Science
Perseverance is Turning Into That Friend That’s Always Picking Up Rocks
|
|
On Thursday, March 30th, NASA’s Perseverance rover drilled and stored the first rock core sample of its newest science campaign. This is the sixteenth sample the rover has taken as part of the ambitious Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, a collaborative effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to retrieve Perseverance’s samples and bring them back to Earth. Once they arrive (expected to happen by 2033), scientists will analyze them using state-of-the-art machinery too heavy and cumbersome to send to Mars as part of a robotic mission.
Collecting samples as part of the first sample-return mission from Mars is one of the main objectives of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) program. It is hoped that these samples will provide new insight into the planet’s environment and the water cycle that shaped the surface and interior of Mars. Of particular interest is how Mars evolved from a warmer, wetter environment – as it was during the Noachian Era (ca. 4.1 – 3.7 billion years ago) – to the cold and dedicated place we see today. It is theorized that life could have emerged during this period. If true, then the analysis of these core samples could provide the first evidence that life once existed on Mars (and might still be there today).
Perseverance has also collected three witness tubes, similar to sample tubes but designed to capture molecular and particulate contaminants. These tubes are opened close to sample collection sites to “witness” the ambient environment, helping scientists to characterize the location where samples are obtained. Earlier this year, the rover deposited ten tubes as a backup cache on the Martian surface for retrieval by the MSR campaign. For this latest campaign, the rover is exploring a new formation at the top of the delta formation in the Jezero Crater.
Scientists have named this formation “Berea,” which they believe formed from rock sediment carried by a stream that once flowed into the crater. This stream was responsible for forming the fan-delta, which means that the material in this formation could have come from far beyond the Jezero Crater. This is one of the reasons why the science team considers it to be so promising. But as Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist for Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), related in a NASA press release, there is another reason why the spot is attractive.
“The second reason is that the rock is rich in carbonate,” she said. “Carbonate rocks on Earth can be good at preserving fossilized lifeforms. If biosignatures were present in this part of Jezero Crater, it could be a rock like this one that could very well hold their secrets.”
Carbonates are a type of sedimentary rock that forms from chemical interactions between minerals and water. The presence of these and other minerals that form in the presence of water is why the Jezero Crater and the Gale Crater (where Curiosity is currently exploring) were selected as landing sites. Essentially, these mineral deposits could provide scientists with a record of what the climate once looked like, allowing them to create a more complete geological record of Mars. Said Ken Farley, the W.M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry at Caltech and Perseverance’s project scientist:
“The Berea core highlights the beauty of rover missions. Perseverance’s mobility has allowed us to collect igneous samples from the relatively flat crater floor during the first campaign, and then travel to the base of the crater’s delta, where we found fine-grained sedimentary rocks deposited in a dried lakebed. Now we are sampling from a geologic location where we find coarse-grained sedimentary rocks deposited in a river. With this diversity of environments to observe and collect from, we are confident that these samples will allow us to better understand what occurred here at Jezero Crater billions of years ago.”
Now that the Berea sample has been cored and placed into the rover’s internal cache, Perseverance will move to its next drill site along the delta fan – a place the science team has named “Castell Henllys.” In addition to the 16 samples it has collected, Perseverance has also collected rock samples with its wheels. In February of 2022, the science team noticed that the rover’s left front wheel had picked up a “pet rock” and managed to hold onto it for months! The entire sample cache will be retrieved starting in 2030 with the arrival of the NASA MSR elements.
This includes the Sample Retrieval Lander, which Perseverance will deliver all the samples contained in its cache. A pair of Sample Recovery Helicopters (the same design as Ingenuity) will gather the samples the rover left on the surface. Once loaded aboard the Lander, the samples will be sent into orbit via the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and then collected by the ESA’s Earth Return Orbiter (ERO). This spacecraft will return the sample cache to Earth (by 2033 at the earliest) for analysis. The results will lead to all kinds of scientific breakthroughs and even demonstrate that life did exist on Mars billions of years ago.
Fingers crossed, the data could also help resolve where Mars’ water (and any remaining life forms) can be found today!
If last week’s solar eclipse piqued your interest in astronomy, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Windsor Chapter plans to show off some of the more dramatic photos and videos members took of the event.
They were stationed along the path of totality along the northern shore of Lake Erie and in the U.S.
“People did take some nice photos with their cellphones, but we have members who took photos and videos with their telescopes,” said member Tom Sobocan. “You’ll see some pretty impressive shots.”
About 100 members are in the local chapter, which meets every third Tuesday of every month.
Thursday’s meeting is at the Ojibway Nature Centre on Matchette Road. It starts at 7:30, and it’s open to the public. Seating is limited, so Sobocan recommends arriving early.
Astronomers are looking ahead to new wonders in the heavens. Right now, the Pons-Brooks Comet, another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, is approaching Jupiter in the constellation of Aries.
