; some very creative acronym work!) is the second of JAXA’s contributions to the Artemis I CubeSat collection. It was designed to be a semi-hard lunar lander, using a combination of rockets and airbags to impact the lunar surface at 20–30 m/s. It would then use an onboard radiation detector to study the radiation environment at the surface. Shortly after deployment, communication with OMOTENASHI was lost. After five days of recovery efforts, the team concluded that the spacecraft’s solar panels had failed to find the Sun, leading to an unrecoverable shutdown of the spacecraft following battery depletion.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /><u><b>Team Miles</b></u><br />The final of the ten CubeSats is Team Miles, a technology demonstration mission by Fluid and Reason, LLC. Team Miles was developed to test new propulsion and communications technologies. It will fly past the Moon towards Mars, with a goal to travel at least four million km and possibly up to 96 million km.<br />These will certainly not be the last CubeSats launched towards the Moon as we enter the Artemis era of lunar exploration. Indeed, there are already three more prepared for launch that just missed the Artemis I integration deadline: Cislunar Explorers, Earth Escape Explorer, and Lunar Flashlight. Although they may not nearly be as flashy as larger missions like the main Artemis flights, the proliferation of microsatellites has provided excellent opportunities for groups with less available funding to get good science done without having to compete for space onboard a more expensive mission, making off-Earth research more accessible for everyone. <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-61789241955155212562022-11-20T14:23:00.000-08:002022-11-20T14:23:12.035-08:00What’s going on with methane on Mars?<p style="text-align: center;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGGD2HEQjc5olebQVkiN2LzR1FVNCavh5a2EEzW0WFnkbSGSaSAHrrxa9oyRGTFo39gYX09Sf8bS1kBXC3510_9WWKIBEfp13bOnChNFvAn2UfAjHbgWRXD9k2jIdc-3r3dkLbGH3JTOPGtt6WwJBz6u5-SB9yfLEezSVRzOPYz83EADRI-2P06gV/s1600/6037_msl_banner.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGGD2HEQjc5olebQVkiN2LzR1FVNCavh5a2EEzW0WFnkbSGSaSAHrrxa9oyRGTFo39gYX09Sf8bS1kBXC3510_9WWKIBEfp13bOnChNFvAn2UfAjHbgWRXD9k2jIdc-3r3dkLbGH3JTOPGtt6WwJBz6u5-SB9yfLEezSVRzOPYz83EADRI-2P06gV/w400-h225/6037_msl_banner.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>This week, Madeline discusses a critical component of her research into how methane is vertically distributed in the martian atmosphere. Read on for some details about the present state of the ongoing debate about Methane on Mars. <br />(Image source: <a contenteditable="false" href="https://mars.nasa.gov/system/feature_items/images/6037_msl_banner.jpg" style="-moz-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #0563c1; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" title="https://mars.nasa.gov/system/feature_items/images/6037_msl_banner.jpg">https://mars.nasa.gov/system/feature_items/images/6037_msl_banner.jpg</a>)<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Madeline Walters</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">On Earth, we’ve often heard of methane being produced as a result of living beings-microbes that help with livestock digestion. Though when we found methane on Mars, we were puzzled by its origins. Are there microbes helping the digestion of Martian cattle? Most signs point to no, however, we are still unsure of what may be producing the gas on Mars. Besides biogenic sources, methane can also be produced by geological processes, so being able to identify the sources of methane is a tricky yet interesting problem. <br /><br />The issue with identifying the sources of methane is finding the methane in the first place. Since landing in Gale Crater in 2012, the Tunable Laser Spectrometer (TLS) instrument onboard NASA’s Curiosity rover detected background levels and a few higher spikes of methane from the surface, however, ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) wasn’t able to detect any methane from higher up in the sunlit atmosphere. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">TLS lead scientist Chris Webster [1] comments: "<i>When the Trace Gas Orbiter came on board in 2016, I was fully expecting the orbiter team to report that there's a small amount of methane everywhere on Mars, but when the European team announced that it saw no methane, I was definitely shocked.</i>" </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The results were certainly unexpected after other detections of methane from other instruments, leading to new questions about whether the detections from TLS perhaps originated from the rover itself. Some scientists suggested the rover detected methane after crushing rocks, or perhaps wheel degradation, not willing to rule out any possibilities. However, the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer onboard the Mars Express (MEx) spacecraft observed higher levels of methane in 2013, after Curiosity also reported a methane spike, bringing back the question of how to make sense of these detections. <br /><br />So why are some instruments reporting methane while others aren’t? This is something that is puzzling scientists almost as much as the source of the gas itself. Because of the conflicting reports of detection from different instruments, the key is observing how methane diffuses through the atmosphere at different times of day and through different seasons to see if perhaps the reports of methane from different instruments can still make sense. <br /><br />Moores et al. [2] suggests a small amount of methane seeps out of the ground continuously such that during the day, it mixes well with the atmosphere, which results in very low levels of methane further up. Meanwhile at night, the methane can build up near the surface from the lack of convection. From this approach, we can make sense of both the ExoMars and Curiosity observations. While this could explain the discrepancies in methane detection from different instruments, we still have yet to determine the origin of the gas itself and if that origin perhaps can explain how the gas is being destroyed much quicker than it should. Because solar radiation and oxidation should be destroying the produced methane after a lengthy 300 years, the excess methane buildup should be detectable by TGO. This points to some destruction or sequestration mechanism that is getting rid of the methane quicker than expected such that the detected amounts make sense. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">"<i>We need to determine whether there's a faster destruction mechanism than normal to fully reconcile the data sets from the rover and the orbiter</i>," says Webster. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">One possible explanation for this is the gas’ reaction with the surface components. A chemical compound called perchlorate, which has been detected by Mars landers, may be acting as a sink for methane due to oxidation reactions [3]. When exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun, perchlorate accelerates the destruction of methane-from over 300 years to just days or hours. However, scientists are still exploring this possibility and as of right now, there’s still no way to be sure this is the reaction responsible for the gas’ quick destruction. While there are still many questions surrounding Martian methane, we are getting closer to explaining the mysteries of the gas. <br /></p><p>___<br /><br /><i>References: <br /><br />[1] <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/first-you-see-it-then-you-dont-scientists-closer-to-explaining-mars -methane-mystery">https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/first-you-see-it-then-you-dont-scientists-closer-to-explaining-mars -methane-mystery</a> <br />[2] Moores, J. E., King, P. L., Smith, C. L., Martinez, G. M., Newman, C. E., Guzewich, S. D., et al. (2019). The methane diurnal variation and microseepage flux at Gale crater, Mars as constrained by the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Curiosity observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 46, 9430– 9438. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083800">https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083800</a> </i><br />[3] Zhang, Xu & Berkinsky, David & Markus, Charles & Chitturi, Sathya & Grieman, Fred & Okumura, Mitchio & Luo, Yangcheng & Yung, Yuk & Sander, Stanley. (2021). Reaction of Methane and UV-activated Perchlorate: Relevance to Heterogeneous Loss of Methane in the Atmosphere of Mars. Icarus. 376. 114832. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114832">http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2021.114832</a>.<br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-29004749615279095352022-11-01T05:54:00.002-07:002022-11-01T05:55:10.072-07:00More conference talk. Suddenly stuck at home? Make the best of it!<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW90AGdROq7cvHIjYZMbM0InwDdKo-YO7tls63eJ5L7ttha7Q3HHdo57rqEsjjg4KkeS-tTROEwg2e9w_18YmLhla9xoiQJgcFEkpQcGBNilk2K-HDBG9iwDnIAA_ZlJLm4UtHYnDGZYuJJdSz9EqWM1FUV5falR17vEV_OnCUiLMvPSaFewzNNftt/s966/oxalis.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="940" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW90AGdROq7cvHIjYZMbM0InwDdKo-YO7tls63eJ5L7ttha7Q3HHdo57rqEsjjg4KkeS-tTROEwg2e9w_18YmLhla9xoiQJgcFEkpQcGBNilk2K-HDBG9iwDnIAA_ZlJLm4UtHYnDGZYuJJdSz9EqWM1FUV5falR17vEV_OnCUiLMvPSaFewzNNftt/w389-h400/oxalis.jpeg" width="389" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>We had all hoped to be in person at this year's DPS, however, the hybrid nature of the conference meant that any students who had last minute disruptions could still attend virtually. It's really nice to be able to accommodate these sorts of situations and, while the online experience is not the same as the in-person experience, it means that someone who has made arrangements and already paid their registration can still get some value out of the conference, perhaps even more value than they had expected as our new PhD student Elisa Dong attests below. For more on the picture above, see the Caption at the bottom of the article.</i><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i> by Elisa Dong</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">New PhD student (Elisa) checking in with the usual readers of this blog. This week I've been invited to discuss whatever I so desire on the blog. I happened to be writing something for my own blog on attending conferences. Here are a series of mostly serious tips for attending conferences remotely, when the format is hybrid and all your friends are attending in person. The backdrop for this conference was DPS, on which <a href="http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2022/10/pvl-in-london-ontario-that-is.html">Conor has recently posted</a>. A lot of these tips have been test-run during the pandemic where I attended AGU online.<br /><br />Tips for attending a scientific conference (when you're remotely at a hybrid event):<br />1. Identify your favourite conference snacks and drinks<br />2. Purchase, make, or make student-budget friendly versions of said snacks and drinks<br />3. Plan chores that require at most 1 hour of your time. Preferably a bunch of 10-15 minute chores<br />4. Acquire bluetooth headphones<br />5. Identify some clothes for dressing up (or down)<br />6. Pick a few "key" sessions you want to be awake for and some interesting ones to pad out the rest of your time.<br />7. Chat with your lab mates on your preferred communication method of choice.<br /><br />Let's break these down a bit. Say you were really looking forward to attending the conference in person and had already planned for those days to be away. However, you've fallen sick or some event has taken place that prevents you from attending. You might as well try to get part of the conference experience at home! While there will be significantly less mingling with others and networking opportunities will be, at best, awkward and stilted you can still delight in the little snack breaks while reflecting on the state of the field.<br /><br />This brings us to tip number 1. If you've been to a conference before, what snacks did you enjoy during the breaks? Personally I like that there are usually several tea options, and sometimes the coffee is palatable. The previous conference I had attended online (planned), I had the time to order some coffee samples and pick up a variety of snacks from the asian supermarket. This time I was stuck in quarantine, so I made sure I had a kettle and a massive stock of tea bags. This covers tip number 2 as well. It doesn't have to be fancy, but having the ability to make hot drinks on demand is quite nice. It's reminiscent of downing drinks to soothe your throat in the dry, conference room air.<br /><br />Tip number 3 and 4 involve keeping yourself busy. Unlike an in-person conference, there are very few things you can look at that you are unfamiliar with. You likely won't have access to the attendees (no camera facing that way, zoom only shows the speakers) so figuring out who else is at that session is out unless they speak up during Q&A. Instead, you could be getting some mundane tasks done! I personally can't look at a screen continuously, so laundry, cleaning the kitchen, organizing bookshelves, watering/trimming plants, etc. all give me breaks away from the screen, but I'm not doing anything so critical that I can't check what's on the screen if it's particularly important. Tip 4 gives you the flexibility to move around without fear of wires tangling or blasting the audio (less of an issue if you don't have roommates, but still a nice option). Earphones are also an option, but I find headphones to be a bit better with universal fitting. Also, you now have the wonderful ability to choose to go to the bathroom while still listening to the sessions. <br /><br />It's all good to be perfectly cozy while stuck at home (or if you're so inclined, going outside while still plugged into the conference). A big part of the conference experience is being present though. For me, that means dressing in a slightly snappier manner than I normally might. Regardless, I would want to have a change of pace for "conference time", much like when working from home, it's helpful for me to dress up for "work hours". Dressing down could be a fun alternative to this though. After all, no one can see that you're in the goofiest of onesies. Similarly, no one will know (other than your housemates) that you attended in a full ballgown and mask. So that's tip 5.<br /><br />Tip 6 is applicable to any conference you attend. There is only so much time in a day, so pick your favourite events to go to. Figure out what's relevant to your interests. Not much more to say about this one. Tip 7 is similarly applicable always. Should you find yourself longing for some company, or wanting to experience the social aspect of the conference, checking in with your lab mates or anyone else at the conference can be nice. If you're all together (remote or in person), it can be nice to schedule some hangout time outside of the planned events.<br /><br />Lastly, it's always a good idea to tap out whenever you're feeling tired. No point attending a conference in your brain is on the fritz. A copy of these tips can be found on my personal blog (soon), <a href="http://abstract-ed.me">abstract-ed.me</a>, where I will likely keep posting silly little pseudo-articles on science and whatever catches my interest at the time.<br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">___<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>As an aside, for all potential incoming grads, here are the things that have happened in the last 2 months:<br />- started taking my singular mandatory course (yay for transfer credits!)