TORONTO —
It’s been a long time since we believed there could be “little green men” on Mars – but the debate over life on the red planet could soon be reignited.
At least, that’s the dream of the scientists behind the three Martian missions arriving at their destinations this month.
The United Arab Emirates-developed Amal orbiter and China’s Tianwen-1 combination orbiter and rover have already arrived at the red planet, and NASA’s Perseverance rover is scheduled to land there Feb. 18.
The confluence of these three missions is more about timing than teamwork – they were all launched last summer, to take advantage of the window when Earth and Mars are at their closest – but they’re all designed to further global understanding about the only other planet in our solar system that is considered potentially habitable.
“Each of these missions have different goals, but ultimately it’s to learn more about the habitability of Mars and whether it’s suitable for life, or was suitable for life,” Sara Mazrouei, an educational developer at Ryerson University in Toronto and planetary scientist, told CTVNews.ca via telephone on Wednesday.
WHAT WE’RE AFTER
Amal, the first-ever planetary mission from the Arab world, will spend two years studying the Martian atmosphere from above. Its observations may give scientists clues as to how Mars went from having a fairly Earth-like atmosphere to leaking its atmospheric gases into space.
“It started out just like the Earth. It had water, it had an atmosphere, and things were going great. Our planet stayed like that, and their planet – all of a sudden the atmosphere just disappeared, and it got very cold, and it all just went to hell,” CTV News Science and Technology Analyst Dan Riskin told CTVNews.ca on Wednesday via telephone.
“One big question is ‘What went wrong, and is that something we should worry about?'”
Tianwen-1, meanwhile, will send its rover to the surface in May to explore for evidence of subsurface ice. This is important for improving our understanding of water on Mars, and potentially life too, Mazrouei said – but also crucial knowledge for planning to send astronauts to the planet, which a space program as ambitious as China’s might want to try someday.
As she explained it, a manned spacecraft journeying to Mars and back will not be able to carry a full set of supplies for its astronauts, the way ships to the moon can. As a result, based on current technology and thinking, the astronauts will need to be able to obtain some of their own supplies from the planet’s surface.
“Figuring out if there is water ice below the surface, and how much of it, will really determine where we might land humans in the future,” she said.
China’s rover will be touching down on Utopia Planitia, a wide-open space where the U.S. first landed a spacecraft in 1976.
Riskin noted that landing site decisions are the result of what he called a “really interesting tension” between those looking to avoid the possibility of a crash-landing and those looking to maximize the possibilities for discovery.
“You have engineers who want to nail the landing, and so they look for the place on the planet that is the safest place to land. They would like it to be a flat, barren landscape with nothing interesting,” he said.
“Then you have another team, which is not the engineers but the scientists, and the scientists want to go to the most interesting place possible.”
The engineers seem to have won that battle in China, but not in the U.S. Perseverance is expected to touch down at Jezero Crater – a jagged, rocky area that will make for a tricky landing and has never before been explored by a rover.
SELECTING SAMPLES
If Perseverance lands safely and is able to perform its mission, it will take key samples from the soil and set them aside. Plans are underway to send another rover in Mars in a decade or so to retrieve these samples and bring them back to Earth in what would be a historic first. To this point, we have only ever sent spacecraft to the moon and back to retrieve samples.
“The samples that it’s going to be setting aside are going to be really, really interesting,” Mazrouei said.
Evidence of clay in the crater has been detected from orbit. Because clay forms when water is present, scientists believe Jezero is as likely a spot as any on Mars to have once been underwater – offering up the tantalizing possibility that it also once harboured life.
“It’s an ancient river delta, in a sense,” Mazrouei said.
There is also a Canadian connection to this work. Chris Herd, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at the University of Alberta, is one of the scientists selected by NASA to participate in the project – meaning if the samples collected by Perseverance do make it back to Earth, he’ll be one of the first experts to analyze them.
Riskin said Herd’s selection for this task is one example of the outsized role Canada plays in space discovery and research. The deal to send a Canadian astronaut on a future NASA moon mission is another.
“We do a really good job getting our foot in the door and playing a pivotal role,” he said.
That seems to be as true now as it was in 2008, when it was Canadian scientists – appropriately enough – who discovered snow falling from clouds on Mars via NASA’s Phoenix lander.
Since then, NASA rovers including Curiosity and Opportunity have helped enhance our understanding about everything from Mars’ dust storms to its seasonal climate.
“We have so many missions on Mars, but every one of them seems to discover something new,” Mazrouei said.
THERE’S WATER, BUT IS THERE LIFE?
Our understanding of Mars has come a long way from centuries ago, when astronomers observed the planet through telescopes and saw what they thought were signs of existing canals.
The idea of widespread water on the planet was disproven by the 1960s, when the first orbiters revealed that, while Mars does indeed contain landscapes that could have been formed by bodies of water, they are now dry and barren.
That’s not true of the whole planet, though. Its polar regions are covered in ice, and scientists have found evidence of water hiding beneath that ice cover. Because the existence of water seems to correlate with the existence of life on Earth, scientists believe learning more about water on Mars will help us better understand any form of life that may exist or have existed there.
“We’re going back to figure out ‘How much water? Is there any subsurface ice water? Was there any life, and what happened to that life?'” Mazrouei said.
We don’t know any of that at this point. We don’t know if any samples collected by Perseverance will help us figure out those answers, if they’ll make it back to Earth, or if they’ll even be collected to begin with.
All we can say with certainty is that Perseverance is scheduled to land on Mars shortly before 4 p.m. EST on Friday, Feb. 18.
Like so many others around the world, Mazrouei will be paying rapt attention.
“It never gets old, watching in anticipation,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter which space agency has sent a mission, or which planetary body [is involved] – it’s always just as exciting as the first time.”
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
