Zeitgeist Zephyr

Water Ice on Mars?

This picture could prove to be one of the most significant in the history of Martian exploration thus far if the suspicions of scientists on Earth are confirmed in the weeks ahead.

The image shows two large light colored areas directly beneath the Phoenix lander that scientists believe are either exposed rock or ice.  If it is the latter, it would prove definitively that water exists on Mars and thus opens up the opportunity for the existence of life, past or present.  The “outcroppings” were exposed when the engines on Phoenix blasted away the top layer of soil.  Tests using the robotic arm in weeks ahead will confirm if the exposed areas are ice or not.

Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off

The Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off this evening carrying the $1 billion Kibo laboratory built by the Japanese space agency, JAXA.  It will become the largest module on the International Space Station (ISS) and will be Japan’s contribution to the international project.

The mainstream media, like the 8th grade teenage male we know it is, still can’t get over poop jokes.  I reluctantly address the topic of the space station’s only toilet malfunctioning, forcing the astronauts on board to temporarily collect “liquid waste” in baggies.  Discovery is carrying replacement parts for the toilet. 

It is at this point that I must make this conclusion about space news.  As a function of society, space news only becomes ”news” under only two circumstances: when the prospects of finding little green men on Mars pops up or when astronauts are faced with the life and death drama of relieving themselves in space without *gasp!* a toilet! 

 Color shot from Phoenix landing site.  Courtesy of NASA. 

The Mission 

Rising from the ashes of the failed Mars Polar Lander in 1999, Mars Phoenix is NASA’s most recent mission to land on the “Red Planet.”  The goal of Phoenix is simple: find out if there are or ever were the necessary ingredients on Mars for the development of primitive life.  The mission will not look for life directly, it will search the soil of the Northern polar latitudes on Mars for primarily water and basic organic compounds.  The discovery of either or both would be indicative of life, but would not yield direct evidence of its existence, past or present. 

Phoenix is joining the aging Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars.  The rovers landed in 2004 and Spirit, the first rover to land, is on Sol 1564 of its planned 90 Sol mission.  A Sol is the time it takes Mars to rotate once on its axis, so it is the equivalent of a Martian day.  Phoenix has a life expectancy of 90 Sols as well, although its lifespan is not dictated by the quality of the equipment on board, but rather the severity of the Martian winter which is expected to cause irreversible damage to Phoenix. 

On tab for Phoenix this week is to get its robotic arm operational and for scientists on Earth to locate the site that Phoenix will sample first.  The sampling procedure on Phoenix will involve the use of a scoop on the end of the robotic arm that will dig a trench 3 feet into the Martian permafrost.  Soil from the sample will then be poured into an oven on the lander where it will then be heated to over 1000 degrees, vaporizing the soil.  Instrumentation inside the oven will then measure the gases put off by the soil to determine it’s composition.  There are only eight of these one-time use ovens, so only 8 samples will be taken for the duration of the mission.

The rest of the mission will be spent measuring different meteorological conditions at the site.  The lander is at a latitude similar to Alaska and Greenland on Earth, so the weather is likely to be colder than on other regions of the planet where weather observations have been made.  Currently, the only meteorological data gathered on Mars from the surface to date has been along equatorial regions.

My Opinion

Mars Phoenix is the next logical step in the exploration of Mars.  Some might ask why we don’t just get a surface sample and return it to Earth or why it is even important to be exploring the polar region.  First, for a sample return, we need to have a good idea of where we want the sample from. 

Current conservativeestimates place a robotic sample return mission for Mars at around $3-4 billion.  That price could be much higher.  To put that into perspective, Phoenix cost $420 million, both Mars Exploration Rovers cost $820 million, and the up and coming Mars Science Laboratory is expected to cost around $2 billion, primarily due to the landing system necessary to land the 1,800 lbs rover.  It is also important to remember that NASA’s FY 2008 budget is $17.3 billion dollars (0.6% of the $2.9 trillion budget).  A Mars sample return is a significant investment.