<br />- met up the rest of the lab at an outdoors event and found out we're all equally bad at playing frisbee<br />- confirmed that housing is as tricky as I thought it would be<br />- ran into an old friend at the university!<br />- had an impromptu zoom call with the founder of a company whose instruments I'm hoping to use in the near future (no spoilers!)<br />- learned how to plug things into a breadboard and string things together with different communication protocols<br />- moved some plants into the office, including my favourite "it's time to go home plant" (Fig. 1)<br /> </i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Figure 1 Caption. Here is my plant before I moved it to the office. The "it's time to go home plant" is an Oxalis triangularis. This purplish plant has a few relatives, but they are also referred to as "false shamrocks" when they are of the green variety. The sets of three leaves close up when the light begins to dim. This is usually my sign that I've been at work for too long during the summer months, and a reminder to start packing up during winter. I have been tricked in the past, as the leaves remain open with artificial lighting as well. They're generally pretty happy office/house plants, require moderate temperatures, nothing special in terms of humidity, and enjoy filtered light. They do grow rapidly outdoors, so don't plant them outside! </i><br /></p></div>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-56469154199906189192022-10-19T18:05:00.000-07:002022-10-19T18:05:05.209-07:00Completing the Thesis Defence: The Final Boss of a Graduate Degree<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/thesis_defense.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="489" height="350" src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/thesis_defense.png" width="489" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>This past summer, several of the students in PVL had the opportunity to go through the timeless ritual that all us academics undergo in order to earn our MSc and PhD degrees: the oral defense of our research. I can report that everyone made it through with flying colours! Of course, a defence is also a transition for the student who may be moving from an MSc into a PhD, from a PhD into a Postdoc or from their MSc into the working world, amongst other paths. If you are considering getting a higher degree and want to know what this hurdle looks like, or are starting to think about your own defense, Grace has some helpful insight below. <br />(Image above from XKCD Comics: <a href="https://xkcd.com/1403/">https://xkcd.com/1403/</a>)<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i> by Grace Bischof</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The end of the summer marked a busy time in the Planetary Volatiles Lab. Conor, Giang and I were each nervously preparing for our upcoming thesis defences, where we would learn if we were to pass and obtain our degrees, or fail and be very, very sad. Giang, reaching the end of his PhD in August, defended first, setting the tone for the rest of us by passing! Conor and I followed, defending on September 7th and 8th (apologies to our shared committee members who had to sit in back-to-back defences). Conor and I were also successful in defending our theses, meaning we both obtained our master’s degrees. It was a very exciting end to the summer.<br /><br />So, what is a thesis defence and why is it so nerve-wracking? In a research-based degree, the findings of the research you complete over several years get written up into a document – at York, this is a thesis for a master’s and a dissertation for a PhD, which is a more robust document than a thesis. This document represents years of hard work, and hopefully, makes an original contribution to the field in which you’re studying. That, in and of itself, is a nerve-wracking process. But before the university can award you your degree for all the painstaking effort you have put into your thesis, they first must test you on the contents in the form of an oral examination. <br /><br />The oral examination usually begins with a public talk, where your research is presented in a 20 minute to hour long (depending on the degree) presentation. Typically, anyone can join this portion of the defence, and for me, it was fun having my friends and family watch my presentation so they could finally stop asking what it is I actually work on. Once the public talk is over, everyone else leaves the room, so it is just you and your committee. One-by-one, the committee members take turns dissecting your thesis, asking questions, and making suggestions about the contents to facilitate discussion on your work. This process can last several hours, especially for a PhD defence which is more involved. Once the committee has run out of questions to ask, you are kicked out of the room while they deliberate. Sitting outside the room while a small number of people decide the fate on the culmination of your work is horrifying. Then you are finally called back to the room to receive to your verdict…<br /><br />The good news: the thesis defence is largely a formality. That is, if your research supervisor is doing their job, you will not walk into the thesis defence if you are not going to pass. The purpose of the defence is simply to ensure the student understands their work and the literature in which it is situated. Not knowing the answer to an examiner’s question does not mean you will fail the defence. In fact, the examiners want to see you reason through their questions, applying your knowledge even when you do not have the exact answer. There was one point in my defence when I answered a question completely incorrectly but realized my error once I thought more about it. I told the committee that the answer I gave was incorrect and walked them through my thought process to answer the question correctly. The committee was more interested in seeing my reasoning in getting to the answer than they were worried about the initial mistake I made. <br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, now that you know what a thesis defence is, let’s briefly walk through some tips for the defence:<br /> <br /></p><ol style="text-align: justify;"><li>Start preparing early. The amount of time needed to prepare is going to depend on the degree being obtained – i.e., PhD students will likely need to start earlier than master’s student. Three weeks out before my defence I began to seriously prepare. I started by compiling a list of the most important references in my thesis. I read a handful of these a day, highlighting and jotting down notes on important aspects of each paper. At this time, I was also walking through the basics of the field – sure, it might impress your committee to describe in detail all the aspects of radiative transfer in the atmosphere, but that might diminish if you forget Mars is the 4th planet from the sun. <br /><br /></li><li>Anticipate questions. About 1.5 weeks from the defence date, I began combing through my thesis line by line. I had a PDF version of my thesis which I used to highlight and make notes in the margins. I wrote down anything that came to mind when reading my work and how the committee might interpret it. Some common questions that are asked in defences are: “How does your work fit into the existing literature”; “Describe your work in a few short questions”; “In what ways can this work be expanded?”; “What limitations did you experience in this work?”. Funnily enough, I prepared for all these questions and did not get asked any of them. However, preparing for them helped me to pick apart my work more carefully, meaning I could answer the questions they did give me.<br /><br /></li><li>Try to relax as much as possible. It’s easier said than done. An important tip that I read online before defending my thesis was to make sure that in your state of nervousness, you don’t consistently interrupt the examiners while they are asking questions in an attempt to quickly prove you know the answer. When an examiner is speaking, it’s a perfect time to collect your thoughts and let them talk (it eats up more time this way too!). But, like I said, the defence is largely a formality. If you’ve done the work, then you know your stuff and you will crush it! You are allowed to sit and think about your answer before speaking, drink some water or have a snack, and take a break during the defence if needed. After the first 30 minutes of the defence, the rest breezes by. </li></ol><p style="text-align: justify;">Your thesis defence will probably be the only time you will ever have a discussion with people who have ever read the full contents of your thesis. That itself is a pretty cool opportunity, so try to enjoy it as much as you can! Hopefully in four years’ time, when I’m preparing for my PhD defence, I can come back to this blog post and try to take my own advice. <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-35401610802011079982022-10-16T18:07:00.001-07:002022-10-18T07:20:04.723-07:00PVL in London (Ontario, That Is)<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpMMulMot9jCjxzDD-pZ_eyh7w64Qh0kXNZ8x5DX4IZwBW6Fx6SqmpyGfyCGG476OL81FwLqGr_hmeSgbR_uieRaNDGGG_pU9INJp5AKi8kx17GvyBspJTNrLP3a0CGLVxYt3yftZqJTCcAq--HvhWiXagmttZZYU6My107oaDdOKYpR5U8t8jH1SX/s3024/PXL_20221006_135307963.MP.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1857" data-original-width="3024" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpMMulMot9jCjxzDD-pZ_eyh7w64Qh0kXNZ8x5DX4IZwBW6Fx6SqmpyGfyCGG476OL81FwLqGr_hmeSgbR_uieRaNDGGG_pU9INJp5AKi8kx17GvyBspJTNrLP3a0CGLVxYt3yftZqJTCcAq--HvhWiXagmttZZYU6My107oaDdOKYpR5U8t8jH1SX/w400-h246/PXL_20221006_135307963.MP.jpg" width="400" /></a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>This week, new PVL PhD student (formerly PVL MSc student - congrats!) Conor Hayes reflects on the just completed DPS Conference that they attended a few weeks ago. This is the first time that DPS has been in person since Geneva, Switzerland in 2019 and the first time it has ever been held in Canada. I certainly appreciated being able to experience the conference together with my graduate students as a research group without even having to bring my passport!<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Conor Hayes</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It has been nearly a year since I last submitted an entry to this blog, detailing my experience at GAC-MAC 2021, my first in-person conference as a grad student. Much has happened since then; I half-pivoted away from the Moon to add a new MSL-based project to my Master's thesis less than nine months before my defence, I wrote and successfully defended said thesis, and now I'm a freshly-minted PhD student here at PVL. <br /><br />Some things, however, do not change, so I am here once again to talk about our latest conference experience at the 54th Annual Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS). PVL typically puts up a strong showing at DPS because we are all planetary scientists, and this was particularly true this year for two reasons. First, DPS 54 was held in London Ontario, practically down the road (relatively speaking) from us here at York. Second, PVL’s own John Moores was Chair of the Science Organizing Committee, so we couldn’t not represent our group well.<br /><br />In many ways, DPS was very similar to the two in-person conferences that I was able to attend during my Master’s – GAC-MAC back in November of last year, and the 7th Mars Atmosphere Modelling and Observations conference this summer. The scientific program was divided between oral talks and poster presentations, with a plenary session in the middle of each day. I mostly stuck to the sessions on topics that I’m interested in – the Moon, Mars, and terrestrial planets, though I did attend a few that were more “out there” (at least with reference to my own research) on Europa and other icy moons, as well as sessions on citizen science, education, and public outreach.<br /><br />Although it followed this familiar pattern, DPS was very much a conference of firsts for me. Because DPS was a hybrid conference this year, each session had two chairs, at least one of whom had to be in-person. One chair would make sure that each speaker stuck to their allotted time and manage questions from in the room, while the other would monitor the session’s Slack channel, where virtual attendees could ask their questions. Due to the continually evolving health situation, there were a number of in-person chairs who had to switch to virtual attendance, meaning that some sessions no longer had an in-person chair. Several members of PVL (including myself) were recruited to take their place. The session that I chaired was titled “Dynamical Dances in Space,” and featured four talks discussing gravitational interactions between various Solar System bodies, the first of which was actually based on a newly-published paper that I had read shortly before the conference. Stepping in as chair at the last minute was a little daunting because I had no idea what to expect, but it ended up being a reasonably non-stressful affair.<br /><br />Much more stressful was the fact that this was the first time that I had been invited to give an oral presentation at a “major” conference. I’ve given presentations about my research before, but always in much lower-stakes settings, whether that be in PVL group meetings or at smaller conferences run by graduate students (e.g. York’s Physics and Astronomy Graduate Executive conference or the annual Lunar and Small Bodies Graduate Forum). On top of that, I had never presented the preliminary results of my lunar work to a larger group before, so there was a lot that I was worried about. Consequently, I spent a lot of time preparing my presentation and making sure that I stayed as close to the seven minute limit we were given. In the end, the magnitude of my stress was wildly disproportional to the actual event, as my presentation went smoothly and hit the seven minute mark almost exactly. Although I would have happily taken just that as a win, it has also inspired my first official research collaboration with someone outside of PVL, something that I am very excited about.<br /><br />Now that I’ve had experience with both oral and poster presentations at conferences, I think I can say that I prefer oral presentations over posters. Posters certainly do have their advantages – you present all of your information on a single page and you don’t have to worry about time limits or making sure that you remember what you want to say, as posters often come with a more conversational style of sharing information. However, I’m just not really a fan of the poster experience. During a poster session, you’re sharing a room with many other people presenting their posters at the same time, so there’s a certain element of competing for the attendees’ attention. Some people can also find approaching the presenters one-on-one more intimidating than asking a question at an oral presentation (I certainly do!), which might limit the number of interactions you have. I definitely don’t want to turn people off of poster presentations; they can be a low-stress way to ease your way into the conference experience and/or to present early/preliminary results that are still in progress.<br /><br />Overall, DPS was probably my favourite conference of the handful that I have attended (either virtually or in-person) over the past two years. I can only hope that the weather in San Antonio will take a break from its usual late-summer Texas heat for DPS next year.