Rover Exploration Challenge: The Boardgame for Outreach

As part of our work under my Early Career Researcher Award grant from the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science, we have been developing outreach materials to share the excitement of space exploration with the public. We've previously run two events at the Ontario Science Centre and now we have created a home version. While you won't find this board game in stores, we've made the game freely available to all. Just download the template, print it out, assemble and enjoy.

by Dr. Christina Smith

So as you may have already read, we here at the PVL have put on an event known as the Rover Exploration Challenge, where members of the public take the role of scientists on a rover mission to the  unknown planet of “Arduinna”, using the “rover” to explore the planet to find out whether it is habitable. If you want to find more about the Rover Exploration Challenge event, take a look at Charissa’s blog post http://york-pvl.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-successful-rover-exploration-challenge.html

After successfully doing this challenge a few times and for a range of audiences, John posed the question of whether there was any way we could package it into something people could take home and play themselves, like a board game. I grew up playing board games with my family and friends (everything from standard kids board games all the way up to seriously long games – and yes I used to lose those a lot) so I took the lead on the conversion.

So, what’s it like researching in the PVL!?

This week Ariella reflects on her time spent with the lab over the summer as a TEPS fellow. Above, she is pictured at the Lassonde Undergraduate Research Conference alongside Noah Stanton, another of our Summer Researchers. We wish her well as she enters into her final year of her undergraduate career and sets her sights on what lies beyond!

By Ariella Sapers

Over the last 4-5 months I’ve spent my time being an undergraduate researcher for the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory at York University, which was a huge change to my previous research experience.

I’m used to staring at stars in my previous research projects - but now, it was all about Mars! For starters, I did not realize the amount of incredible Mars research that is done in this lab ... and worldwide. I was very naive before I started - as my head had always been stuck in astrophysics research – so I didn’t realize the cool research that’s conducted in the Planetary Sciences! Before this, the only experience I had was a Planets and Planetary Systems course taught at York University by Dr. John Moores, which is what intrigued me in the first place.

This research experience didn’t just let me work in a cool lab ... I got to attend two conferences throughout the summer. The first was the TEPS conference. This conference was the Technologies for (Exo) Planetary Sciences which allowed all award holders to come for a three-day conference. TEPS is an NSERC CREATE Program that allows undergrads, masters, PHD and Post Docs to be trainees. I was lucky enough to have received one of these awards which officially made me a TEPS Trainee! This meant I got to attend the TEPS conference and meet a lot of Planetary Scientists. The vast amount of research being conducted on Mars, exoplanets and the moon is incredible. It also showed me what masters students and PhD students are working on - since I’m close to graduating, it was nice to see the endeavours of graduate students.  

Life within Ice

A beautiful shot of micro-penitentes on Mt Rainier near Seattle, WA as photographed by Mark Sanderson in 2006 ( CC3.0, license and original file and description here ). What I love about this image is the lack of anything familiar that could indicate the scale of the features - aside from the notes from the photographer. They could be cm across or km! This is a familiar feeling from looking at images that come back from spacecraft that challenge our preconceptions. Today, PhD student Giang reflects on his recently published work trying to understand whether such textures could arise on Mars and if so, how big would they be and in what directions would they be orientated? Such models are needed to help us interpret what we see.

By Giang Nguyen

Perhaps it’s a mental coping mechanism from the summer heat, but I’ve been thinking a lot about ice. The behaviour of water ice across the solar system is studied by many people in the PVL group, and I am no exception. I’ve been looking at how water affects the atmosphere since my undergrad where I studied terrestrial weather systems. Later, the work for my Master’s consisted of surveying the icy conditions of the Martian north polar cap to look for surface-atmosphere interaction. Finally, with my PhD well on its way, I’ve been tasked with studying the atmospheric conditions of possible icy worlds beyond our solar system.

As you might guess, water is somewhat an important volatile for the propagation of life on Earth. Since there isn’t another planetary body within the solar system that is like Earth, it is helpful to look at the most extreme conditions Earth has to offer for clues. From my introductory paragraph, you’re probably thinking that I’m going to talk about Earth’s arctic polar conditions but that won’t be the case. The geography of interest here is actually high-altitude deserts, chiefly the Atacama desert located within South America’s Andes mountains.

Seasonally Shadowed Regions on the Moon: Adding Greater Intrigue to the Lunar Poles

This week, Jacob Kloos, a PhD Student here at PVL discusses exciting new research he has just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Planets. In his work, Jake found that the famous permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) are surrounded by seasonally shadowed regions (SSRs) which turn out to have important implications for the lunar water exosphere and the amount of water available in different locations at different times of the year - they're not what you would expect! Above, one of the key findings of the research: maps of the lunar poles showing these SSRs.

By Jacob Kloos

Over the past few decades, the north and south polar regions of Earth’s moon have garnered much attention within the field of planetary science. In addition to becoming prime targets for robotic and human exploration, the lunar poles have also been the subject of an increasing number of scientific studies. What makes these areas so intriguing for science and exploration? The answer lies in their unique illumination environments.