Secondly, the polar region is critical in this build up to a sample return.  It is only in the polar regions of Mars that substantial evidence exists to support the existence of water beneath the surface.  Water is a fundamental building block of life, so this is an important region to explore.  Plus, on Earth, even in the frozen Arctic and Antarctic regions, life forms called extremophyles have been found frozen in the ice.  If life can exist under these conditions here on Earth, they cannot be ruled out on Mars.

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Useful sites for Mars Phoenix information:

NASA/JPL site: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/main.php

NASA site: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/main/index.html

What is omnicide watch?  It’s the perky and uplifting topic of human extinction.  Hurray for doomsday!

With that out of the way, the more serious nature of this topic sinks in.  Humans are naturally destructive creatures when there is enough of them in the room.  There’s 6.6 billion of us on the room that we call Earth.  Compared to other large mammalian species, that’s a lot.  Thanks to the rapidity of news in the information age, it would seem that the world around us is coming to an end.  To lighten things up, I’ll talk about some of these catastrophes (mostly natural, but sometimes manmade), but then I’ll remind you that things like this happen all the time, even if they all seem to get clustered together like catastrophes do sometimes. 

Myanmar Cyclone: 100,000 dead?

To me this is absolutely ridiculous.  Following the East Asian Tsunami in 2004, the death toll was around 283,100.  The tsunami was the result of one of the strongest earthquakes on record, and despite how advanced we think our technology is, we can’t predict earthquakes.  For all intensive purposes, the Tsunami of 2004 is a freak accident of nature, happening during a holiday season and in a highly populated region of the world; the result of an unpredictable force of nature.

The Myanmar cyclone, called Nargis, came ashore near Yangoon (Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma).  It formed in the Bay of Bengal on April 27 and when it came on shore on May 2 it was the equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane.  Officially, the death toll is only in the 20,000 range, but officials are now saying it could climb as high as 100,000.  This was an impending disaster that the military-run government of Myanmar would have been aware of and precautions could have been taken to evacuate and protect citizens in the path of the storm.  While I’m only speculating, my guess is most people were killed as a result of the storm surge.  This was the same case with Hurricane Katrina, in which most of the deaths in the New Orleans area were not caused by the storm itself, but rather the storm surge and the subsequent levee failures.

My point is this:  No significant steps were taken to effectively warn Burmese citizens about Cyclone Nargis.  The outcome of this error is the high death tolls.  That’s not to say they still wouldn’t be high, its just sad to see them high because of human error.  On a more positive note, this might raise public discontent for the junta and could cause issues for the government in the future. 

To add more to the debate, Al Gore came out on cue to remind us that Nargis, the first and so far most powerful storm of the Indian Ocean cyclone season, is the result of global warming (human cause #2.)

As the scope of this disaster becomes more apparent, I would encourage those who can afford it to donate money to a reputable aid organization that is helping out in the area.  The International Committee of the Red Cross in Myanmar is accepting donations at the following site and Google has a page set up where you can easily donate to UNICEF and Direct Relief.

Did the earth shake?

Over the past month, there have been several noteworthy earthquakes.  The most recent series of quakes today struck off the coast of Japan and the strongest so far registered a 6.8 on the Richter scale.  No word of injuries or damage with this one.

Since February, Reno, Nevada has been experiencing what can only be described as a swarm of earthquakes.  The first significant quake though occurred on April 15 and registered 3.6 and subsequent quakes on April 24 and 25 registered 4.2 and 4.7 respectively.

Then there was the Illinois earthquake on April 18 which caught national attention as tremors were felt as far west as Kansas City, as far south as Atlanta, as far east as Kitchener, Ontario, and as far north as Michigan.  In other words, it packed a bit of a punch (5.2 on the Richter scale) and I admit it even stirred me from bed when it struck at 4:37 AM.  While no one was killed, there was a bit of damage reported.

While there is nothing unusual about any of these earthquakes, except for their magnitude, it is interesting that they have occurred within a month of each other.

Food Crisis

I’m still reading into this to fully understand the breadth of it myself, but this food shortage has me a bit flustered.  This will warrant its own blog post, unfortunately.

In closing, ‘don’t worry, be happy.’  This isn’t intended to be a downer, just a way to keep you posted on the tragic state of our world.