<br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-65360346474027775052022-10-03T14:03:00.003-07:002022-10-03T14:43:23.576-07:00There and Back Again: A MAPLE Tale<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfrv6fMQn79UZ_oW-ZXhNSJUbaiQigqQMM6Uifb49-3t5z4vdg0NW32FAK2NvwCWtZ5t9uHBVuhgC7dR_zK-7rpxzk9BSQXEIjNxCFDVeYxxBg-QwO806qH-VpQ_qEhCMpwjRA5Tx0CO8RaP1ToyPGrD1S7aKf39VRQojyJhAs6ofcuO0eNmWxXijC/s1136/CCampSept2022A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="641" data-original-width="1136" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfrv6fMQn79UZ_oW-ZXhNSJUbaiQigqQMM6Uifb49-3t5z4vdg0NW32FAK2NvwCWtZ5t9uHBVuhgC7dR_zK-7rpxzk9BSQXEIjNxCFDVeYxxBg-QwO806qH-VpQ_qEhCMpwjRA5Tx0CO8RaP1ToyPGrD1S7aKf39VRQojyJhAs6ofcuO0eNmWxXijC/w400-h226/CCampSept2022A.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>As we approach the final year of the MAPLE project, it's time to take the instrument out into the field! This past summer, PVL PhD student Charissa Campbell and then-MSc (now PhD) student Grace Bischof took MAPLE out to Argentia, Newfoundland one of the foggiest places on Earth where the Gulf Stream meets the Labrador current. Mother nature didn't disappoint and Charissa and Grace came back with spectacular images and science. </i><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;">by Charissa Campbell</p><p style="text-align: justify;">This summer was quite busy as we were preparing for the deployment of our MAPLE (Mars Atmospheric Panoramic camera and Laser Experiment) instrument to the highly foggy area of Argentia, Newfoundland. There are two main field testing sites for MAPLE which includes a foggy location (large aerosols) and Arctic location (small, Martian-like aerosols). With the Arctic being more Mars-like, MAPLE will travel alone and be controlled remotely to fully mimic spaceflight conditions. However, as a starting point, we decided to travel with MAPLE to the Argentia, NL area to test in foggy conditions. <br /><br />MAPLE is based on a previous experiment done by the Phoenix lander that took images of the onboard lidar laser to classify ice-water content of aerosols near the surface (<a href="https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11030">https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA11030</a>). However, the camera could only take an image of a small portion of the sky, limiting the view of the laser. MAPLE is equipped with a panoramic camera to allow the full sky to be captured, which also allows for multiple lasers to be in use at the same time and clouds to be monitored during the day. For Argentia, we equipped MAPLE with 8 different lasers in a variety of wavelengths and power (class) to try to determine if a specific set was better for future measurements. Adding different wavelengths of lasers allows us to also investigate the size of aerosols. To further increase the science output of MAPLE, we will employ techniques used with the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL, Curiosity) to calculate aerosol properties such as optical depth, wind properties and others. By using knowledge from previous Martian surface missions, we can develop MAPLE in a way to maximize the amount of returnable data in a low-cost way. <br /><br />Defining a mission as low-cost means trying to find the minimal amount of power, data volume and size needed to acquire your measurements. Since we are in the early stages of the project, we created MAPLE from scratch using a pelican case which held our components. This includes a panoramic camera, 8 lasers and a raspberry pi that is used to control the camera. Several battery packs were used, one for each laser and a separate larger one for just the raspberry pi. As MAPLE gets more automated, the lasers will eventually be controlled by the raspberry pi and power can be more streamlined through just the Pi. The size of MAPLE seemed to work well, and windows had to be installed in the top for the camera and lasers to shine through. I never took construction in school, so I had a lot of late nights with the drill to push through two rectangles for the laser windows. Luckily, we already had a bubble panoramic window so I simply had to construct a properly sized hole for the window. Somehow, I managed to fully construct MAPLE and not injure myself. We also got humidity measuring packs to see how sealed the inside was. Minimal humidity was noted within the case, which is a win considering we were in essentially a cloud most times we were on the field. One concern we did have with keeping MAPLE low-cost was that the images were rather large and I only equipped the raspberry pi with a 32GB SD card. A lot of extra time was spent moving files over to a portable hard drive so we will be looking into upgrading the size of the SD card while also optimizing the size of the images. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjphKLXeUp5b6SZkItjK9bsq1PDysJtnkQErYYb3AVZtLRegOqTDEnKkmCRAdUvm05aUOesO7lW1R4iviHAR5pZyD_pK7ctbelaxoWalufiuHThGNE27PeQVck2MtG1GU9NB9clRuL4P0EbamO-RoqOzu0wzyh4AVnUrr5utxCdP0WLVlvhDMfpVYa/s996/CCampSept2022B.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="996" data-original-width="763" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjphKLXeUp5b6SZkItjK9bsq1PDysJtnkQErYYb3AVZtLRegOqTDEnKkmCRAdUvm05aUOesO7lW1R4iviHAR5pZyD_pK7ctbelaxoWalufiuHThGNE27PeQVck2MtG1GU9NB9clRuL4P0EbamO-RoqOzu0wzyh4AVnUrr5utxCdP0WLVlvhDMfpVYa/s320/CCampSept2022B.png" width="245" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The field site itself was really beautiful and was a bucket list item for me as Newfoundland was the last province for me to visit in Canada. Interestingly enough, there were no rental cars available on the whole island for the 2 week we were wanting to travel. However, with the coming end of the foggy season we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to make observations. I love taking different methods of transportation and stumbled upon a ferry that travels from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to, lo and behold, Argentia. There were rental cars available in North Sydney so my colleague and I flew directly there, picked up the car and immediately took it on the ferry across to the island. We were able to get a room on the ferry itself with 2 beds, a bathroom, and the best view of the ocean. This was ideal as the ferry is about 16 hours long, overnight, so the bed was very much needed. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Once arrived, we got settled in the town of Placentia, which was a short drive to/from the field site which was in the port where our ferry was docked. They had a cool lifting bridge that was a great backdrop for determining when the fog was rolling in. We did most of our experiments back at our arrival dock. It was originally a World War 2 airfield site owned by the Americans, given by the British for the sole purpose of making it a Naval airbase. The Atlantic Charter was signed just outside the port which was thought to lead to the United Nations Charter (<a href="https://www.hiddennewfoundland.ca/argentia-naval-station">https://www.hiddennewfoundland.ca/argentia-naval-station</a>). As someone who loves reading history, it was amazing to do the experiments in such an area. We were on one of the old runways as it was perfect for pointing the lasers in a way determine how far the lasers could travel. This was the goal for the first day on the site.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPGod1goyXKbkh1NBUXrHpIIilu_QyeOSUI1uU1XY2idTzDfs9c2nAW7PiDLZWqDVK1ZZ7hmp18MQFJmCYRUn4FJICWTnKkeOGiFGTpbwWEZEmso2v_WXqfn7XBuVv3SJWd4FeaJif9XcLy6xCLHF7hWAtANd5X4PmyZFDJ7MCdPx3-WujlsYgZz_x/s873/CCampSept2022C.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="873" data-original-width="843" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPGod1goyXKbkh1NBUXrHpIIilu_QyeOSUI1uU1XY2idTzDfs9c2nAW7PiDLZWqDVK1ZZ7hmp18MQFJmCYRUn4FJICWTnKkeOGiFGTpbwWEZEmso2v_WXqfn7XBuVv3SJWd4FeaJif9XcLy6xCLHF7hWAtANd5X4PmyZFDJ7MCdPx3-WujlsYgZz_x/s320/CCampSept2022C.png" width="309" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">As always, something will go wrong on the field site and that was the case on our first day. When we first started testing, we expected to fiddle with the image parameters, such as exposure, to see the laser. However, no matter what we did we could not see any of the lasers in the images. We had not brainstormed what would happen in this case so we took a rather long lunch break to think about what we could do to mitigate the problem. We decided to try taking images anyways in the sun and increased the number of images taken for each laser configuration. The sun might be so bright in the day that the camera simply cannot view them in the image. We also decided to do some trial runs when it got dark. One evening, the fog rolled in so heavily that I got MAPLE all set up late in the evening. It got so foggy that it truly felt like I was in a horror movie or unsolved mysteries as I was unable to see a few feet in front of me. Images of what MAPLE could see in the dark showed how important the dark was to our experiments. After gathering a variety of images, we knew what the game plan was for the rest of the trip. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJ8A3ko7oZzpjkCCo7g7cfoBrdmWAA-tVIFd1coMMPJWjgGSSUm3z7TL7XXFJ6kFQ5jhW1sqHEqvrqnUH7H1gZ252p0kgaGU8Q7IEpCKHLUirJwSpTpcH7XNBfDo6Ddym9pWf3Dx3JQtpsSrMnSNV7HKjROy69U8jfjmoc-4OgM9FKjIpF-R_mQWD/s922/CCampSept2022D.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="922" data-original-width="892" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPJ8A3ko7oZzpjkCCo7g7cfoBrdmWAA-tVIFd1coMMPJWjgGSSUm3z7TL7XXFJ6kFQ5jhW1sqHEqvrqnUH7H1gZ252p0kgaGU8Q7IEpCKHLUirJwSpTpcH7XNBfDo6Ddym9pWf3Dx3JQtpsSrMnSNV7HKjROy69U8jfjmoc-4OgM9FKjIpF-R_mQWD/s320/CCampSept2022D.png" width="310" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">We finished our Newfoundland trip with images in both day and night that will be analyzed further. Many questions were both answered, and the trip was extremely useful on telling us how we need to prepare MAPLE for the Arctic. The trip was a challenge but a great way to gain leadership experience. Since I was not the only person on this trip, Grace has these words to say about her time on our field trip:<br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>“Most of the research I’ve completed throughout my degree has consisted of analyzing data acquired from space missions – whether that be temperature, data or pictures taken from the surface of Mars. Because of this, my days usually involve sitting at my computer, writing code, and generally not moving around too much. Going to Newfoundland for fieldwork allowed me to explore different facets of research that I usually do not get to explore. Working with MAPLE meant driving out to the field site in the mornings, setting up the instrumentation, and taking several experiments to try and capture the science. There is a degree of unpredictability with fieldwork that we don’t normally experience in our day-to-day work. Will it be foggy enough? Will the batteries have enough power for the experiments? Will the inside of the instrument get too humid? Carrying out this fieldwork was a very unique experience, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to try something new!” </i><br /></p><p> <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-25591608822386932772022-08-09T14:01:00.007-07:002022-08-09T14:03:20.972-07:00Five Pictures from Ten (Earth) Years of Curiosity<div><div><p style="text-align: center;"><i> </i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3JU_yT9OZGzzj_U1wL6ecUOa0WxfdQj2jOE40YZpKAJMa70lHpS_nIWRL5CwAjFMnmPmQdUlteoNK4AiSCNj7QDSrEx4nyUmiIUb4aFdQZqFjkkfbPZ0nu2qag1YOTG8pLNLfxPbxr_pMN5SlUHWYr0aEN3632MLCGVGc4UitqwnWFS5T8AGAyEg_/s468/AlexBlog09Aug2022A.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="263" data-original-width="468" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3JU_yT9OZGzzj_U1wL6ecUOa0WxfdQj2jOE40YZpKAJMa70lHpS_nIWRL5CwAjFMnmPmQdUlteoNK4AiSCNj7QDSrEx4nyUmiIUb4aFdQZqFjkkfbPZ0nu2qag1YOTG8pLNLfxPbxr_pMN5SlUHWYr0aEN3632MLCGVGc4UitqwnWFS5T8AGAyEg_/w400-h225/AlexBlog09Aug2022A.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>The photos that our robot geologists (and robot atmospheric scientists) bring back to us from other worlds help us to relate to these places on a human scale. No one at the PVL have looked at more images of Mars than Alex and so, who better to take us on a visual trip down memory lane on this auspicious anniversary?<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Alex Innanen </i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">August 6<sup>th</sup> marks 10 (earth) years since Curiosity
(AKA the Mars Science Laboratory or MSL, because space people love a good
acronym) landed in Gale Crater on Mars. If you’ve been around the blog, you’ll
know that many PVL-ers have had the chance to work on the mission (myself
included) and there have been a plethora of posts over the years about <a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2016/12/telecommuting-to-work-on-red-planet.html">what
doing ENV operations is like</a>, or <a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2022/03/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-clouds.html">what
cool science MSL is doing</a>, or other big mission events, like the <a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-mars-global-dust-storm-of-2018-how.html">2018
global dust storm</a> or <a href="https://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2018/03/2000-sols-on-mars-what-goes-into.html">passing
2000 sols on Mars</a>. To add to this collection, and to celebrate 10 years of
Curiosity (or 5 Mars years, a milestone reached this most recent January), I’m
going to journey through some of my favourite pictures the rover has taken over
the past decade.
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">First we have the above picture, <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/21929/curiositys-dusty-selfie-at-duluth/">a
classic selfie</a>. Curiosity regularly poses for MAHLI (the Mars Hand Lens
Imager) to take these self portraits, which are actually mosaics of tens of
MAHLI images. There’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ii2GABPao">a
fantastic video</a> of Curiosity’s arm moving around to get all the pictures
that make up a selfie. This particular selfie was captured during the 2018
global dust storm, and you can see dust in the background obscuring the crater
rim. This is the same dust storm that heralded the end of Opportunity’s
mission, but Curiosity came through with lots of science (and nifty pictures)
to show for it. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEb_xqBZ9R_KUMSPXpfsxOvhd4XDMYcTesb9ESotr2HQxRId3omVbuQ56PPeCasR4cFo0WJu44ojNokfNIqHFdcFakZvoDkJ23lvW-D_RijX60boS_L7VqjNlwNDzgPE9KX1G9CW0qQfP-WuAK9WrYWVqDeP3lhHd0Zji9Cku2kTK9UxIz_RpohWxq/s1430/AlexBlog09Aug2022B.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="1430" height="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEb_xqBZ9R_KUMSPXpfsxOvhd4XDMYcTesb9ESotr2HQxRId3omVbuQ56PPeCasR4cFo0WJu44ojNokfNIqHFdcFakZvoDkJ23lvW-D_RijX60boS_L7VqjNlwNDzgPE9KX1G9CW0qQfP-WuAK9WrYWVqDeP3lhHd0Zji9Cku2kTK9UxIz_RpohWxq/w400-h100/AlexBlog09Aug2022B.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Going all the way back in time to 2012, <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/24621/landing-site-panorama-with-the-heights-of-mount-sharp/?site=msl">this
is a 360<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">°</span>
panorama</a> of Curiosity’s landing site, named ‘Bradbury’ for the sci-fi
author Ray Bradbury. Right in the centre of the picture is Mount Sharp (or
Aeolis Mons), the mountain in the centre of Gale Crater. Mount Sharp is made up
of sediments laid down in Gale Crater over a long period of Mars’ history, and
as Curiosity has climbed up it, it’s as though the rover has been travelling through
that history. But first it had to get to the base of Mount Sharp, a trip which
took around 2 years trundling through the remnants of ancient lakes and rivers.
