For eight years, Curiosity has roamed the surface of the red planet. The car-sized rover journeyed to Mars to answer one very important scientific question: Was the Martian environment ever habitable? The roaming rover soon discovered mineral and chemical evidence of past habitable Martian environments. Curiosity, which launched on Nov. It has been on the red planet for over 2, Sols Martian day , taken more than , raw images and traveled over 14 miles on the surface of Mars.
While most people know it as Curiosity, this Martian rover also goes by another, more technical name: The Mars Science Laboratory.
Since its official name is quite long, it is often just referred to by its common name, Curiosity. In fact, NASA uses the names interchangeably, although it should be noted that the mission itself is the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Curiosity is equipped with a radioisotope power system. According to NASA, this power source has exceeded its required operational lifespan, which was at least one Martian year, or Earth days.
We have drilled successfully 29 times now and the sediments show a range of hues from ochre-red to blue-grey reflecting the minerals and fluids that passed through the ancient rocks.
Drilling allows us to get through the top most, oxidized surface that has been most exposed to cosmic radiation. Curiosity in isolation at Glasgow. Each of the pixels is about 25cm, so we can pick out the rover quite nicely in the centre of the field of view. We had just completed a drill at a site we named Glasgow. Because of the lockdown an even greater proportion of rover operations was being done by staff working from home.
But after eight Earth years, more than three Martian years and 29 drill holes - all is still working pretty well. The HiRISE image covers a region called Greenheugh pediment, part of the lower slopes of Mount Sharp which we will be slowly driving up over the next three years of an extended mission.
It's in this next part of the mission that we expect to find a different sort of ancient environment to the earlier parts of the mission, with lots of sulphate minerals. With no rain in the current climate, dust accumulates on the surface of Mars.
Winds energized by the Sun's heating of the ground can form large and well-formed whirlwinds known as vortices. They mostly are invisible, but when a strong vortex drifts over a dusty surface, dust is lifted into it and reveals its shape. This animation was shot over four minutes on Sol and captured a "dust devil" vortex at a distance of one-half to one km from the rover.
The dust devil is about 5m wide and at least 50m tall. Curiosity took its latest "selfie" on Sol to celebrate the successful drilling of three holes on the rock slab in front of it. The first two holes were named after Mary Anning, the 19th Century palaeontologist whose findings in the seaside cliffs of southwest England contributed to the understanding of prehistoric marine life on Earth. Material from these holes was used for two "wet chemistry" experiments, in which it was mixed with liquid chemicals to extract organic molecules that may be preserved in the rock.
Rocks at this site formed from sediment carried in ancient streams and lakes. The wet environment and the presence of organic molecules in several rocks studied by Curiosity suggest that ancient Mars was habitable, capable of supporting life, if it ever took hold.
In , results based on Curiosity's work added more evidence that life was possible on Mars. One study described the discovery of more organic molecules in 3. The seasonal changes could mean that the gas is produced from living organisms, but there's no definitive proof of that yet.
Besides hunting for habitability, Curiosity has other instruments on board that are designed to learn more about the environment surrounding it. Among those goals is to have a continuous record of weather and radiation observations to determine how suitable the site would be for an eventual human mission.
Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector runs for 15 minutes every hour to measure a swath of radiation on the ground and in the atmosphere. Scientists in particular are interested in measuring "secondary rays" or radiation that can generate lower-energy particles after it hits the gas molecules in the atmosphere.
Gamma-rays or neutrons generated by this process can cause a risk to humans. Additionally, an ultraviolet sensor stuck on Curiosity's deck tracks radiation continuously. A mission with days flying to Mars, days on the surface and days heading back to Earth would create a dose of 1.
The total lifetime limit for European Space Agency astronauts is 1 sievert, which is associated with a 5-percent increase in fatal cancer risk over a person's lifetime. The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station measures the wind's speed and chart its direction, as well as determining temperature and humidity in the surrounding air. By , scientists were able to see long-term trends in atmospheric pressure and air humidity. Some of these changes occur when the winter carbon-dioxide polar caps melt in the spring, dumping huge amounts of moisture into the air.
In early , Curiosity sent back pictures of crystals that could have formed from ancient lakes on Mars. There are multiple hypotheses for these features, but one possibility is they formed after salts concentrated in an evaporating water lake. Some Internet rumors speculated the features were actually signs of burrowing life , but NASA quickly discounted that hypothesis based on their linear angles — a feature that is very similar to crystalline growth.
Vapors from a "wet chemistry" experiment filled with a fluid called MTBSTFA N-methyl-N-tert-butyldimethylsilyl-trifluoroacetamide contaminated a gas-sniffing analysis instrument shortly after Curiosity landed. Since the scientists knew the collected samples were already reacting with the vapor, they eventually derived a way to seek and preserve the organics after extracting, collecting and analyzing the vapor.
Curiosity had a dangerous computer glitch just six months after landing that put the rover within only an hour of losing contact with Earth forever, NASA revealed in Another brief glitch in briefly stopped science work, but the rover quickly resumed its mission. In the months after landing, NASA noticed damage to the rover's wheels appearing much faster than expected.
By , controllers made in the rover's routing to slow down the appearance of dings and holes. It's just the magnitude of what we're seeing that was the surprise.
NASA pioneered a new drilling technique at Mount Sharp in February to begin operations at a lower setting, a requirement for working with the soft rock in some of the region. Previously, a rock sample shattered after being probed with the drill. Engineers had mechanical trouble with Curiosity's drill starting in ate , when a motor linked with two stabilizing posts on the drill bit ceased working.
NASA examined several alternative drilling techniques, and on May 20, the drill obtained its first samples in more than 18 months. It should be noted that Curiosity isn't working alone on the Red Planet. Accompanying it is a "team" of other spacecraft from several countries, often working collaboratively to achieve science goals.
As of mid, Curiosity is working on the surface along with another NASA rover called Opportunity , which has been roaming the surface since Opportunity was initially designed for a day mission, but remains active after more than 14 years on Mars.
It also found past evidence of water while exploring the plains and two large craters. NASA's Mars Odyssey acts as a communications relay for Curiosity and Opportunity, while also performing science of its own — such as searching for water ice. More surface missions are on the way shortly.
0コメント