“If you’re in a dark-sky location, you can see it with the naked eye, and from inside the city, you can see it with binoculars,” said Sobocan. “It may get a little bit brighter going towards the fall, but our members have already photographed it with their telescopes.”
It’s a periodic comet which appears in the night sky once every 71 years.
Sobocan said once-in-a-lifetime events, like last week’s eclipse, inspired many of its existing members, but he hopes some new ones will join the group.
“I hope it inspires them to look up at the sky a little bit more often and realize that everything’s in motion in the sky,” he said. “It’s not stationary.”
Science
Giant, 82-foot lizard fish discovered on UK beach could be largest marine reptile ever found – Livescience.com
Scientists have unearthed the remains of a gigantic, 200 million-year-old sea monster that may be the largest marine reptile ever discovered.
The newfound creature is a member of a group called ichthyosaurs, which were among the dominant sea predators during the Mesozoic era (251.9 million to 66 million years ago). The newly described species lived during the end of the Triassic period (251.9 million to 201.4 million years ago).
Ichthyosaurs had already attained massive sizes by the early portion of the Mesozoic, but it was not until the late Triassic that the largest species emerged.
While the Mesozoic is known as the age of the dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs were not themselves dinosaurs. Instead, they evolved from another group of reptiles. Their evolutionary path closely mirrors that of whales, which evolved from terrestrial mammals that later returned to the sea. And like whales, they breathed air and gave birth to live young.
The newly discovered ichthyosaur species was unearthed in pieces between 2020 and 2022 at Blue Anchor, Somerset in the United Kingdom. The first chunk of the fossil was noticed atop a rock on the beach, indicating that a passerby had found it and set it there for others to examine, the researchers explained in the paper. The researchers published their findings April 17 in the journal PLOS One.
The reptile’s remains are made up of a series of 12 fragments from a surangular bone, which is found in the upper portion of the lower jaw. The researchers estimate the bone was 6.5 feet (2 meters) long and that the living animal was about 82 feet (25 m) long.
The researchers named the sea monster Ichthyotitan severnensis, meaning giant lizard fish of the Severn, after the Severn Estuary where it was found. The team believes it is not only a new species but an entirely new genus of ichthyosaur. More than 100 species are already known.
window.sliceComponents = window.sliceComponents || ;
externalsScriptLoaded.then(() => {
window.reliablePageLoad.then(() => {
var componentContainer = document.querySelector(“#slice-container-newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-5Tm52KifRnJsTxFt8noX8R”);
if (componentContainer)
var data = “layout”:”inbodyContent”,”header”:”Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now”,”tagline”:”Get the worldu2019s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.”,”formFooterText”:”By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.”,”successMessage”:”body”:”Thank you for signing up. You will receive a confirmation email shortly.”,”failureMessage”:”There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.”,”method”:”POST”,”inputs”:[“type”:”hidden”,”name”:”NAME”,”type”:”email”,”name”:”MAIL”,”placeholder”:”Your Email Address”,”required”:true,”type”:”hidden”,”name”:”NEWSLETTER_CODE”,”value”:”XLS-D”,”type”:”hidden”,”name”:”LANG”,”value”:”EN”,”type”:”hidden”,”name”:”SOURCE”,”value”:”60″,”type”:”hidden”,”name”:”COUNTRY”,”type”:”checkbox”,”name”:”CONTACT_OTHER_BRANDS”,”label”:”text”:”Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands”,”type”:”checkbox”,”name”:”CONTACT_PARTNERS”,”label”:”text”:”Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors”,”type”:”submit”,”value”:”Sign me up”,”required”:true],”endpoint”:”https://newsletter-subscribe.futureplc.com/v2/submission/submit”,”analytics”:[“analyticsType”:”widgetViewed”],”ariaLabels”:;
var triggerHydrate = function()
window.sliceComponents.newsletterForm.hydrate(data, componentContainer);
if (window.lazyObserveElement)
window.lazyObserveElement(componentContainer, triggerHydrate);
else
triggerHydrate();
}).catch(err => console.log(‘Hydration Script has failed for newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-5Tm52KifRnJsTxFt8noX8R Slice’, err));
}).catch(err => console.log(‘Externals script failed to load’, err));
A number of rib fragments and a coprolite, or fossilized feces, were found in the area as well, but they were not definitively attributed to the same animal.
The sediments in which these specimens were found contained rocks that indicated earthquakes and tsunamis occurred during that time, which suggests that this species lived during a time of intense volcanic activity that may have led to a massive extinction event at the end of the Triassic according to the researchers.
A similar specimen was discovered in Lilstock, Somerset in 2016 and described in 2018. Both were found in what is known at the Westbury Mudstone Formation, within 6 miles (10 kilometers) of each other. This ichthyosaur was estimated to have been as much as 85 feet (26 m) long, although the authors of the latest study believe it was slightly smaller.
The previous contender for the largest marine reptile was another ichthyosaur, Shonisaurus sikanniensis, which was up to 69 feet (21 m) long. S. sikanniensis appeared 13 million years earlier than I. severnensis and was found in British Columbia, making it unlikely that the new discovery represents another specimen of the previously known species.