I love looking at this panorama because it gives a great idea of how far
Curiosity has traveled – over 28 km and 600 m of elevation, now. It's also a
great ‘big picture’ shot – every new location Curiosity visits is (in my humble
opinion) stunning and unique in its own way, with so much new and exciting to
look at. This image lets you take a step back and take it all in. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb7QwdNEaEXJOjE_tvQhzyym34OriiMHVt967G0fZQw9aHJGc6PzF3vaw8pjNsTuwERQjcQyLHf0WsfY40cXav00tp-Of3N0vzaOVFA3xPwSN4ACqwCJ7EV1RB8B_Y0Gr_PXlXJc_VOmK56KjDm3ttgXO-_0oLp95b1PWWnE3er6VIyD5qRmrgvHJy/s936/AlexBlog09Aug2022C.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="936" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb7QwdNEaEXJOjE_tvQhzyym34OriiMHVt967G0fZQw9aHJGc6PzF3vaw8pjNsTuwERQjcQyLHf0WsfY40cXav00tp-Of3N0vzaOVFA3xPwSN4ACqwCJ7EV1RB8B_Y0Gr_PXlXJc_VOmK56KjDm3ttgXO-_0oLp95b1PWWnE3er6VIyD5qRmrgvHJy/w400-h171/AlexBlog09Aug2022C.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It would be remiss of me to not include a cloud picture, so <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/25947/curiosity-spots-clouds-over-mont-mercou/">here
it is</a>, my absolute favourite cloud shot. I may be slightly biased, as I was
on shift when this image was planned, but it’s so dramatic, with the cliff face
(called ‘Mont Mercou’) in the foreground and the glowing clouds behind. These
are Noctilucent clouds, which means ‘night shining’, and were captured at
twilight early this Mars year (which was actually March of 2021 – Mars years
are long). These kinds of clouds are high up in the atmosphere, and are
illuminated by the setting sun, even visible when the sun has gone below the
horizon. This is what makes them appear to glow, still being illuminated while
the rest of the sky darkens. These particular twilight clouds seem to form more
readily in Gale crater near the beginning of the Mars year, something the team
discovered in Mars year 35. At the start of Mars year 36 (the current Mars
year) we started looking for them and <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-captures-shining-clouds-on-mars">were
not disappointed</a>. One of the great things about Curiosity having been on
Mars for so long is the fact that we can see yearly repetitions like this and
come up with a better idea of what the Martian environment is up to year after
year. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rinhIEO3_O6O8DFVWbC12C9ilM6wQz5OmRHqaiqpu2uRDGOrFeiXIREhWGzsgU_rFtcJyCWSToL3HVB0IDDANBKZsr7RDmZTNB6F3At_puqju_f5c348KI3bd7hfEzo9vCNk_H3UN2rXzQp3AES_BM5We964EPJE5AN08WccVfZXcKO5mX2bbzzt/s936/AlexBlog09Aug2022D.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="526" data-original-width="936" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9rinhIEO3_O6O8DFVWbC12C9ilM6wQz5OmRHqaiqpu2uRDGOrFeiXIREhWGzsgU_rFtcJyCWSToL3HVB0IDDANBKZsr7RDmZTNB6F3At_puqju_f5c348KI3bd7hfEzo9vCNk_H3UN2rXzQp3AES_BM5We964EPJE5AN08WccVfZXcKO5mX2bbzzt/w400-h225/AlexBlog09Aug2022D.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia19400-sunset-in-mars-gale-crater">Mars’
blue sunset</a> is spectacular and well known to fans of the ‘red’ planet. But
“what colour is the Martian sky?” is a question I’ve been asked more than once
by those less familiar with Mars. And it’s a great question! Sometimes – like
in this picture or the cloud picture above, the sky looks more blue, almost
like earth’s sky. But at other times, like in the selfie or the Mount Sharp
panorama, it looks more orange or yellow. There’s a few factors behind this –
often images are colour-corrected (‘white-balanced’) to show what a scene might
look like under earth-like lighting. This can help scientists interpret
features within a scene, making them look more familiar to better compare to
earth, but doesn’t accurately represent what you might see if you were standing
on the surface of Mars, which would be more of a yellowy-orange sky. </div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Except when you get close to the sun, like in this sunset
picture. Much like how earth’s scatters light, giving us a blue sky, so too
does dust in the Martian atmosphere, but the blue wavelengths of light mostly
scatter forwards, so the blue colour appears closer to the sun. As the sun
sets, there is more atmosphere and more dust for the light to scatter through,
so that blue effect near the sun becomes more pronounced. </p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHN52uFis_iUyJyBFBCXnax70wciJ6PXFJowUatK_8s7sp66_bxbC6i94zgJfmZncHWMjP-cr9LKOQAr6zVyIZna9VW8NALDWau8sLX0KfIvrpXmMgiQIBwF1ilNprtboVzX-DLgzdbw49OYWeU5PudWHjoNw3pnb3DCYTobyf-lXjkTj2FRu3THPB/s1420/AlexBlog09Aug2022E.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1420" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHN52uFis_iUyJyBFBCXnax70wciJ6PXFJowUatK_8s7sp66_bxbC6i94zgJfmZncHWMjP-cr9LKOQAr6zVyIZna9VW8NALDWau8sLX0KfIvrpXmMgiQIBwF1ilNprtboVzX-DLgzdbw49OYWeU5PudWHjoNw3pnb3DCYTobyf-lXjkTj2FRu3THPB/w400-h225/AlexBlog09Aug2022E.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I’m going to finish with <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26372/a-picture-postcard-from-curiositys-navcams/?site=msl">this
absolute stunner of an image</a>, which combines two NavCam (<a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/msl/spacecraft/rover/cameras/#engineering-cameras">Navigation
camera</a>) mosaics of the same scene, one taken in the morning and one in the
afternoon. They were combined to show different landscape features that are
highlighted as the sun illuminates some regions and casts others into shadow. After
talking about the colours of Mars, you may be wondering what gives this image
its striking blue and yellow palette. The NavCams on Curiosity only take
pictures in black and white – colour was added to this image after the fact to
highlight the lighting changes, with blue showing morning features, yellow
showing evening features, and their combination showing just that – a
combination of the two. This picture is looking back down Mount Sharp towards
the crater rim in the distance, and it seems like a fitting image to close this
blogpost on, looking back over the last great 10 years with Curiosity.</div><p></p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-26626201240563001302022-05-29T09:22:00.002-07:002022-05-29T09:22:23.344-07:00Science is for all of us!<div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzgwWtHeamwAXrwj1J78YYd5CHgbO3yksgwZItEm_VbY3wfAPgscNtqYxTSr_0u83InArE3Zi74lbZUp9g8cX-nZbzoZI3jrakNBYyH0_gnrLyGT6Fht5rr6lYPrU9yyAYHelbU6oyAnb0OLiG1AKWJzLbx_0wwf-uw0VwyEYBOwwukRQioZr4Tcg/s936/Ankita_May2022A.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="936" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTzgwWtHeamwAXrwj1J78YYd5CHgbO3yksgwZItEm_VbY3wfAPgscNtqYxTSr_0u83InArE3Zi74lbZUp9g8cX-nZbzoZI3jrakNBYyH0_gnrLyGT6Fht5rr6lYPrU9yyAYHelbU6oyAnb0OLiG1AKWJzLbx_0wwf-uw0VwyEYBOwwukRQioZr4Tcg/w400-h133/Ankita_May2022A.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> This week on the PVL Blog Post, MSc student Ankita talks about citizen science, a way by which anyone can participate in scientific research and discovery.</i><br /><i>Image Above: YorkU Galaxified Generate your own text at: http://writing.galaxyzoo.org/ </i><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Ankita Das</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Being someone who developed a keen interest in science at a very early age I was always looking for new ways to learn and contribute to the science happening in the world. By the time I was in my early teens, citizen science projects were my favorite way to spend time when I was not involved in academic work. I spent my winter of 2010 sending my friends and family a personalized season’s greetings. Except, there was something special about these messages – the text was “galaxified” using GalaxyZoo’s special tool where each letter was a galaxy from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). These were the little ways I would incorporate space into my daily life. But my love for science at that age went beyond generating cute galaxified texts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"> Citizen science is often someone’s first introduction to hands-on science. Personally, my first citizen science projects were in Galaxy Zoo and Planet Hunters by Zooniverse. The Galaxy Zoo project involved classifying galaxies into categories by looking at its shape - something even a child can do but holds valuable science behind the activity. A lot can be revealed about a galaxy just from its shape. For example, an elliptical galaxy is usually an old galaxy where no active star formation takes place and spiral arms in a galaxy imply a rotating disk of stars. The shape classification were according to Hubble’s classification scheme shown in image 2.</p><p style="text-align: center;"> <i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK3xK-yDv9MOPbwGDKRBICaSYa-6ila4ftCP8fq78DGEE282j0lj9Di9EQDs6hXHKu9-zP-W_nlsQQkKn3-ab3vBFFDtUw82bj4kvEkw5437LWlxFrrCqvR3wLd9faAs_jLw2wp6CSTQ9CgbV7SJv0jhcWwtaKI-YCyc_Amix5BPjwKi1EAc4eHv4Z/s397/Ankita_May2022B.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="329" data-original-width="397" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK3xK-yDv9MOPbwGDKRBICaSYa-6ila4ftCP8fq78DGEE282j0lj9Di9EQDs6hXHKu9-zP-W_nlsQQkKn3-ab3vBFFDtUw82bj4kvEkw5437LWlxFrrCqvR3wLd9faAs_jLw2wp6CSTQ9CgbV7SJv0jhcWwtaKI-YCyc_Amix5BPjwKi1EAc4eHv4Z/s320/Ankita_May2022B.jpg" width="320" /></a></i><i> </i></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Image 2: Hubble’s Classification Scheme for galaxies (Source: Wikipedia Commons)</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Apart from classifying galaxies imaged by SDSS, my other favorite go-to project involved looking at light curves from distant exoplanets being discovered by Kepler. Kepler’s launch in 2009 marked the beginning of some very exciting exoplanetary science which continues till date. The task at hand was again simple: to look at the brightness of a star over time and determine if there are any periodic dips in the brightness indicating the possible presence of an exoplanet around the star. The excitement I felt as a young teenager “analyzing” data from a telescope launched just a year before, possibly discovering new alien worlds was unparalleled. Participating in citizen science initiatives back then gave me a sense that I was doing something important for the scientific community even as a kid. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib6yS9o5_HEaEKBmzpPbBt_Bv5HVI-x89LKLoE1InqjA8uex3kldYQQjqenv5NUnxZeCRK2efFXbBdSJ0eXSQj768Mp5pTg4EP48SOLnHWIZ2l03dHZ1vTrstCKFSlmDZy5yoOu5Tr_SlZL51eo3AMjOLlrw_RPsC8yn7TEuHrY2qnIdIIa7ZlJVHg/s652/Ankita_May2022C.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="273" data-original-width="652" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib6yS9o5_HEaEKBmzpPbBt_Bv5HVI-x89LKLoE1InqjA8uex3kldYQQjqenv5NUnxZeCRK2efFXbBdSJ0eXSQj768Mp5pTg4EP48SOLnHWIZ2l03dHZ1vTrstCKFSlmDZy5yoOu5Tr_SlZL51eo3AMjOLlrw_RPsC8yn7TEuHrY2qnIdIIa7ZlJVHg/w400-h168/Ankita_May2022C.png" width="400" /></a><br /></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Image 3: Example of Planet Hunters task <br />(Source: <a href="https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/nora-dot-eisner/planet-hunters-tess">https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/nora-dot-eisner/planet-hunters-tess</a>)</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Citizen science has become an important facet of research in the scientific community today with it having evolved into more creative and interesting projects as new troves of data are generated. Citizen science projects can range from activities as simple as locating constellations with your naked eye monitoring light pollution (Globe at Night) to projects that involve amateur astronomers, photographers, and programmers equipped with certain level of hardware or skill to carry out the science. In this way, citizen science involves diverse groups from our society ranging from kids to amateurs to take part in various citizen science initiatives. For the younger section of the public, citizen science projects can become their introduction to scientific projects whereas it can be a leisure activity for the relatively senior members of our society. To me, citizen science initiatives are a powerful and effective tool for scientific outreach. Not only do members of the public learn about the science that is being carried out, they also actively contribute to it, developing a deeper interest over the years in such projects. Irrespective of the diversity in participation, one thing remains the same, all these groups contribute to our growing scientific knowledge about the world around us. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">But can the general public really contribute to the cutting-edge fields in science from their homes or backyards? Yes of course! Over the years, citizen science has churned out an interesting list of discoveries which have made it to scientific journals after being reviewed by scientists. One of the most notable discoveries in the field of space science which comes to mind is the discovery KIC 8462852 or more colloquially known as Boyajian’s star (named after Tabetha Boyajian, other names include Tabby’s star and WTF star). In 2015, citizen scientists who were part of Planet Hunters came across a star exhibiting odd levels of dimming (22%). Upon closer inspection by astronomers, the object’s odd behavior continued to baffle them leading to many people calling it by its nickname – the WTF star which is apparently a reference to the paper’s subtitle: “where’s the flux” (very misleading nickname, I know!). Scientists came up with various hypotheses to explain the star’s observed light curve which included possibilities of obstructions around the star occurring from a ring, planetary debris, or dust clouds. More farfetched hypotheses included the presence of large-scale artificial structures around the star being responsible for the unnatural dimming of the star’s brightness, hinting at the existence of intelligent civilizations. Scientists continue in their attempts to fully understand this bizarre star and hence Boyajian’s star is still being studied and monitored by subsequent telescopes and projects. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I think most of us would agree science has changed a lot since ancient times. Science which started off as independent endeavors taken up by philosophers centuries ago today presents a different picture. The days of sitting under a tree and pondering on the mysteries of the universe and scribbling down equations are long gone. Most science carried out today is in large groups, relying on observed and measured data retrieved from instruments such as telescopes, particle accelerators, and robotic spacecraft. Hence, a huge amount of data is generated and will continue to be generated as next generation telescopes come into operation. Citizen science initiatives are a fantastic way of tackling this big data problem astronomy and space science is to expected to face soon. Thus, citizen science is not only valuable for outreach but also valuable in processing huge chunks of data and making meaningful contributions to the scientific community. A complete list of active and inactive citizen science projects in all scientific fields can be found at: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_citizen_science_projects">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_citizen_science_projects</a><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><u>Read more at: </u><br /><a href="https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo">https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zookeeper/galaxy-zoo</a><br /><a href="https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/nora-dot-eisner/planet-hunters-tess">https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/nora-dot-eisner/planet-hunters-tess</a><br /><a href="https://www.darksky.org/globe-at-night-2021/">https://www.darksky.org/globe-at-night-2021/</a><br /><a href="https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizenscience/five-extraordinary-citizen-science-discoveries">https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizenscience/five-extraordinary-citizen-science-discoveries</a><br />Boyajian’s star discovery paper: Planet Hunters X. KIC 8462852 - Where's the Flux? Available at <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622">https://arxiv.org/abs/1509.03622</a></i><br /></p></div>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-55042811269056065852022-05-01T05:05:00.001-07:002022-05-01T05:05:26.688-07:00I know what you did last summer: Grad School Edition<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLkt3bq340YOQUdamm2tXaoDQtU9zLOBVcArXqIEi-z-cltoIk9cu8ywScoHVsQv3yZJSyHUa-k2grgCG6cCm3VO929h9zGXFDRORxIhPyQV4xe9X13QT4Tn9xu8JT-RgOLiWFgxfwE5AyI7fBMpZwnJYokYtJ9r_moS_Jc3xN9udmd7bxxG10VcaY/s2048/blog_beach.