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October
30, 2009: If you found your grandmother's diary,
tattered and dust covered, up in the attic, would you read
it? Of course you would. Granny was a pistol! Brush off the
dust, open up the little book, and foray into her lively and
interesting past.
Dust
cloaks some fascinating tales in other places, too. NASA scientists
will soon brush the dust off some Martian rocks that are practically
bursting their seams to give their lively account of the red
planet's past. The Mars Science Lab -- aptly named "Curiosity"
-- is heading up there in 2011 to read the diary of Mars.
The
small, car-sized rover will ramble about on the rocky surface,
gizmos at full tilt, not only brushing dust off rocks but
also vaporizing them with a laser beam, gathering samples
to analyze on the spot, taking high resolution photographs,
and more.
Above:
An artist's concept of Curiosity vaporizing a patch of rock
for analysis. [larger
image]
"Curiosity
will be prospecting for organic molecules, the chemical building
blocks of life," says Joy Crisp of NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. "We want to find out whether Mars' environment
was, or still is, capable of harboring life."
"To
answer the question 'Is there life on Mars?' the most reasonable
and productive approach is to look for organic compounds, which
could be from life past or present, or from meteorites,"
explains Michael Meyer of NASA headquarters. "If you find
anything, you know you're in a region that could preserve evidence
of life, if there was any. We have maps from our orbiters, but
we don't know which of the promising looking regions actually
contains anything, much less the mother lode."
"The
rock record is of particular interest," says Crisp. "It
has a record from billions of years ago and can answer questions
like 'Where and for how long might Mars have been habitable?'
'Was it cold or warm there in the past?' 'Was the water there
acidic or salty?'"
Curiosity
will be the first red planet rover since Spirit and Opportunity.
Though it would be hard to match the twins' toughness, Curiosity
will have a much greater range, more instruments, and a bigger,
stronger robotic arm. It will be nuclear powered instead of
solar, so there will be no worries about dust on solar panels
causing energy supplies to plummet. It will have much more
power, more consistently.
 "Curiosity
will even land in a new fashion," says Crisp. "Spirit
and Opportunity were sitting on top of a lander that hit on
the surface and bounced, protected by airbags, before coming
to rest and opening up. They then had to drive off the top
of the lander. A descent stage called Sky Crane will gently
lower Curiosity (no airbags needed) via cables, which will
be cut once the rover's wheels set down.
Right:
An artist's concept of Curiosity's descent to Mars. [larger
image] [more]
Meyer
adds, "The most important difference is that Spirit and
Opportunity aren't analytical labs – they are more for observing.
This newest rover will be performing a more comprehensive
study of the Martian environment."
Remote
sensing instruments located on Curiosity's mast will scout
around for promising targets and perform some long-distance
analysis before the vehicle moves in for a closer look.
"Curiosity
will have a laser on its mast that can take aim at a rock
and vaporize a small spot on it," says Crisp. "This
produces a plasma cloud that tells us about that rock's chemistry.
We'll look at the light reflected off the cloud to characterize
rocks and soils from up to 9 meters away. We’ll be able to
classify minerals, ices, and organic molecules without having
to drive as much."
The
mast also sports a high-resolution camera called, naturally,
Mastcam. It will observe, photograph, and videotape geological
structures and features, like craters, gullies, and dunes.
 Right:
"Siblings." This artist's concept compares Curiosity
(left) to Spirit (right). [more]
The
rover's robotic arm wields its own unique instruments. APXS,
the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer, will measure the abundance
of chemical elements in the dust, soils, rocks, and processed
samples. MAHLI, the Mars Hand Lens Imager, will return color
images like those of typical digital cameras and act like
a geologist's magnifying lens. Its images can be used to examine
the structure and texture of rocks, dust, and frost at the
micrometer to centimeter scale.
One
laboratory instrument inside the rover's body will explore
the red planet by "sniffing" the air, bird-dog style.
SAM, short for Sample Analysis at Mars, has vents that open
to the atmosphere to determine where to take samples, for
example if it detects methane in the area.
"That's
important because methane can be released by microbes,"
explains Crisp, "or by liquid water reacting with rock
at depths under the surface. Water 'down under' could be a
niche for subterranean life. SAM can also be used to sniff
the gases released after baking a rock or soil sample in its
oven."
In
addition, Curiosity will carry instruments for observing Martian
weather and measuring cosmic radiation bombarding the planet's
surface.
"This
rover is intrinsically spectacular in terms of what the mission
will do," says Meyer. "It's a keystone for the future.
It sets the stage for understanding whether organics are preserved
on Mars and will tell us what we need to use to find out."
Now
– where's that diary?
Author: Dauna Coulter
| Editor:
Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
|