A similarly massive ichthyosaur called Himalayasaurus tibetensis, which may have reached lengths of 49 feet (15 m), was discovered in Tibet and described in 1972. It dates to the same period, meaning that it probably is not the same species as the new discovery either.
I. severnensis was likely among the last of the giant ichthyosaurs, the researchers claim. Ichthyosaurs persisted into the Cenomanian Age (100.5 million to 93.9 million years ago) of the late Cretaceous period (100.5 million to 66 million years ago). They were eventually supplanted by plesiosaurs — long-necked marine reptiles that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous, alongside all non-avian dinosaurs.
- Home
- Politics
- Federal Politics
The Canadian Space Agency also received a proposed $8.6 million for its lunar program
Nicole Mortillaro (new window) · CBC News
Canada’s space sector received a boost from the federal government in its budget, both in terms of money and vision.
The 2024 budget (new window) included a proposal for $8.6 million in 2024-25 to the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) for the Lunar Exploration Accelerator Program (new window) (LEAP), which invests in technologies for humanity’s return to the moon and beyond.
In addition to the funding, the federal government also announced the creation of a National Space Council, which will be a new whole-of-government approach to space exploration, technology development, and research.
For Space Canada (new window), an organization comprised of roughly 80 space sector companies including some of Canada’s largest, such as Magellan Aerospace (new window), Maritime Launch (new window) and MDA Space (new window), it was a welcome announcement.
We’ve been advocating for it since the inception of our organization, and we were really very happy, and we applaud the federal government’s commitment announced in the budget,
said Brian Gallant, CEO of Space Canada.
Gallant said that investment in space is an investment in Canada.
Two-thirds of space sector jobs are STEM jobs. These are good paying solid jobs for Canadians. And on top of that, we have approximately $2.8 billion that is injected into the Canadian economy because of the space sector,
he said.
The U.S. formed its National Space Council in 1989, but it was disbanded in 1992 and reestablished in 2017.
In the 2023 budget (new window), the government announced proposed spending of $1.2 billion over 13 years, that was to begin in 2024-25, to the CSA’s contribution of a lunar utility (new window) vehicle that would assist astronauts on the moon. The as–yet–developed vehicle could help astronauts move cargo from landing sites to habitats, perform science investigations or support them during spacewalks on the surface of the moon.
It also proposed to invest $150 million over five years for the LEAP program.
MDA Space, the company behind Canadarm, was also pleased with the announcement.
Canada has an enviable global competitive advantage in space and the creation of a National Space Council is critical to Canada maintaining that leadership position,
CEO Mike Greenley said in an email to CBC News.
Space is now a rapidly growing, highly strategic and competitive domain, and there is a real and urgent need to recognize its importance to the lives of Canadians and to our economy and national security.
The next project for MDA is Canadarm3, which will be part of Lunar Gateway, a international space station that will orbit the moon. It will serve as a sort of jumping-off point for astronauts heading to the moon and eventually beyond.
The Lunar Gateway is a great opportunity for Canada and for MDA Space to not only provide the next generation of Canadarm robotics but to clearly plant our flag as a core national and industry participant in the Artemis era,
Greenley said.
Lunar Gateway is set to begin construction no earlier than 2025 (new window), according to NASA.
'I was always so proud of it': Charlie Munger had a ready reply when asked to name the investment he liked most – Yahoo Finance
Toronto real estate agent puts comical spin on promoting burnt-down house – NOW Toronto
Whooping cough cases up slightly in N.L., as officials warn about risks to infants – CBC.ca
Silver investment demand jumped 12% in 2019
12 Bizarre Things People Did Just To Make Social Media Content
Global Media Markets, 2015-2020, 2020-2025F, 2030F – TV and Radio Broadcasting, Film and Music, Information Services, Web Content, Search Portals And Social Media, Print Media, & Cable – GlobeNewswire
-
Tech20 hours agoiPhone 15 Pro Desperado Mafia model launched at over ₹6.5 lakh- All details about this luxury iPhone from Caviar – HT Tech
-
Sports20 hours ago
Lululemon unveils Canada's official Olympic kit for the Paris games – National Post
-
Science23 hours ago
Astronomers discover Milky Way's heaviest known black hole – Xinhua
-
News18 hours ago
Toronto airport gold heist: Police announce nine arrests – CP24
-
Media22 hours ago
NPR's liberal bias: Editor exposes media's lack of viewpoint diversity – USA TODAY
-
News15 hours ago
Loblaws Canada groceries: Shoppers slam store for green onions with roots chopped off — 'I wouldn't buy those' – Yahoo News Canada
-
Tech18 hours ago
Venerable Video App Plex Emerges As FAST Favorite – Forbes
-
Investment14 hours ago
Saudi Arabia Highlights Investment Initiatives in Tourism at International Hospitality Investment Forum