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLkt3bq340YOQUdamm2tXaoDQtU9zLOBVcArXqIEi-z-cltoIk9cu8ywScoHVsQv3yZJSyHUa-k2grgCG6cCm3VO929h9zGXFDRORxIhPyQV4xe9X13QT4Tn9xu8JT-RgOLiWFgxfwE5AyI7fBMpZwnJYokYtJ9r_moS_Jc3xN9udmd7bxxG10VcaY/w400-h300/blog_beach.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>With May having just begun, undergraduate students are looking forward to the summer, but the situation is different for Professors and graduate students. Though few grad students take courses during this time of the year, it is nevertheless one of the busiest times of the year. Below, MSc student Justin Kerr explains why and describes some of the rhythms of graduate student life.</i><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Justin Kerr</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">“So, you are a student right? When does your summer break start?” It’s only April, and I’ve already been asked this question dreaded by graduate students everywhere three times. At least it’s not as bad as when I was on the hunt for an apartment! When you first become a grad student, you quickly realize that most people outside the realm of academia don’t understand what research based graduate school in the sciences entails. In reality, we are typically enrolled in few if any classes and most certainly do not get a multi-month vacation in the summer months. Course-based graduate programs do exist, but are much less common in the sciences and are typically excluded from receiving most of the normal funding. So, what do research-based grad students in physics actually do? <br /><br />While grad students do take some courses, they typically make up the smallest portion of our time commitments throughout the degree. Here in the Physics and Astronomy program at York University, Master of Science students have the choice of pursuing a degree by thesis or a research project. In the case of a research project, students are required to take five one-semester courses throughout their two-year program. This type of degree is more common in physics programs for students looking to pursue a PhD at the same university in order to reduce course load during their PhD. It gives more variety in topics studied but allows less time for research. By the end of the degree, students are expected to have completed an original research project presented in the form of a large written document (although often somewhat shorter than a thesis). This type of degree is more common in some specific fields than others; for example, it is almost always used in particle physics, but is a rare choice in our own lab group. Personally, this is the option which I chose in order to expand my expertise in different areas of physics to support my future goals in academia. While this is the high course load option, it still means taking very few courses – the equivalent of a single semester in undergrad over two years, at least without compensating for enhanced difficulty of the material. <br /><br />The thesis option instead requires only three courses be taken over the same two-year period. This allows students more time for research and development of a more intensive project. A thesis is typically longer than a research project and may involve more multiple smaller projects rather than the single one described in a master’s research project submission. Theses are also presented in a formal defense process instead of a simple submission to a supervisory committee. Completing a thesis gives a more complete research experience to students, which is more heavily valued in certain fields. In straight physics degrees, this can also be used as an option for students who are not intending on continuing in academia to provide a more complete education prior to moving to industry. Some universities other than York have very strict preferences for which type of degree is completed for moving forward in a PhD program, such as physics programs at the University of Toronto. When completing a PhD, the only option available is a thesis, and it will be much more intense than the MSc version. At York, a physics PhD requires the completion of six graduate courses, including any taken during the MSc – meaning a student who used the thesis option will take three courses throughout their four-year degree, and research project students will only need to take one. This means that thesis and PhD students are often not taking any courses at all in a given semester, and usually only one at a time if they are. <br /><br />The main goal of a graduate degree in the sciences is to perform the research that will become the research project or thesis. To properly do this, we need to first perform literature searches and read many scientific papers pursuant to our planned project. We also keep up with relevant new research in our fields by reading new publications, with most graduate students often reading through several scientific publications per week. The bulk of our work is to perform our research tasks. In physics, this usually means coding, lab experiments, or some combination of the two. This is the portion of our responsibilities that means we don’t have a summer vacation! When other responsibilities do not get in the way, we are working on our research. Producing publications is also an important aspect of graduate education, which when combined with thesis requirements ensures that a good portion of our time is spent writing. We are generally expected to work roughly full-time hours (although deadlines often have something else to say about that!), with research and the associated writing taking up most of that. <br /><br />The final portion of a graduate student’s responsibilities is teaching assistant duties. As part of our admission agreement and making up about half of our yearly funding are contracts to be teaching assistants for courses offered by our department or that of Natural Science, which covers science electives for non-majors. These can include grading assignments, teaching/demonstrating in a lab course, or leading tutorial sessions in undergraduate classes. The standard requirement for TAing is 270 hours per year, which usually averages out to about 10 hours per week during the Fall and Winter semesters while leaving the summer free to focus on research. In reality, much of that often ends up being concentrated into a few very busy weeks around midterm and exam grading time. <br /><br />While a good portion of our funding comes from the relatively small portion of our work that is TAing, the truth is that the vast majority of our time spent on research is in fact still work. Since any of the few courses we do take usually occur during the Fall and Winter semesters along with our TAing, our summers are left free not for a summer vacation as it might for undergraduate students, but instead for a large focus on our research work. This is particularly important for those of us graduating in August such as myself who are likely to have some of the busiest months of our degrees ahead of us while we try to perfect our research projects and theses ahead of submission deadlines and defenses. The start of the summer is no better, with the start of May meaning research evaluations for all of us; these are where we must present our current work and future plans to our supervisory committee in a form of oral exam. The next time you are chatting with a grad student, make sure not to assume that they are looking forward to their nice summer vacation to take a break from the courses that they are likely not even taking! <br /></p></div>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-63484925353435128252022-04-28T17:13:00.001-07:002022-04-28T17:14:06.743-07:00What Has the James Webb Space Telescope Been Up To?<p style="text-align: center;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJURexVi24fSA6WfJDk-UxaIKjAcyuHTE4Z5SIaO36En2GmdnJ0gPN46T23mblkDSVfkLFT-OGxXqF2qnqBpI6Ex38vr4LvXbrKHinjQK4SnAuRhYaDiPPQ4qyFSA8L1rDYyaDRVDgF3Z6PSQtYouKp8lsWgCKNhSHT_mpMk8qNKMmKnFwuxBU4giG/s5437/telescope_alignment_evaluation_image_labeled.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3438" data-original-width="5437" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJURexVi24fSA6WfJDk-UxaIKjAcyuHTE4Z5SIaO36En2GmdnJ0gPN46T23mblkDSVfkLFT-OGxXqF2qnqBpI6Ex38vr4LvXbrKHinjQK4SnAuRhYaDiPPQ4qyFSA8L1rDYyaDRVDgF3Z6PSQtYouKp8lsWgCKNhSHT_mpMk8qNKMmKnFwuxBU4giG/w400-h253/telescope_alignment_evaluation_image_labeled.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>PVL MSc student Madeline Walters has been following the launch and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope with bated breath. This observatory will be a boon not only to the astronomical community, but also to the planetary science community. <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/telescope_alignment_evaluation_image_labeled.png">Above: the telescope's alignment evaluation image catches not only the target star, but myriad faint galaxies in the background.</a></i><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Madeline Walters </i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Since <a href="http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2021/12/james-webb-space-telescope-on-track-to.html">my last post about the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)</a>, the telescope has reached its observing point and made some initial observations. The Webb is currently in orbit around L2, the second sun-Earth Lagrange point which is a gravitationally stable point about 1.5 million kilometers away from us. Since its launch, the spacecraft has gone through a few metamorphoses in preparation for its eventual observations. From testing a key antenna, to deploying its sunshield, each movement and maneuver has been integral to the telescope’s success. After successfully deploying the structure that binds the Webb’s two halves together, there was enough room to begin unfurling the massive sunshield that protects the telescope from harsh radiation. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Soon after the sunshield was fully unfolded, the Webb deployed its two sunshield mid-booms, which stretched the sunshield out to its full length. This process requires the membranes to stretch to their proper tension, taking up to two days to tighten the sunshield. "As photons of sunlight hit the large sunshield surface, they will exert pressure on the sunshield, and if not properly balanced, this solar pressure would cause rotations of the observatory that must be accommodated by its reaction wheels," writes NASA public affairs specialist Alise Fisher in a blog post on December 30 after the launch. "The aft momentum flap will sail on the pressure of these photons, balancing the sunshield and keeping the observatory steady." It is a lot of very intricate and detailed steps that are necessary for every step of the operation-and for good reason. Every part of the unfolding must work in order to get the Webb to start observing. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The next crucial part of the mission was the mirrors. On January 5, the telescope deployed its secondary mirror, unfolding a series of booms that hold the mirror out in front of the main mirror. This secondary mirror allows light to be collected and focused into a beam, which is then pushed down through the center of the telescope to a third mirror and other smaller ‘fine-steering’ mirrors which allow light to be properly allocated into the scientific instruments. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Several days after the secondary mirror was deployed, the main mirror’s side panels were deployed, gearing up for the alignment of all 18 individual mirrors that make up the entire main mirror. And if you don’t think the word ‘mirror’ has been said enough so far - the observatory team spent about ten days working to move each mirror segment out of their preliminary launch alignments, and a lot longer for more precise alignment after that. However, for an instrument that will bring us observations for perhaps up to 20 years, a few months of alignment is worth it. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Now at its destination for its science mission, the Webb has woken up, turned its instruments on, and has looked out into space to provide us with its first images. Its first telescope alignment evaluation image, made to only focus on the bright star in the center for alignment evaluation, shows background stars and galaxies due to the telescope’s optical sensitivity. Although there are still many months left before the JWST delivers its first full view of the cosmos, the telescope has already gone through an incredible journey made possible by an incredibly patient group of engineers and scientists. <br /></p></div>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-32302635171967402192022-04-13T11:01:00.001-07:002022-04-13T11:03:54.975-07:00How to tell time on Mars<p style="text-align: center;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehLIcx-bG1aM7OrYrDJNOEPwUi6y6VDUh5SAp2mUTct_ozNamu9diA4ihyp5N7WHM5_EzstYhAXaIh6LpDOdI5mxHoE2eYpkbtGJ_ridZ-V2UteHMUkPwNkoXOyVFri3QSSj9e9xRVhcmKk060Mqv1xAI06cxIKxEKOO5ay8tVvbjlJ8LaLr0Fo2f/s600/LMD_MSSL.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="600" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgehLIcx-bG1aM7OrYrDJNOEPwUi6y6VDUh5SAp2mUTct_ozNamu9diA4ihyp5N7WHM5_EzstYhAXaIh6LpDOdI5mxHoE2eYpkbtGJ_ridZ-V2UteHMUkPwNkoXOyVFri3QSSj9e9xRVhcmKk060Mqv1xAI06cxIKxEKOO5ay8tVvbjlJ8LaLr0Fo2f/w400-h294/LMD_MSSL.png" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>This week, PhD Candidate Alex Innanen takes on a topic that has challenged planetary scientists and science fiction writers for decades: how do you tell time on a planet that has similarities in its revolutions to the Earth but some pesky differences? Often you'll hear of researchers working on Mars time because the length of its day is so similar to the Earth's. However, the match isn't perfect and can lead to <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Martian-Summer-Interplanetary-Pioneers-Temperamental-ebook/dp/B00L8FBDCA/ref=sr_1_1?crid=IJRZAP6KVKC5&keywords=kessler+martian+summer&qid=1649857886&sprefix=kessler+martian+summer">unpleasant physiological effects</a> for some and <a href="http://arcticsaxifrage.blogspot.com/2011/06/lets-go-on-mars-cruise.html">impractical, though hilarious, fixes</a>. There is no 'Venus Time' or 'Jupiter Time' because their days are so different from ours that it makes no sense to try. But <a href="https://www.kimstanleyrobinson.info/content/martian-calendar">what to do with the extra 39 minutes in the martian day</a>? Or the extra months needed in the martian year? </i><br /><i>(Image above from LMD's "<a href="http://www-mars.lmd.jussieu.fr/mars/time/solar_longitude.html">Martian Seasons and Solar Longitude</a>")</i><br /></div><p style="text-align: center;"></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Alex Innanen</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">One of my favourite things to read about are different calendars and methods of timekeeping. Here on Earth, there are all sorts of different calendars – the Gregorian, which you’re likely familiar with, the Julian calendar, and various lunar, solar or combination calendars. We also keep time within a single day in different ways – the standard now is a 24-hour clock, but at various times people have tried to introduce decimal time, where each day might have ten hours divided into 100 minutes. And this is just on our own planet, where generally the apparent movement of the sun and moon in the sky can give you a sense of when things are occurring.