Newspaper Page Text
SCIENCE^ECH
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com
Sunday, December 2, 2018 7C
Scientific Martian brigade in works
as countries search for life on planet
Photo Courtesy UNITED ARAB EMIRATES SPACE AGENCY I For the Associated Press
Engineers discuss further steps to disassemble a spacecraft’s sun shield baffle for further inspections. As Mars’ newest
resident settles in, Planet Earth is working on three more landers and at least two orbiters to join the scientific Martian brigade.
Agencies planning Mars landers, orbiters to follow InSight
BY MARCIA DUNN
Associated Press
Photo Courtesy NASA I For the Associated Press
This artist’s rendering from NASA depicts the Mars 2020 Rover.
CLIFF OWEN I Associated Press
A couple takes a selfie in front of a Tulip Magnolia tree, Feb.
28,2017, in Washington. Crocuses, cherry trees, magnolia
trees were blooming several weeks early because of an
unusually warm February.
The hidden impact
of climate change
CAPE CANAVERAL,
Fla. — As Mars’ newest resi
dent settles in, Planet Earth
is working on three more
landers and at least two
orbiters to join the scientific
Martian brigade.
NASA’s InSight spacecraft
touched down on the sweep
ing, red equatorial plains
Monday, less than 400 miles
from Curiosity, the only
other working robot on Mars.
That’s about the distance
from San Francisco to Pasa
dena, California, home to
Mission Control for Mars.
InSight — the eighth suc
cessful Martian lander —
should be wrapping up two
years of digging and quake
monitoring by the time rov
ers arrive from the U.S.,
Europe and China.
NASA’s Mars 2020 will
hunt for rocks that might
hold evidence of ancient
microbial life and stash them
in a safe place for return to
Earth in the early 2030s. It’s
targeting a once-wet river
delta in Jezero Crater.
The European-Russian
ExoMars also will sniff out
possible past life, drilling a
few yards down for chemical
fossils. A spacecraft part of
an ExoMars mission in 2016
crashed on the planet.
The Chinese Mars 2020
will feature both an orbiter
and lander. The United Arab
Emirates, meanwhile, aims
to send its first spacecraft to
Mars in 2020; the orbiter is
named Hope.
It seems our neighbor
Mars holds a siren song for
Earthlings, even as NASA
shifts its immediate attention
back to our moon.
Just three days after
InSight’s landing, NASA
announced a new commer
cial lunar delivery program.
The space agency has cho
sen nine U.S. companies to
compete in getting science
and technology experiments
to the lunar surface. The first
launch could be next year.
NASA wants to see how it
goes before trying something
similar on Mars.
“The moon is where it’s
at right now relative to com
mercial space,” said Thomas
Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s
science mission office,
which is leading the lunar
payload project.
At the same time, NASA
is pushing for an orbiting
outpost near the moon for
astronauts, at the Trump
administration’s direction.
It would serve as a stepping-
off point for moon landings,
according to NASA Admin
istrator Jim Bridenstine,
and provide critical experi
ence close to home before
humans embark on a two- to
three-year mission to Mars.
Bridenstine envisions a
trip to Mars for astronauts in
the mid-2030s, admittedly a
“very aggressive” goal.
“The reality is, yes, your
nation right now is extremely
committed to getting to
Mars,” Bridenstine said fol
lowing InSight’s touchdown,
“and using the moon as a
tool to achieve that objective
as fast as possible. ”
Mars is the obvious place
for “boots on the ground”
after the moon, said
Zurbuchen.
What makes Mars so com
pelling — for robotic and,
eventually, human explora
tion — is its relatively easy
access, said InSight’s lead
scientist, Bruce Banerdt
of NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. One-way travel
time is six months, every two
years when the planets are
closest. Conditions are harsh,
but relatively hospitable.
“Kind of like being in Ant
arctica without the snow,”
said Banerdt.
On top of that, Mars may
be one of the most likely
places to find life outside of
Earth, according to Banerdt.
Jupiter’s moon Europa
may have harbored or even
still hold life, but it would
take so much longer and cost
so much more to get there
that Banerdt said it’s hard
to imagine achieving such a
mission anytime soon.
A life-seeking mission to
Europa might come about
every decade, Banerdt said,
while it’s plausible to have
robotic sniffers launching
to Mars every two years.
That’s five Mars missions
for every single one at
Europa, he noted.
Mars has two functioning
spacecraft on the surface
— InSight and Curiosity —
and six satellites in working
order from the U.S., Europe
and India. The U.S. is the
only country to successfully
land and operate a space
craft on Mars. Curiosity
has been roaming the red
surface since 2012. NASA’s
older Opportunity rover was
working until June when a
global dust storm disabled it.
In pursuit of the geo
logical but not biological
secrets deep inside Mars,
InSight already is provid
ing astounding pictures of a
location “no human has ever
seen before,” pointed out
JPL director Michael Wat
kins. These photos remind
us that in order to do sci
ence like this, “we have to
be bold and we have to be
explorers.”
BY SETH B0RENSTEIN
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Near
Antarctica, whales are sing
ing in deeper tones to cut
through the noise of melt
ing icebergs. In California,
a college football rivalry
game was postponed until
Saturday because of smoky
air from wildfires. And
Alaskan shellfish were
struck by an outbreak of
warm water bacteria.
That’s global warming in
action. Climate change is
more than heat waves, hur
ricanes, floods, droughts,
and melting ice.
Sometimes global warm
ing has a hand in something
quirky, such as the pitch
change in five baleen whale
populations in the Southern
Ocean. It can be annoying,
such as seeing plants bloom
too early in the spring.
More often the influence
of climate change is omi
nous, like oceans becoming
acidic and eating away at
clam shells and coral reefs,
which already got bleached
by warmer waters.
Or even out-of-place and
dangerous, like the Vib
rio bacteria outbreak in
Alaska.
It could be a bit unex
pected, like a study linking
warmer climate to a rise in
winter crimes in the United
States. Northeastern Uni
versity criminologist James
Fox says that actually
makes sense because more
people outside means more
opportunity for foul play.
And climate change
has altered global poli
tics. Numerous studies
have said it was a factor
in record-setting drought
in Syria —one of several
causes of the country’s civil
war that triggered a mas
sive refugee crisis.
The military calls this
a multiplier effect. Prob
lems combine, pile up and
worsen each other. Climate
change does that, even in
matters of national secu
rity, said Richard Alley, a
climate scientist at Penn
sylvania State University.
“Climate change didn’t
cause the civil war” but in
a place that’s unhappy, a
drought arrives, farmers
move to an overcrowded
city and problems multiply
and lead to war, Alley said.
“ It was the straw that broke
the camel’s back.”
Conflict over climate
change impacts is not
confined to Syria, says
University of Oklahoma
meteorology professor
Renee McPherson. It also
applies to thousands of
Nigerians “killed in con
flicts between farmers
and cattle herders who are
competing for diminishing
water supplies and fertile
lands,” she said.
“It’s like a domino
effect,” said University of
Hawaii geographer Camilo
Mora. “You go three steps
backward and you realize
that climate change was
part of the equations. ”
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