Martian Space Stories: Ocean Shoreline Located, Rings Turned to Moons, and Ancient Liquid Water

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Red Planet. (NASA/JPL)

Here are some recent stories on Mars.

—Earth.com: “China’s Mars Zhurong Rover Finds an Ocean Shoreline on the Red Planet“

The Chinese Mars rover Zhurong is adding an exciting twist to the story and history of water on Mars. After landing in southern Utopia Planitia on Mars in May 2021, the now-defunct Zhurong rover went to work exploring the Martian surface, and its latest findings might just change the way we think about the Red Planet. Bo Wu and a team of researchers from Hong Kong Polytechnic University believe they’ve found compelling evidence of an ocean shoreline for a massive body of water that once covered Mars’ northern lowlands.

—New York Times: “An Asteroid’s Destruction May Have Given Mars Rings, Then Moons“

Something’s not quite right about the moons of Mars. They are too small — Phobos is 17 miles across, and Deimos is a mere nine miles in length. And they aren’t round, but lumpy, misshaped objects. Frankly, they don’t resemble moons at all…A study published Wednesday in the journal Icarus makes a case that the moons did indeed start out in asteroid form. But it’s not the genesis everyone was expecting. Using supercomputer-powered simulations, scientists describe a situation in which a large-enough asteroid was captured by Mars long ago and torn to shreds by the planet’s gravity, briefly forming a debris cloud — and possibly a ring system — around Mars that ultimately clumped together to form two moons.

—Astrobiology News: “Meteorite Contains Evidence Of Liquid Water On Mars 742 Million Years Ago“

An asteroid struck Mars 11 million years ago and sent pieces of the red planet hurtling through space. One of these chunks of Mars eventually crashed into the Earth somewhere near Purdue and is one of the few meteorites that can be traced directly to Mars. This meteorite was rediscovered in a drawer at Purdue University in 1931 and therefore named the Lafayette Meteorite. During early investigations of the Lafayette Meteorite, scientists discovered that it had interacted with liquid water while on Mars. Scientists have long wondered when that interaction with liquid water took place. An international collaboration of scientists including two from Purdue University’s College of Science have recently determined the age of the minerals in the Lafayette Meteorite that formed when there was liquid water. The team has published its findings in Geochemical Perspective Letters.

ISS Successfully Resupplied by Russian Mission

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Russia’s MS-19 Mission approaching the ISS yesterday. (NASA)

The International Space Station (ISS) had another visitor on Saturday morning – this time a Russian Soyuz capsule bringing about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the station as part of its Progress MS-29 mission (Progress 90 mission to NASA).

The Russian News Agency provided a list of items delivered to the ISS and also noted that the resupply mission also included Christmas gifts for the crew.

Here are the items delivered:

…869 kg of refueling propellant, 420 liters of potable water and 43 kg of pressurized nitrogen, and also 1,155 kg of material and equipment in the dry cargo hold, in particular, for experiments dubbed Vampire (growing crystals in an electric vacuum furnace), BTN-Neutron-2 (studying the neutron spectrum) and 3D Print (3D printing of polymer materials).

It nice that the Russians took the time to assist Santa with his gift giving.

Of course, the U.S. Department of Defense’s North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) will be tracking the actions of Santa here on Earth this year, so be sure to visit the site closer to Christmas next month.

The Planetary Society’s Best of 2024

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): in this image titled “A cloudy eclipse,” Planetary Society member Joshua Nichols captured this picture of the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse in Texas, where light clouds highlighted the eclipse’s effects. (Joshua Nichols)

As the year rolls to a close, it’s time to think about the most interesting space moments of 2024. With that in mind, The Planetary Society is happy to help by providing images and events from the year that you can rank as the best of the year. To participate in the 2024 survey, just go to this link.

You can select your choice in categories such as:

  • Best space exploration image;
  • Most exciting moment in planetary science; and
  • Most exciting upcoming planetary science mission.

It’s also a great way to remember how busy 2024 was in terms of space accomplishments.

Check it out.

Sixth Test of the Starship and More

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The return of the Starship booster on November 19, 2024. It splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. (SpaceX)

The sixth test of SpaceX’s Starship was a success this past Tuesday, even without the repeated stunt of a tower capturing the booster rocket. The launch from the Starbase pad in Brownsville, Texas allowed SpaceX to test additional features related to the rocket, including igniting one of its Raptor engines while in space. Overall, it was a quick turnaround from another successful test flight last month.

SpaceX also received additional good news this week when it learned that Colorado-based Lunar Outpost selected SpaceX’s Starship as the party to deliver its lunar rover to the Moon. Lunar Outpost is one of several companies working with NASA to ensure a rover is on the lunar surface as part of the Artemis mission. NASA has yet to select one or more companies to build and test the rovers on the Moon.

All of this is good news for SpaceX and NASA, assuming the Starship stays on schedule, NASA funding of Artemis continues, and a new administration in DC continues to support the Artemis approach.

Pic of the Week: Collision in the Coma Galaxy Cluster

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Interacting spiral galaxies called MCG+05-31-045 as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. J. Foley (UC Santa Cruz))

This week’ image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. It captures the interplay between two galaxies in what is called MCG+05-31-045 that is part of the Coma galaxy cluster. These two galaxies are about 390 million light-years away.

Here is more on the image from NASA:

The Coma Cluster is a particularly rich cluster that contains over a thousand known galaxies. Amateur astronomers can easily spot several of these in a backyard telescope (See Caldwell 35). Most of them are elliptical galaxies, and that’s typical of a dense galaxy cluster like the Coma Cluster: many elliptical galaxies form through close encounters between galaxies that stir them up, or even collisions that rip them apart. While the stars in interacting galaxies can stay together, their gas is twisted and compressed by gravitational forces and rapidly used up to form new stars. When the hot, massive, blue stars die, there is little gas left to form new generations of young stars to replace them. As spiral galaxies interact, gravity disrupts the regular orbits that produce their striking spiral arms. Whether through mergers or simple near misses, the result is a galaxy almost devoid of gas, with aging stars orbiting in uncoordinated circles: an elliptical galaxy.

It’s very likely that a similar fate will befall MCG+05-31-045. As the smaller spiral galaxy is torn up and integrated into the larger galaxy, many new stars will form, and the hot, blue ones will quickly burn out, leaving cooler, redder stars behind in an elliptical galaxy, much like others in the Coma Cluster. But this process won’t be complete for many millions of years.