<br /><br />Unsurprisingly, when you move to different planets things start to get more complicated. <br /><br />Let’s take Mars for instance. Mars’ day (called a sol) is about 40 minutes longer than an earth day. If you want to use a 24 hour clock you either have to have a sneaky not-quite-an-hour-long 25th hour, or you have to make every hour a bit longer. Which is what the Mars clock that’s used for mission planning does. But wait, does that mean each hour has more than 60 minutes? Well, not really, if you make each minute a bit longer than an earth minute, and you can do that, not by adding extra seconds, but by making each ‘Mars second’ a bit longer than an Earth second. This way you can still use a familiar 24 hour clock. <br /><br />This doesn’t mean that there’s some intrinsic ‘Martian second’ that is longer than an Earth second. While the second is an SI unit, it’s fairly arbitrary, as is splitting up a day into 24 hours. It’s just what we’re used to a second being.<br /><br />One thing about round planets is that local noon – when the sun is directly overhead – happens at different times in different places. This is the reason that people on Earth invented time zones, so that local noon could line up – more or less – with noon on the clock. In reality, there’s a fair amount of variation even within a time zone. For example, there is about a 20 minute of difference between local noon in Toronto and Montreal just because of their difference in longitude, even though they use the same time zone. <br /><br />There are no official time zones on Mars and missions tend to use local mean solar time (LMST), which is based on the average length of the sol, split into 24 hours. (There’s also local true solar time [LTST], which is referenced around the local noon, but drifts from 12:00 LMST throughout the year.) There is a generally accepted time standard for Mars, called Airy Mean Time (AMT) or Coordinated Mars Time (MTC) (comparable to Earth’s Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)/Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)) which refer to the mean solar time at Mars’ prime meridian, the crater Airy-1. <br /><br />The other thing about Mars is its year is almost twice as long as an Earth year, about 668 sols or 687 Earth days. There is some familiarity, though, because Mars, like earth, has seasons! But Mars’ orbit is more eccentric than earth’s – that is to say, the path it travels around the sun is slightly more oblong. Earth also travels in an ellipse, and we do see the effects of not orbiting in a perfect circle on Earth seasons – the northern summer is about 94 days long, while the northern winter is only around 89 days – but not to so great an extent as on Mars. There the northern spring is 194 sols while the northern autumn is only 142 sols, a difference of 52 sols. <br /><br />So what if we want to know what time of year it is? We can actually use the position of Mars (or any planet) in its orbit to tell this – specifically a parameter called solar longitude, shortened as <i>Ls</i>. We can start the year at a <i>Ls</i> of 0 degrees, the northern vernal equinox (the start of northern spring). Each subsequent season then starts at intervals of 90 degrees for a full 360 degree orbit. This convention is used in most scientific contexts because it can fairly easily tell you if events are occurring at around the same time year after year. It also avoids having to deal with things like leap years or leap seconds, because Mars’ orbit will always be 360 degrees – that’s just how geometry works. <br /><br />All of this is what’s used currently to orient ourselves in time on Mars, but there have also been a number of attempts to create calendars and timekeeping systems that could be used by people living on Mars itself by everyone from scientists to fiction writers. The calendars divide the Martian year into months – which vary in their length, and in how many months there are in a year – and weeks – again, varying in length and quantity. Some calendars use familiar names for months and days of the week, and some make up new names, or new versions of the earth names. Getting into them all would probably take a whole series of blogposts, but it is a very fun rabbit hole to disappear down. <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-13154624297951790632022-04-06T08:31:00.004-07:002022-04-06T08:32:16.742-07:00Lunar Cycles, Tides, and the Changing World<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9thWI4JeIs9_HMDBz-ahv6YfRjaT_xxCxVDpUKf0fFmva65Sx736sZi0sSbm7g3auaiPR_pQoW1GEve8906E9Sk3XR8H7UJiOx1p0yU9OAcPUdiKMxDgshZVh1m21bMl0i2AfrBxf6g2xwkHsofwEjfL00q0wS31VHst9dZWKLEwITm_irstc4pmG/s730/M2_tidal_constituent.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="730" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9thWI4JeIs9_HMDBz-ahv6YfRjaT_xxCxVDpUKf0fFmva65Sx736sZi0sSbm7g3auaiPR_pQoW1GEve8906E9Sk3XR8H7UJiOx1p0yU9OAcPUdiKMxDgshZVh1m21bMl0i2AfrBxf6g2xwkHsofwEjfL00q0wS31VHst9dZWKLEwITm_irstc4pmG/w400-h258/M2_tidal_constituent.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>For those located near the coasts, it's impossible to miss the influence of planetary bodies (including the moon) upon the Earth. Twice a day, the sea level rises and falls. In some places, such as Canada's east coast Bay of Fundy, those changes can be quite dramatic. Here, liquid flowing on a spherical Earth, moving under a changing gravitational potential combines with the shallowness of the sea-floor to create a low-tide line kilometers from the high-tide line. As consistent as the system may seem, this "<a href="https://allpoetry.com/Newfoundland">moon-driven [...] timeless circuit of invasion and retreat</a>" may soon combine with longer-term effects of our changing climate, as PhD Candidate Giang Nguyen describes below.<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Giang Nguyen</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Our lives are defined by astronomical cycles. How fast the Earth spins about its axis dictates our daily cycle. The angle between Earth’s spin axis with respect to its orbital plane tilts either the North Pole or South Pole towards the sun. How fast the tilt alternates between the North and the South directs our habits from season to season, year to year. These effects are the most apparent manifestations of astronomical forcing in our lives, but there are weaker forces at play that affect us in more subtle ways.<br /> <br />The Moon has its own cycles as well. The phases of the moon have often been used to keep track of time and many cultures use lunar calendars to this day. However, neither the Earth’s rotation nor the Moon’s orbit are in sync with the Earth’s orbit around the sun; we have to subtract and add days year to year to keep dates consistent with the seasons. The moon with its crescent shape is an important icon for many people across the world and indeed it does have its astronomical effect on us.<br /> <br />The moon’s gravity, along with the sun’s, exert tidal forces on Earth. These tidal forces shift water in our oceans from one place to another. You can imagine water sloshing back and forth in a bathtub and this is essentially what is happening in our ocean between the continental coasts. The movement of water will resemble standing waves where each node (point that experiences minimal amplitude change) is called an amphidromic point. Tidal forcing, along with the Coriolis effect, create huge hydrodynamical systems around these amphidromic points making them very important when trying to understand tides.<br /> <br />Seas that are somewhat enclosed by land such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea experience small tides. Regions that experience strong tides include northern Québec in Canada and France’s Bay of Biscay. These are the places where tides play a significant role in day to day lives, all resulting from how the moon orbits around Earth. Tidal effects are even strong enough to affect large climate systems [1].<br /> <br />The moon’s orbital plane around Earth does not line up with the Earth’s orbital plane around the sun. The wobble in the Moon’s orbit follows an 18.6 year cycle, called lunar standstills, and can translate to significant tidal effects. High-tide floods are already a reoccurring problem in many coastal regions. During periods in the cycle where tides are amplified, the risk of tide floods are predicted to be higher than ever. The next period of amplified tides is expected to arrive in the mid-2030s [2]. When this time comes, the Earth is predicted to be warmer and sea levels higher. Therefore, it is now more important than ever to continue to study the moon and tides and see how they affect the climate and weather around us.<br /> <br />Although our lives are mainly shaped around the sun, the moon still has its own special effects on Earth. The slight deviation in the moon’s declination as seen on Earth reveals a decade long oscillation that has significant implications on tidal forcing. This, in turn, may lead to climatic feedback that may redefine our everyday lives. Astronomical cycles remain a subject of great interest and I hope we get to learn more about it resultant from our relentless exploration of Space.<br /></p><p><u>References:</u></p><p><i>[1] Lin, J., & Qian, T. (2019). Switch between el nino and la nina is caused by subsurface ocean waves likely driven by lunar tidal forcing. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1-10.<br /><br />[2] Rasmussen, C. (2021). Study Projects a Surge in Coastal Flooding, Starting in 2030s. NASA JPL, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/study-projects-a-surge-in-coastal-flooding-starting-in-2030s</i></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-55608340824611535112022-03-29T12:22:00.006-07:002022-03-29T12:23:38.635-07:00Exploring Active Planetary Defense & the DART Mission<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BPYWPz4ee1KQtIWXOO3XE8EJ37DE6DNynR6IrTxlDXGT8CPaozynxySVI594nPDzhKbyZE-GU878eWOMHctlmh27FBKvnySzhuOCXc2XnkaPS3eOASeIUXARRY_LJlpDVBN3n-h2Gm_20j4h-fk4iPP7wQ1uzjna7AI58RjajrhXiwzadzg3Ch7V/s716/ADas_Mar2022A.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="716" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5BPYWPz4ee1KQtIWXOO3XE8EJ37DE6DNynR6IrTxlDXGT8CPaozynxySVI594nPDzhKbyZE-GU878eWOMHctlmh27FBKvnySzhuOCXc2XnkaPS3eOASeIUXARRY_LJlpDVBN3n-h2Gm_20j4h-fk4iPP7wQ1uzjna7AI58RjajrhXiwzadzg3Ch7V/w400-h310/ADas_Mar2022A.png" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>One strong motivation for learning more about asteroids is to understand their potential for colliding with the earth. In this week's post, MSc student Ankita Das considers the Double-Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART, Mission. (Above: Asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos taken by the Arecibo telescope is radar taken in 2003 Source: Arecibo Observatory/NASA)</i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>by Ankita Das</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">With the launch of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, the age of active planetary defense has formally begun. The DART mission is the first interplanetary spacecraft testing an asteroid redirection method to better prepare humankind for a potential mass extinction event due to the impact from a planetary body or asteroid fragment [1]. The spacecraft, launched in November 2021, is intended to crash into Dimorphos, a moonlet of asteroid Didymos, in September 2022, to see how much the speed and path of the moonlet can be altered. <br /><br />Although this is the first dedicated spacecraft to be sent to an asteroid to study planetary defense techniques, ideas of such a mission have been around for decades. In 1977, at NASA Ames Summer Study on Space Settlements, Dr. Brian O׳Leary, a former NASA astronaut candidate, proposed using mass drivers to move Earth-approaching Apollo and Amor asteroids to Earth’s vicinity during opportunities when the required velocity change to redirect them was low [2]. A critical development in this area occurred when a 2010 NASA study proposed the Asteroid Redirect Robotic Mission (ARRM) to use high-power solar electric propulsion technology to capture, and return an entire, very small (~10,000 kg), near Earth asteroid to the International Space Station [3]. In this article we reflect on how active planetary defense missions can safeguard us from a catastrophic impact events and if it is worthwhile to invest in a defense procedure.