Science

NASA Pulls Plug On InSight Lander’s Mars Mole – Forbes

Published

4 years ago

January 15, 2021

NASA has pulled the plug on its InSight lander’s Mars mole, more than two years after the lander touched down at Elysium Planitia. The German-built Mars mole heat probe could simply never penetrate the hard exterior surface of its landing site in order to make the kind of measurements necessary to give planetary scientists the first real clues as to the makeup of the Martian interior.

For nearly two years, the InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport’s mole probe has been attempting to burrow into the Martian surface to take the planet’s internal temperature, says NASA. But the soil’s unexpected tendency to clump deprived the spike-like mole of the friction it needs to hammer itself to a sufficient depth, the team notes.

Part of the spacecraft’s Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the mole was intended to be a self-hammering probe that would burrow down to almost 16 feet (five meters) below Mars’ surface. This would have enabled planetary scientists to better understand whether Mars’ interior is radically different from Earth or our own Moon.

“We’ve given it everything we’ve got, but Mars and our heroic mole remain incompatible,” HP3’s principal investigator, Tilman Spohn of DLR said in a statement. “Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot that will benefit future missions that attempt to dig into the subsurface.”

The mole itself is a 16-inch-long spike designed to drag with it a ribbonlike tether that extends from the spacecraft, says NASA. The idea was that Temperature sensors are embedded along the tether to measure the planet’s interior heat.

But InSight landed in an area with an unusually thick duricrust, or a layer of cemented soil, NASA reports. Rather than being loose and sandlike, as expected, the dirt granules stick together, says the agency.

Unfortunately, to work properly, the mole needs friction from the soil in order to travel downward. Without it, says NASA, recoil from its self-hammering action causes it to simply bounce in place. Paradoxically, it’s loose soil, not this cement-like duricrust that InSight has encountered at its landing site, that would ideally provide the needed friction as it falls around the mole.

The landing site at Elysium Planitia, a broad, equatorial volcanic plain, was selected in part because it has so few visible rocks, implying few large subsurface rocks. Designed to measure heat flowing from the planet once the mole has dug at least 10 feet deep, the mole is strong enough to nudge small rocks out of its way, says NASA.

But after repeated attempts to aid the mole in its actions over a two year period using the spacecraft’s robotic arm in ways that it was never intended, the team realized that they were in a no-win situation.

Meanwhile, the rest of InSight’s instruments are functioning and taking data. In fact, NASA says that the mission intends to employ the robotic arm in burying the tether that conveys data and power between the lander and InSight’s seismometer, which has recorded more than 480 marsquakes. Burying it will help reduce temperature changes that have created cracking and popping sounds in seismic data, the team notes.

The InSight mission itself has been recently extended to late next year. Along with hunting for marsquakes, the lander hosts a radio experiment that is collecting data to reveal whether the planet’s core is liquid or solid, says NASA. And InSight’s weather sensors are capable of providing some of the most detailed meteorological data ever collected on Mars, says the agency. Together with weather instruments aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover and the Perseverance rover, which lands on Feb. 18th, the team says that the three spacecraft will create the first meteorological network on another planet.

Could the problem simply be an ordinary rock?

“We don’t know for sure, because we can’t see underground,” Spohn said in a statement. “[But] there’s also the possibility that we’ve hit a rock.”

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Science

The body of a Ugandan Olympic athlete who was set on fire by her partner is received by family

Published

1 day ago

September 13, 2024

Anne Joseph

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.

Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.

She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.

Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.

“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.

It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.

Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.

Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.

Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.

“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.

He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.

Kenya’s high rates of violence against women have prompted marches by ordinary citizens in towns and cities this year.

Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.

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The ancient jar smashed by a 4-year-old is back on display at an Israeli museum after repair

Published

3 days ago

September 11, 2024

Anne Joseph

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.”

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B.C. sets up a panel on bear deaths, will review conservation officer training

Published

5 days ago

September 10, 2024

Anne Joseph

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.

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