OTTAWA —
As NASA’s latest Mars rover is set to make landfall on the red planet this week, several Canadians have been hard at work for years to help make it happen.
NASA’s Perseverance rover is scheduled to land on Mars on Thursday, where it will seek to identify signs of ancient life and collect soil samples in tiny vials, which could then be returned to Earth in future missions.
While hundreds of people from around the world are involved in making the mission a success, several Canadians are making key contributions to the project now, and more will be in the future.
Here are a few of the Canadians involved in the Mars 2020 rover mission:
Tim Haltigin, Canadian Space Agency
Haltigin is a senior mission scientist in planetary exploration at the Canadian Space Agency, meaning he is involved in all of Canada’s missions in the solar system.
For the Perseverance mission, Haltigin is a member of the international team that designed the science program to see how scientists are going to study the samples once they’re brought back to Earth.
“The great thing about bringing samples back from elsewhere in the solar system is that effectively what we’re doing is that we’re turning the spacecraft into every laboratory on Earth and potentially expanding our science team to every scientist on Earth for the next 50 to 100 years,” Haltigin said in an interview with CTVNews.ca.
“It’s tremendously exciting that we’re going to be able to study these samples to understand the history of Mars, to understand the environment when it was formed, and potentially even to look for signs of life.”
Haltigin also managed the Canadian laser on board the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that mapped the asteroid Bennu to identify the best place for it to land. The spacecraft successfully landed on the asteroid back in 2018 and in Oct. 2020 began it’s return flight to Earth, where it is expected to land in 2023.
Haltigin began working on the Mars 2020 mission about six years ago, and said his work should continue until around 2033.
“I’m really helping to build the overall program to understand how all the pieces fit together … and really ensuring that scientists around the world, including in Canada, will have access to those samples when they come back to Earth,” he said.
Kim Tait, Royal Ontario Museum
Tait is a geologist and senior curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
On a day-to-day basis, she looks after different soil and rock samples. For this mission, she will be part of the team that looks after the samples of Martian soil once they arrive back on Earth in the 2030s.
“The Mars 2020 mission that lands tomorrow on Mars is actually the first step in a series of launches and missions to return the samples back to Earth,” Tait told CTVNews.ca in an interview.
While the mission is expected to answer several questions about Mars itself, Tait said the samples could also work to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding our own planet.
“The best chance for us to understand Earth is to go to Mars and learn about that really early rock record that we have lost on Earth,” she said. “Earth is such a dynamic planet that we have plate tectonics and volcanoes and water, which is really exciting for life, but for understanding that first billion years of the history of our planet, we have to go somewhere else.”
This will be Tait’s first time working with a Mars landing mission in an academic setting, but she was also a part of the OSIRIS-REx mission.
While Tait’s team will be among the first people to examine the samples once they return to Earth, she added that researchers will be using these samples for decades to come.
“Samples returned from the Apollo mission even 50 years later are still giving us information and scientific advancements that we’re learning about the Moon now,” she said. “I think having these materials back here on our planet not only will be for me to study, but for generations in the future as well.
Richard Leveille, McGill University
Leveille is an adjunct professor in McGill University’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
The SuperCam is able to examine rocks and soils using its camera, laser and spectrometres to seek out organic matter in the soil that could be related to past life on Mars.
“We tell the instrument to shoot at those targets, we get the information back and we start using that to interpret the geologic context that the rover is in,” Leveille told CTVNews.ca.
“Once we have that information, we can direct the rover.”
Once the rover is positioned in a spot the team deems worth investigating, it can use a robotic arm and other instruments to further investigate the area and collect samples for analysis in the future.
“We have so much more capabilities with our instruments and laboratories here on Earth than we do with the rover,” Leveille said. “Even with the best rover you’ve got going around — which is Perseverance — we’re somewhat limited with what we can do on Mars.”
This will be Leveille’s second Mars mission, having also worked with the Curiosity rover as part of the team in control of the ChemCam.
“(It) sounds like SuperCam and indeed it’s a similar instrument,” Leveille said. “SuperCam is the successor to ChemCam. It’s even better or more superior.”
Chris Herd, University of Alberta
Chris Herd is a geologist at the University of Alberta and one of the world’s leading experts in the geology of Mars and Martian meteorites.
“My whole role on the mission it to help the mission decide when to stop and take samples and have documentation,” Herd told CTV News Calgary. “It’s a huge honour to me to be chosen to play this huge role in the mission.”
Herd said his team will be working one full Mars day ahead of the rover while locating where to send it for sample collection.
“We are going to have all the images, the mineral data and chemical information and all that documentation with each and every sample that we collect,” Herd said. “That is the thing that will make those samples so much more scientifically valuable than any other sample from Mars.”
While the ultimate goal is to find evidence of ancient life on Mars, Herd said even the absence of any evidence would provide a noteworthy discovery.
“It tells us there were environments that were habitable but not inhabited on Mars,” he said. “That really highlights something about the uniqueness of the life on Earth as a consequence.”
Mariek Schmidt, Brock University
Schmidt is an associate professor of Earth Sciences at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont. who will serve as a participating scientist with the Mars rover mission.
Using the PIXL, scientists are able to measure the chemical makeup of Mars’ rocks and soil.
“I’m one of hundreds of scientists on the mission and it’s a collective effort to try describe the geology,” Schmidt told Newstalk 610 last week. “One of the principle things we’re looking for is to see if we can find samples that might indicate evidence of past life.”
Given that this is Schmidt’s third Mars mission, she said from experience that the landing — known as the “seven minutes of terror” — is the most nerve-wracking part of the mission.
“There’s a lot of stress and there’s been so much work that builds up to that point, so there’s this relief when it actually lands,” she said.
Schmidtsaid her work begins almost immediately after the rover lands and is inspected for any damage stemming from the landing.
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.
