Great Image: The Pyramids from Space

The image to the right is from NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS).  It shows the Great Pyramids at Giza on July 25, 2012, as viewed from the International Space Station.  Here is NASA's description of the shot taken by a hand-held Nikon digital camera:

The southeast-facing sides of the pyramids of the pharaohs Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure are all brightly illuminated by the Sun, while the northwest facing sides are in shadow. This shadowing also highlights smaller, unfinished pyramids to the south of Menkaure’s pyramid and fields of rectangular, flat-roofed mastabas (tombs) to the east and west of Khufu’s pyramid. While not as grand as the pyramids, mastabas were the burial places of prominent people during the time of the ancient pharaohs. To the southeast of Khufu’s pyramid, the head and rear haunches of the Sphinx are also visible (albeit not clearly).

Life on Mars?

While Curiosity has had a few recent problems, it has already had great success with its intended mission.  Last month's rock sample from the Gale Crater indicates Mars could have supported life as far back as 3 billion years ago.  The sample included ingredients to life, including sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon.  According to a NASA press release,

"A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes." 

It seems we have answered the $2.5 billion answer (the price tag of Curiosity).  So, what's next?  We know Mars had water and could have supported life.  Unfortunately, Curiosity is not equipped to actually detect life itself, so we may need to wait for another mission to do that.  It would be fascinating to learn that life existed on both Earth and Mars at the same time, or even that there is some relationship between life on each planet with one somehow seeding the other (or being jointly seeded in the same way, via a comet for example).  You can learn more about this mission via a NASA broadcast of a March 12th press conference on the rock analysis.

One of the next questions that needs to be "Can Mars support life in the future?"  We hear of government and private sector plans to visit the Red Planet, but nothing solid.  While the science continues on the surface of Mars, let's hope the planning for a future manned visit continues on the surface of Earth.  We have much to learn and much to do, but we need to keep that question in front of ourselves daily as we move forward with our exploration of space.

Curious Problems on Mars

SpaceX was not the only space mission dealing with problems last week.  The Mars rover Curiosity was also dealing with problems that delayed the mission for more than a week.  It appears a computer glitch in late February caused the rover to switch into safe mode.  Luckily, built-in redundancies were established for this type of scenario. Curiosity switched from Computer A to Computer B while repairs are underway.  Some memory loss was anticipated as a result of the computer problems.

And now a solar storm is approaching Mars, causing NASA to shut down the rover one more time.  Solar radiation may have also been the cause of the earlier computer glitch, so it makes sense to be safe.

Only last month had Curiosity started to collect its first Martian samples by drilling into the planet's surface (see image below), with NASA noting:

"The most advanced planetary robot ever designed is now a fully operating analytical laboratory on Mars," said John Grunsfeld, NASA associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. "This is the biggest milestone accomplishment for the Curiosity team since the sky-crane landing last August, another proud day for America." 

Hopefully, the mission will get back on track after these bumps.  

Another Asteroid Heading Our Way

As if last month's asteroid near miss and Russian meteorite was not enough to get the world's attention, we have more asteroids heading our way.  Tomorrow a 330-foot-wide asteroid called 2013 ET will make a near approach to the Earth, missing us by about 600,000 miles (or about 2.5 times the distance from the Earth to the moon).  According to news reports, this large asteroid was first detected on March 3rd, not giving us much time to worry had its trajectory been somewhat different. 

Remember, 2013 ET is twice the size of last month's 2012 DA14, of which NASA stated:

...if another asteroid of a size similar to that of 2012 DA14 (about 150 feet across) were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation. 

Are we facing more risks as time goes by, or are we simply more aware of a scary situation that has always been out there?  I would like to think it is the latter. 

SpaceX: A Scary Mission Ends Successfully

The good new is that on Sunday the SpaceX Dragon successfully attached to the International Space Station (ISS) to resupply the crew.  According to NASA:

Space station Expedition 34 crew members Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn of NASA used the station's robotic arm to successfully capture Dragon at 5:31 a.m. The capture came one day, 19 hours and 22 minutes after the mission's launch. The station was 253 miles above northern Ukraine.

The bad news is that the Dragon seemed to have problems along the way that SpaceX will need to resolve for future missions.  To recap, about 10 minutes after Friday launch of the Dragon capsule, three of the four sets of rocket thrusters failed to engage.   Here is now SpaceX explained it:

After Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage approximately nine minutes after launch, a minor issue with some of Dragon’s oxidizer tanks was detected. Within a few hours, SpaceX engineers had identified and corrected the issue, normalizing the oxidizer pressure and returning operations to normal. Dragon recomputed its ascent profile as it was designed to and is now on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) with possible arrival on Sunday, just one day past the original timeline.

I am not surprised SpaceX will spin it as a "minor issue," but was it?  Hopefully, NASA and SpaceX will thoroughly investigate the problem.  You may recall that the first resupply mission to the ISS also had an "anomaly" in a rocket engine.  Given the complex nature of such missions, problems such as these are not unheard of.  The key is learning from the problems. And SpaceX's Mr. Musk does not want to do anything to jeopardize future missions with NASA.

In 22 days, the Dragon will return to Earth, bringing back various science experiments being tested on the ISS. Let's hope things are smooth for the rest of the mission.