Unlike the Earth which rotates on an axis tilted 23.5 degrees from the ecliptic normal, the spin axis of the Moon is tilted only 1.5 degrees, ensuring that the Sun is always near the horizon for an observer at one of the poles. The low axial tilt of the Moon, coupled with its heavily heavily cratered surface, produce complex illumination patterns at high latitudes, giving rise to extremes in both sunlight and shadow: areas that are high in elevation may experience near-continuous sunlight, while some low-lying basins are in permanent shadow. Although no regions on the Moon (or indeed in the solar system) have yet been discovered which can claim the ethereal title of “peaks of eternal light,” some regions, like the rim of Shackleton crater near the South Pole, remain bathed in sunlight for 80-90% of the year. Such areas are attractive sites to send a solar-powered rover.

The permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), which are in many cases directly adjacent to the near-continuously illuminated regions, are not only interesting from an exploration perspective, but also from a scientific perspective. As a direct consequence of not receiving direct sunlight, and because the Moon lacks a substantial atmosphere to sequester and transport heat, permanently shadowed regions are among the coldest places in the solar system, enabling them to trap and store volatiles such as water across geologic periods of time. These volatile deposits constitute a valuable resource for scientific study as they would be well preserved and largely protected from chemical weathering; as such they could provide valuable insight into the delivery of water to the inner solar system - in particular to the Earth-Moon system. As for exploration, water could be extracted in-situ by future explorers, and could provide a source of potable drinking water, breathable air or perhaps even rocket fuel if broken down into its constituent components.

50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing Blog Post

This week, PVL Undergraduate Researcher Ariella Sapers reflects on a significant anniversary for space exploration: the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings. Above, a photo of a plaque like the one left on the lunar surface by Apollo 11. And yes, folks, that is Richard Nixon's signature on the bottom (to my knowledge the only politician whose name is written on a monument off the Earth) - it took the efforts of three different administrations to pull off this event.

By Ariella Sapers

With the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing just passing, I thought it was only appropriate to dedicate a blog all about the event and the celebrations that occurred here at York University!

On July 20th 1969, three brave men, Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz’’ Aldrin, and Michael Collins took a leap of faith as part of NASA’s Apollo 11 lunar mission and headed to the moon. The Apollo Lunar Module, The Eagle, landed on the moon at 20:17 UTC in which Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the surface of the moon on July 21st at 02:56 UTC. With this walk, human beings had officially walked on the surface of a planetary body that wasn’t Earth. 

The Wonderful Life as Interim Observatory Director of the Allan I. Carswell Observatory

This past year while I was in Australia, PVL PhD student Indiana Jones (I mean, Charissa Campbell - see the photo below the cut below) took on a very unusual TAing assignment in the Department of Physics. But she handled the assignment with grace, growing into the role. She returns to the lab with a new skill-set that I have no doubt will help her reach her graduate student goals.

By Charissa Campbell  

From January till July 2019 I had the great honour of being the Interim Observatory Director of the campus observatory, known as the Allan I. Carswell Observatory. The great Paul Delaney was on sabbatical for 6 months and needed a temporary replacement to maintain the observatory while he was gone. I immediately jumped on the idea when Paul asked me as not only would I gain valuable outreach and leadership experience, but it would allow me the ability to work with telescopes, always a passion of mine.

The observatory houses two telescopes, a 40 cm and 60 cm. This size describes the diameter of the primary mirror in the telescope. The bigger the mirror, the brighter are the objects that you observe, allowing you to see dimmer things that are often farther away. We’ve been lucky enough to be able to get a new telescope with a 1 m mirror, the largest on a Canadian campus (https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/university-new-telescope-research-1.4287794). It was supposed to be installed December 2018 (before Paul left on sabbatical), but was unfortunately delayed. This is common with important piece of equipment, especially of the astronomy related kind. I will admit that I was a little relieved that the 1 m was delayed until Paul got back as I would have been significantly busier as the telescope would have been in high demand for tours, media, etc. Keep an eye out for when the new telescope is ready! For more information on the different events the observatory does, feel free to check out their website: http://observatory.info.yorku.ca

Dr. Godin’s TEPS Internship or How I learned to stop Physicsing and Love Micro-Biology

PVL PDF Paul Godin recently returned from his TEPS internship at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was a productive trip and he made many friends along the way, including the character over his shoulder to the right in the picture above.

By Dr. Paul Godin

Many members of the PVL receive funding from the Technologies for Exo-planetary Science (TEPS) NSERC CREATE program (http://teps.science.yorku.ca/). TEPS is more than just funding for the group, it also provides opportunities for go on international research internships. This past spring, I was accepted for an internship at the Space Life Sciences Lab (SLSL) at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The SLSL was originally built as a collaboration between NASA and the University of Florida to conduct biology-based experiments relevant to the space program. However, about 10 years ago NASA sold off their portion of the building to Space Florida, a state government agency responsible for promoting the space sector in Florida; the University of Florida portion remains. My internship was under one of these University of Florida professors, Dr. Andrew C. Schuerger. 

Andy’s lab focuses on planetary protection, which is insuring that missions to other planets don’t accidentally contaminate those worlds with terrestrial microbes. As such Andy’s lab conducts experiments testing the limits of bacterial survivability in extreme environments. The centerpiece of his lab is a state-of-the-art Mars simulation chamber, capable of recreating the temperature, atmosphere, and UV light conditions on Mars.