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The idea of protecting the planet from asteroid or cometary impacts emerged when researchers gained more knowledge about the small bodies of the solar system and investigated the impact history of the Earth. Upon investigation, scientists found multiple impacts from the Earth’s past, which have now been masked by erosion, geologic activities, and vegetation. The early discussions on planetary defense started once it was found that asteroid impacts most likely led to the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs. In the meantime, we also gained more knowledge about the small bodies of the solar system, informing scientists about the likelihood and frequency of potentially catastrophic impacts on the Earth. These studies also helped identify how past events from the Earth’s history could be linked to impacts from outer bodies [4]. <br /><br />For example, the infamous Tunguska event of 1908 involved an explosion equivalent 12 megatons of TNT, attributed to a meteor air burst, where a stony meteoroid of more than 50 m in diameter entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 27 km/s and disintegrated near the Tunguska river in a sparsely populated region of Siberia in Russia. It was estimated that about 80 million trees over an area of 2150 sq. km. perished due to the impact [5]. More recently, an event that occurred in the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 drew attention from the scientific community where a small asteroid - about the size of a six-story building - broke up over the city of Chelyabinsk. The asteroid, about 17 m in diameter and weighing approximately 10,000 metric tons, hit the Earth’s atmosphere at about 18 km/s. The energy of the resulting explosion exceeded 470 kilotons of TNT. The blast was so strong that it triggered detections from monitoring stations as far away as Antarctica [6]. <br /><br /><i>Assessing Potential Threats</i><br /><br />The Earth Impact Database [7], maintained by the University of New Brunswick, currently identifies as many as 190 confirmed impact structures on Earth’s surface. They range from small (tens to hundreds of meters in diameter) impact craters to large ones like Vredefort in South Africa measuring 160 km in diameter, dating back to 2023 million years. It is also true that not all impacts from outer bodies would result in terrestrial craters (i.e., they could explode in the atmosphere causing only air burst like the one at Tunguska), not all impact structures on the Earth’s surface have been identified [8]. Therefore, we may consider that these events are common and frequent on geologic timescales and the fact that our awareness of the population of potential impactors in the Solar System has been improving, how much of a threat do asteroids and comets really pose? </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Imagine the possibility of an asteroid with a diameter of more than 300 m heading towards a critical infrastructure like a nuclear plant. While the probabilities of such an event may be extremely low, it is essential that we develop our understanding of the risk associated with the entry of planetary bodies, considering the potential damage even a smaller asteroid (with diameter of less than 300 m) may cause to our civilization. Potentially hazardous asteroids and comets are categorized by NASA [9] and researchers [10]. The threat and potential of an impact primarily depend on the size and composition of the object, the surface being impacted, and the angle of impact. As of today, more than 28 000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have been identified with majority of them having diameters in the range 30 – 100 m [11]. Smaller objects burn up in the atmosphere harmlessly as they approached the Earth. Larger objects, even if they burn up before hitting the ground, cause air burst or explosion, leading to severe damage. <br /><br />To assess the potential damage and probability of impact, first, we need to detect these objects, and then we need to monitor their orbits. This is done from ground-based and space telescopes. By applying Newton’s laws and N-body simulations (i.e., modeling equations of motions for N objects interacting gravitationally), the orbits of most of these objects are predictable for at least 100 years into the future. Only the asteroids whose orbits cross that of the Earth are potentially dangerous. However, as mentioned earlier, not all asteroids are of the same size, and the larger the object, the higher is the threat. At the same time larger objects are rarer. Events like the Tunguska and Chelyabinsk were caused by smaller bodies compared to the events that caused the mass extinction approximately 66 million years ago due to an impact from as asteroid of diameter of about 10 km [12]. <br /><br />Thus, although the Solar System is populated with small bodies like asteroids and comets, only a fraction of these objects are of sizes that can be damaging and can potentially go on a trajectory that will coincide with the Earth to cause an impact. Asteroids that follow orbital trajectories within Earth's "neighborhood" (i.e., within 7.5 million km of Earth's orbit) around the Sun and that are more than 140 m in diameter are potential hazard to Earth and identified as Potential Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) [13]. Ongoing research has enabled us to come up with a special classification of asteroids and objects which are closer to Earth’s orbit [14]. Not all near-Earth objects (NEOs) will impact the Earth at some point, but it is more likely that if an impact does happen, it will be an NEO. <br /><br /><i>Our Options for Defense</i><br /><br />So, what are our options for defense as a species if an asteroid were to head our way? There are a few popular ideas. The first one is sending a spacecraft to the asteroid that can fragment the asteroid into smaller pieces. This idea sounds great but is not practical since the smaller fragments can also cause harm to the planet. Think of it as breaking down a big problem into 100 tiny chunks and having to deal with these 100 tiny chunks of the same problem. An alternate and favored line of action currently being investigated by the scientific community is deflecting the asteroid into a new orbit so that it misses the Earth completely. This can be achieved in a few ways. One would be to crash a spacecraft into the asteroid itself to gently nudge the asteroid into a newer orbit. This is what the DART mission is set to test on the asteroid Dimorphos, a small (160 m diameter) asteroid in orbit around a larger orbit of the asteroid Didymos (780 m diameter). DART’s LICIACube spacecraft will crash on Dimorphos to create a kinetic impact that will change the orbit of Dimorphos around Didymos. <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6w5e99y3WV55j0o-kNsQo2kgynJEJb9lW3k8dyHr8rvV5BoChPTkb5iotcLBx1YvUaP1g5bj74p5e9B-nW6mucIGaU1ZGSWUTLTyYAn-l5-8onrkSOq4IZsMUbgbtQaZcGjd9oz2D0gBd_ql3a2KhmSuWFl3oGq7D3hKCZv9-Xe-Tzz-pYH9dTHJn/s936/ADas_Mar2022B.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="936" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6w5e99y3WV55j0o-kNsQo2kgynJEJb9lW3k8dyHr8rvV5BoChPTkb5iotcLBx1YvUaP1g5bj74p5e9B-nW6mucIGaU1ZGSWUTLTyYAn-l5-8onrkSOq4IZsMUbgbtQaZcGjd9oz2D0gBd_ql3a2KhmSuWFl3oGq7D3hKCZv9-Xe-Tzz-pYH9dTHJn/w400-h214/ADas_Mar2022B.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Image: Schematic of LICIACube attempting to change the orbit of Dimorphos<br />Image Source: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory /NASA</i><br /></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Although Didymos is not a threat to Earth, this will be a demonstration of how effective the kinetic impactor method is when it comes to changing the course of an asteroid, called redirection. <br /><br />Another idea involves the gravity tractor method that exploits the gravitational attraction of a spacecraft with the asteroid to cause continuous minuscule changes in the orbit, which would, cumulatively, over time result in a more visible change of the trajectory of the asteroid. The only downside to this method is it is a long process that involve several years [15], and hence we will need to know about the asteroid well in advance from the date of potential impact. This brings us to the question, what happens if we discover an asteroid heading our way and we do not have sufficient time to send a spacecraft to the asteroid to deflect it? Such a scenario will call for a damage control strategy where the trajectory of the asteroid is monitored, the potential places on the Earth where the asteroid is expected to impact is calculated, and measures are taken to minimize the damage that could be caused to life or infrastructure. <br /><br />To conclude, planetary defense is an exciting field of study which is necessary for the safekeeping of the planet. In 2016 NASA established the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) to manage its ongoing mission of planetary defense. NEOs and NEAs need to be monitored constantly, in addition to the continued identification and discovery of additional potential impactors capable of significant damage so that we can prepare for a potentially catastrophic impact event. The DART mission is a critical mission that will be our first step in equipping ourselves better in the event of a hazardous asteroid coming Earth’s way.</p><p>___</p><p><i>Sources:</i></p><p>[1] <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/specials/pdco/index.html">https://www.nasa.gov/specials/pdco/index.html</a> <br />[2] Mazanek, D. D., Merrill, R. G., Brophy, J. R., & Mueller, R. P. (2015). Asteroid redirect mission concept: a bold approach for utilizing space resources. Acta Astronautica, 117, 163-171.<br />[3] <a href="https://authors.library.caltech.edu/86061/1/Asteroid_Redirect_Robotic_Mission.pdf">https://authors.library.caltech.edu/86061/1/Asteroid_Redirect_Robotic_Mission.pdf</a> <br />[4] Sleep, N. H., Zahnle, K. J., Kasting, J. F., & Morowitz, H. J. (1989). Annihilation of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth. Nature, 342(6246), 139-142.<br />[5] <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103518305104?via%3Dihub">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103518305104?via%3Dihub</a> <br />[6] <a href="https://www.space.com/33623-chelyabinsk-meteor-wake-up-call-for-earth.html">https://www.space.com/33623-chelyabinsk-meteor-wake-up-call-for-earth.html</a> <br />[7] <a href="http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/New%20website_05-2018/World.html">http://www.passc.net/EarthImpactDatabase/New%20website_05-2018/World.html</a> <br />[8] <a href="https://www.boulder.swri.edu/~cchapman/crcepsl.pdf">https://www.boulder.swri.edu/~cchapman/crcepsl.pdf</a> <br />[9] <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/neo_groups.html">https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/about/neo_groups.html</a> <br />[10] <a href="http://www.boundarycondition.com/NEOwp_Chapman-Durda-Gold.pdf">http://www.boundarycondition.com/NEOwp_Chapman-Durda-Gold.pdf</a> <br />[11] <a href="https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/size.html">https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/size.html</a> <br />[12] <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/97JE01743">https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/97JE01743</a> <br />[13] <a href="https://solarstory.net/asteroids/near-earth-asteroids">https://solarstory.net/asteroids/near-earth-asteroids</a> <br />[14] <a href="https://space.nss.org/national-space-society-planetary-defense-library/">https://space.nss.org/national-space-society-planetary-defense-library/</a> <br />[15] <a href="https://iaaspace.org/wp-content/uploads/iaa/Scientific%20Activity/conf/pdc2015/IAA-PDC-15-04-11.pdf">https://iaaspace.org/wp-content/uploads/iaa/Scientific%20Activity/conf/pdc2015/IAA-PDC-15-04-11.pdf</a> </p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-88337357748603531202022-03-14T08:41:00.003-07:002022-03-14T08:48:02.385-07:00Water Discovered on Mars! (Again.)<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjslIRzVC-F_4BSMDXCtqClX6NhqVOglG7DsZr5gzxIqdXBBk3cp5OFGmQ5Kp-O5nPRx03Ej7iFbTFwRrmUz7vsLMqiV9kFOWq56FtfZlVLOjz6RKFEDtduTzM2owTZax3e_cizfdQQdg50LeuqBJWX55Bhbr_eDc_4ooXZiteP7pMhlNi7YOmhF4LD=s1041" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="1041" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjslIRzVC-F_4BSMDXCtqClX6NhqVOglG7DsZr5gzxIqdXBBk3cp5OFGmQ5Kp-O5nPRx03Ej7iFbTFwRrmUz7vsLMqiV9kFOWq56FtfZlVLOjz6RKFEDtduTzM2owTZax3e_cizfdQQdg50LeuqBJWX55Bhbr_eDc_4ooXZiteP7pMhlNi7YOmhF4LD=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>It's a bit of a running joke amongst planetary scientists that any research discussing water (in any form) on Mars will get reported in the press with a breathless headline. Year after year, somehow the 'discovery' of water on Mars persists as a topic of great interest. One of our MSc students digs into this phenomenon below. Luckily, she isn't working on astrobiology topics - that often leads to <a href="https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/mars-methane-mystery">headlines about aliens</a>.</i><br /><i>(Image above: <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jezero-crater-was-a-lake-in-mars-ancient-past">Jezero crater</a>, as it might have appeared when filled with water in the past)</i><br /></div><div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Grace Bischof</i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Recently, fellow PVL member Charissa Campbell was involved in a JPL press release detailing the Martian clouds she captured in her <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26557/curiosity-captures-drifting-clouds-on-dec-12-2021/?site=msl">Cloud Altitude Observation</a>. The images consisted of beautiful clouds drifting across the Martian sky, likely composed of CO2-ice due to their high altitude in the atmosphere. I spent some time reading the replies to the press release on social media, many of which pose questions about the composition of the clouds on Mars. “Clouds means water?” writes one of the commenters. Meanwhile, “What are the clouds made of? [because] there ain’t no water vapour floating around on Mars, right?” inquires another. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Well, I have some good news for everyone: there is water on Mars! But before you call your local newspaper to report the exciting revelation, I have some explaining to do. <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1963ApJ...137.1319S/abstract">The presence of water on Mars has been confirmed since the late 1960s, when water vapour lines were detected in spectra of Mars observed with an Earth-based telescope.</a> Since then, water has been “discovered” on Mars over and over and over again (see: any <i>Daily Mail</i> article about Martian water). So, let’s clear this up. Water exists on Mars in both vapour and ice form. The confusion arises when we consider the way we talk about water in day-to-day life. In regular conversation, we say “water” when we mean liquid H2O, and “ice” when we mean solid H2O. This verbiage doesn’t hold in planetary science settings because “ice” to refers to any solid form of a condensable species: for example, CO2-ice or H2O-ice. Because of this confusion, the lack of liquid water leaves people believing there is no water whatsoever.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, let’s take a closer look at the water on Mars. Mars’ atmosphere is much thinner and has much less water vapour than Earth’s atmosphere. However, the amount of water vapour is sufficient to condense to form water-ice clouds in the atmosphere. Each Mars Year, when the planet is at its aphelion position (the furthest point from the sun) a belt of water-ice clouds forms in the equatorial region of the planet, called the Aphelion Cloud Belt. These clouds have been observed by orbiters around Mars and cameras on the surface, notably by the Curiosity rover. Water-ice clouds exist in other regions, as well, such as in the Martian Arctic. The Phoenix mission captures images of fluffy clouds drifting past its landing site during the second half of the mission. The Surface Stereo Imager and lidar onboard the lander were used together to find evidence of water-ice fog near the surface of the lander. The Phoenix mission was also the first mission to capture precipitation (snow) falling from the clouds.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">The other common place to find water on Mars is as water-ice in the subsurface. The Phoenix lander was equipped with a robotic arm to dig into the Martian soil. They were able to find ice in the area around the lander at many depths, ranging down to 14 cm. At both the north and south poles you can find a large polar cap primarily composed of water-ice covered by a layer of CO2-ice. Areas of the south polar cap resemble Swiss Cheese, where pits in the CO2-ice layer expose water-ice beneath. PVL member, Alex Innanen, has examined the Swiss Cheese pits to determine if the water vapour sublimated from the Swiss Cheese contributes substantially to the overall global water vapour abundance. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">So, what about that coveted liquid water? Well, it’s complicated. Presently, no bodies of liquid water can exist on the surface of Mars. The atmosphere is so thin that exposed water-ice sublimates straight to water vapour when heated and deposits back to ice when cooled. Geomorphic evidence, such as river deltas, show us that Mars had liquid water on the surface in its past. In 2018, radar analysis of Mars’ south pole saw evidence of a subsurface liquid-water lake. It was theorized the lakes would be extremely salty, bringing the freezing temperature down and allowing the water to stay liquid. In 2021, a York U professor, Dr. Isaac Smith, released a paper explaining that the radar observations are better described by hydrated and cold clay-rich deposits (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093618">https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GL093618</a>), rather than salty lakes. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Liquid water on Mars is an exciting notion because it leads to many questions about the habitability of the planet, both past and present. But liquid water is not the only interesting phase of water – it is clear we really love the clouds here at PVL. Nonetheless, if liquid water is ever found, you can sure expect to see a bold headline declaring “Water Discovered on Mars!”, in which case, you can refer back to this blog post. <br /></p></div>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-3938159260448411222022-03-09T08:13:00.002-08:002022-03-09T08:13:24.597-08:00So Long and Thanks for All the Clouds<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVTKcYcdytxSF9tTqs8UxRceOiuSTWKD3u-40CaYyp4amxvSjv_bJc60G7DBU5ILylJLoNusdD897ZOy77CU9_UHHlIlRHR4yawA4tuEaELjXcfne6ueyXu4Hh8Tib4gPBuyp8dsO3cv4BGTLy77xOLdeMzf5AHlt6LB5mrdG69K0fN5kLcUQKN0MA=s1024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjVTKcYcdytxSF9tTqs8UxRceOiuSTWKD3u-40CaYyp4amxvSjv_bJc60G7DBU5ILylJLoNusdD897ZOy77CU9_UHHlIlRHR4yawA4tuEaELjXcfne6ueyXu4Hh8Tib4gPBuyp8dsO3cv4BGTLy77xOLdeMzf5AHlt6LB5mrdG69K0fN5kLcUQKN0MA=s320" width="320" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>As the saying goes, everything that has a beginning has an end. Many students in my lab have had the opportunity to work on the Curiosity mission over the last ten years and it has been one of the great joys of my career to see those students grow into capable and confident colleagues trusted by their peers the world over who work with them on the mission. But, inevitably, students complete their degrees or move on to other projects and opportunities. For Charissa Campbell, a PhD student who has been working on the mission since 2016 she has an opportunity to lead the science case for an instrument called MAPLE that could contribute to Environmental Science in a future planetary mission.<br />(Animation Above: the sun sets at Gale Crater on Sol 312 of the mission)<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Charissa Campbell </i></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Over the past 5 years, I’ve been a part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL, Curiosity) team, specifically the Environmental working group (ENV). The ENV team is responsible for managing any environmental observations which includes any cloud or dust devil imaging. During my time with the group I got the opportunity to help plan several sols (Martian day) of operations. This includes advocating for different ENV observations that are used to characterize the environment around Curiosity’s location, Gale Crater. <br /><br />Our research group helps maintain different ENV observations that use the Navigation Cameras (Navcams) to observe atmospheric aerosols. This includes the Zenith Movie (ZM, an eight frame movie observing movement directly above the rover), Supra-horizon Movie (SHM, an eight frame movie looking above the horizon), Line of Sight (LOS, a single image capturing the crater rim), Phase Function Sky Survey (PFSS, 9 three frame movies observing aerosols at a variety of pointings) and Cloud Altitude Observation (CAO, 2 eight frame movies intending to capture cloud and shadow motion). The first three (ZM, SHM, LOS) have been a part of the mission for several Mars Years (MYs) and are great for monitoring cloud and dust over the course of a MY. The PFSS and CAO are on the newer side and are only performed in the cloudy season. The most recent cloudy season just finished and now we are preparing for the dust season which brings increased dust and dust-devils in the crater.<br /><br />When I first started on the mission, I helped maintain the cadence of the ZM and SHM. This includes advocating their cadence (every 2-3 sols) and keeping an eye out for any aerosol activity. The cloudy season on Mars is very consistent year to year so it is relatively easy to predict when we’d expect to see more activity. Coming up to my first cloudy season, I found a pair of early morning movies that captured wispy clouds like Mares’ Tails seen here on Earth (shown below). The uniqueness and beauty of these clouds earned a press release (<a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/8866/clouds-sailing-overhead-on-mars-enhanced/?site=msl">https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/8866/clouds-sailing-overhead-on-mars-enhanced/?site=msl</a>). Since I was still fresh on the mission, I was excited and anxious for the opportunity. It received plenty of press and I enjoyed reading the various comments left by the public.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqA3Fm3hT2yeuGqDn95zqAXX7bQetNafTRwmW7HsaAX-y3GGiKgWZru_lXMS7iPcBzqelHYqUPbOEugtMqcN_vBOaE8L2KAscXnM05ZStCE25JQS0TH8UDWz_y-RPV11DuCI2vTEx1IuOp6x1Vif_K3rs2llqIPVHy7sfQK5y7MgWfQoPM5-aNjqBI=s511" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="511" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhqA3Fm3hT2yeuGqDn95zqAXX7bQetNafTRwmW7HsaAX-y3GGiKgWZru_lXMS7iPcBzqelHYqUPbOEugtMqcN_vBOaE8L2KAscXnM05ZStCE25JQS0TH8UDWz_y-RPV11DuCI2vTEx1IuOp6x1Vif_K3rs2llqIPVHy7sfQK5y7MgWfQoPM5-aNjqBI=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKxCt0FZMYAhRxZ1_lN6QQQ5zElqYIwxbMYiGqnXBpk9TlhBfx5MllkXM6nRckXPKdHqDJ3f_kuK_Td_zZS99R-xLiR6FjLAnh2QPSCzXyKNbQbZgEQBDU1lGUxSyX0Svsdiy4pC22DvzjMYxvkx9txkX593c9uERoHq_G8mk62LJyZrVsgvTW9qED=s511" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="511" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKxCt0FZMYAhRxZ1_lN6QQQ5zElqYIwxbMYiGqnXBpk9TlhBfx5MllkXM6nRckXPKdHqDJ3f_kuK_Td_zZS99R-xLiR6FjLAnh2QPSCzXyKNbQbZgEQBDU1lGUxSyX0Svsdiy4pC22DvzjMYxvkx9txkX593c9uERoHq_G8mk62LJyZrVsgvTW9qED=s320" width="320" /></a></div> <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Over the next few years I continued to advocate for ENV observations but I was also given the opportunity to help develop a new observation. On sol 1787 a Dust-Devil Movie (DDM) was aimed at Mt. Sharp (Aeolis Mons) and instead of capturing dust-devils, it observed shadows moving across the mountain. This was caused by clouds moving overhead which was confirmed by the ZM that followed. A DDM pointed at Mt. Sharp posed a unique opportunity to measure the direct velocity and altitude of the overhead clouds by determining how fast the shadows move with respect to the mountain. Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) have been created for Mars which provide an x, y, z coordinate for every point in Gale Crater. By noting where on the mountain the shadow starts and ends between the first and last frames, a velocity can be calculated. When a paired ZM is used to calculate the angular spacing and velocity of the clouds above, we can get the velocity and altitude of the clouds. Typically, this parameter is found using a lidar which was demonstrated by the Phoenix lander (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/Lidar_Fall_Streaks_SD_001.html">https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/images/press/Lidar_Fall_Streaks_SD_001.html</a>). However, Curiosity isn’t equipped with a lidar so we must use alternative approaches to calculate altitude.<br /><br />Taking what we learned about the DDM and ZM combination, we went ahead and created the CAO. Within this parent observation is the Cloud Shadow Movie (CSM) and ZM. The CSM would be the DDM but optimized to bring out shadows. This includes increasing the frame size for more mountain coverage. This frame size was also applied to the ZM. Once the CAO was optimized , it was tested on Curiosity before becoming an official observation that the ENV team can plan. As of today, we have officially completed 3 MY worth of CAO data.<br /><br />Analyzing the most recent set showed a unique pair of shadow and clouds that were not seen before in a CAO. Shown below, both movies show turbulent clouds with large shadows that pass over the rover before going up the mountain. I decided to showcase this set at the most recent Curiosity team meeting where I showed my cloud altitude results. The movies seemed to be a hit that they became a press release (<a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26557/curiosity-captures-drifting-clouds-on-dec-12-2021/?site=msl">https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/26557/curiosity-captures-drifting-clouds-on-dec-12-2021/?site=msl</a>). It made me extremely happy to have another set of movies released by JPL. I will be leaving the Curiosity team in the next few months to focus on my other PhD projects, so it is bittersweet to start and end my time on the mission with a press release.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHsVM0y-1BW-QKFj9AxlTDaMoSqvnHrS-GwIB-fAD-EglgJucaXchj3Xm5GfhQpWqZXVsmyMaCMxa23xF3F402ZqIOmZaE4IUFttsJvz4Vtdt_lGaL1pDRLafceJy3HokosQ4HdLLMbgG_TjRq5bAzji-qXmVEZGxgOOp-ZXnFFsPA2vDdgrhuF4gV=s1024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHsVM0y-1BW-QKFj9AxlTDaMoSqvnHrS-GwIB-fAD-EglgJucaXchj3Xm5GfhQpWqZXVsmyMaCMxa23xF3F402ZqIOmZaE4IUFttsJvz4Vtdt_lGaL1pDRLafceJy3HokosQ4HdLLMbgG_TjRq5bAzji-qXmVEZGxgOOp-ZXnFFsPA2vDdgrhuF4gV=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwKNTkczIxw2YUa4j1XHYQo0Lqr-i9dqStoItrJrLrtmvaRt1fDHuEx5wrrJYzm56aQH_ya1tqsh0bKMV_Ukehga9WVgrkrkS17kqJCx9238YNHuJOgpehaEAjMAo6-bKRLnY4D3SEmT_nEMN15oaSG7ZAyjk3nuq4To35HpC-E8BM-EArSQgXVEVt=s1024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwKNTkczIxw2YUa4j1XHYQo0Lqr-i9dqStoItrJrLrtmvaRt1fDHuEx5wrrJYzm56aQH_ya1tqsh0bKMV_Ukehga9WVgrkrkS17kqJCx9238YNHuJOgpehaEAjMAo6-bKRLnY4D3SEmT_nEMN15oaSG7ZAyjk3nuq4To35HpC-E8BM-EArSQgXVEVt=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">It’s been a great honour to work with Curiosity data and especially help develop an observation that will continue to be captured in future cloud seasons. I want to thank the Curiosity team and all the current and past PVL members that have helped me. Good luck Curiosity! I hope you have many more cloudy seasons on the horizon. <br /></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3391031666140366620.post-60621000747669004362022-03-03T13:08:00.000-08:002022-03-03T13:08:44.216-08:00I, Robot – InSight’s Struggle to Keep the Lights On<p style="text-align: center;"><i></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1ape1Ii11iVyoxpJa2ZTpGJInmkeU2zYvZlwYFKhTCs3H3o4yqaSI8mE3Uo-6vsVxOjb5mG5gBvdyH0Uy08wQxGSKUoc7-upwUUO7DA2fmtsGxrCPiMFxvTsSmhyw6a5RzRN9SNSCDOHgBBk3dOoc8nhBUTVuLinx2iufQ7CvLIn-ISpv8TDEECJ6=s4391" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2504" data-original-width="4391" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg1ape1Ii11iVyoxpJa2ZTpGJInmkeU2zYvZlwYFKhTCs3H3o4yqaSI8mE3Uo-6vsVxOjb5mG5gBvdyH0Uy08wQxGSKUoc7-upwUUO7DA2fmtsGxrCPiMFxvTsSmhyw6a5RzRN9SNSCDOHgBBk3dOoc8nhBUTVuLinx2iufQ7CvLIn-ISpv8TDEECJ6=w400-h228" width="400" /></a></i></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Our spacecraft are more than just our robotic avatars on other planets. They carry our culture with them, sometimes literally as with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record">Voyager golden record</a>. But they also have an effect on those who remain back here at home. This can take the form of becoming the topic of <a href="https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2032109-mars-exploration">memes</a>, of having <a href="http://www.stevethecat.com/">fan fiction</a> written about them or being <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/17332/spacecraft-components-lithograph/">completely anthropomorphized</a>. This week, undergraduate student Vennesa Weedmark considers the Opportunity Rover, InSight lander and their ultimate fate. <br />Image above: <a href="https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/22211/insights-first-selfie/?site=insight">InSight's first selfie</a>.<br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>By Vennesa Weedmark</i><br /></p><p style="text-align: justify;">For as long as humans have been launching things into space, we’ve been anthropomorphizing them as extensions of our global self, bravely venturing into the void. These little (or sometimes very large) friends are given nicknames, celebrated, and eventually, mourned. Opportunity, a robotic rover that lived 55 times longer than its planned 90 sol lifetime, drove over 45 kilometers, knew its own birthday, gained a massive online following, and became a symbol of perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds. When NASA finally confirmed its death on February 13th, 2019, and its last message was translated as “My battery is low and it's getting dark”, there was an upwelling of condolences and life-celebrating responses across the internet.<br /><br />I may have shed more than one tear. <br /><br />Now, the end seems nigh for InSight aka. Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport. Designed to study the interior of the red planet and determine the rate of Martian tectonic activity and impacts, the planets “vital signs”, it launched in 2018 and has been active on Mars for over 1100 sols, slightly beyond its planned mission duration. <br /><br />Since landing, it has recorded the first sounds of Martian winds, attempted to dig into the surface of Mars, detected marsquakes, found fluctuations in the magnetic field at the landing site, and provided invaluable information about soil at the landing site and the possible methods for drilling into Mars, and successfully emerged from an emergency hibernation caused when its solar panels became covered with dust. Since that first storm, InSight has been trying to clear the sand from its panels using saltation. By using its robotic arms to sprinkle sand near its solar panel, the sand would blow away, touching the solar panels and taking some of the dust with it as it left the solar panel. This, luckily, resulted in a temporary boost in power. <br /><br />Then, because the bad luck of previous years isn’t done with us yet, January 2022 brought another drop in sunlight due to a regional dust storm, causing InSight to re-enter safe mode. The storm that shuttered InSight was only about 18% as strong as that which brought about the demise of Opportunity, and its safe mode ended again with no lasting signs of damage. <br /><br />The overarching problem is what will become of InSight as its access to life-giving sun continues to decline, and what working on reduced power will do to the experiments and tests that it has yet to complete. As power drops, it’s saltation cleaning method will also become more difficult to perform. <br />Opportunity’s arrays were cleaned regularly by atmospheric activity, but InSight has continued to accumulate dust, and its outlook is looking increasingly dim (pun fully intended). Obviously, efforts to clean the Solar panels continue, but short of a “cleaning event”, it is likely that we’ll be mourning another brave explorer in the next year. <br /><br />Like Oppy, InSight is active on social media and has a sizeable following, tweeting “Skies seem to be clearing overhead, so I’m out of safe mode and back to more normal operations”, as it emerged from its most recent slumber. Hopefully I won’t cry as much when InSight sends its final tweet. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i>Note: while two members of PVL (Charissa Campbell and John Moores)
are collaborators of the InSight Team, this post is completely independent of
our work on that mission and was written by a member of our lab who is not affiliated with the InSight mission.</i></p>ArcticSaxifragehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00785688591905610954noreply@blogger.com0