Related News
New rover to start journey to Mars in quest for signs of life
Source: Agencies |
November 25, 2011, Friday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
A NUCLEAR-POWERED rover the size of a small car is set to begin a nine-month journey to Mars this weekend to learn if the planet is or ever was suitable for life.
The launch of NASA's US$2.5 billion Mars science laboratory aboard a United Space Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is set for 10:02am on Saturday from Cape Canaveral, just south of the Kennedy Space Center in the US state of Florida.
The mission is the first since NASA's 1970s-era Viking program to tackle the age-old question of whether there is life beyond Earth.
"This is the most complicated mission we have attempted on the surface of Mars," said Peter Theisinger, Mars science laboratory project manager with NASA contractor Lockheed Martin.
The consensus of scientists after experiments by the twin Viking landers was that life did not exist on Mars. Two decades later, NASA is embarking on a new strategy to find signs of past water on Mars, believing the issue of life there cannot be examined without a better understanding of the planet's environment.
"Everything we know about life and what makes a livable environment is peculiar to Earth," said astrobiologist Pamela Conrad of NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in California, a deputy lead scientist for the mission. "What things look like on Mars are a function of not only the initial set of ingredients that Mars had when it was made, but the processes that have affected it."
Without a moon large enough to stabilize its tilt, Mars has undergone dramatic climate changes over the eons as its spin axis wobbled.
The history of what happened on Mars during those times is chemically locked in its rocks, including whether liquid water and other ingredients believed necessary for life existed there and, if so, for how long.
In 2004, the golf cart-sized rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of Mars' equator to tackle the water question. Both found signs that water mingled with rocks in the past.
The new rover - Curiosity - shifts the hunt to other elements key to life, particularly organic compounds.
"One of the ingredients of life is water," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's astrobiology program. "We are now looking to see if we can find other conditions necessary for life by defining habitability or what it takes in the environment to support life."
Curiosity, designed to last two years, is outfitted with 10 tools to analyze a particularly alluring site called Gale Crater - a 154-kilometer basin that has a layered mountain of deposits stretching 4.8km above its floor, twice as tall as the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon.
Scientists do not know how the mound formed but suspect it is the eroded remains of sediment that once filled the crater.
Curiosity's toolkit includes a robotic arm with a drill, chemistry labs to analyze powdered samples and a laser that can pulverize rock and soil samples from a distance of 6 meters. If all goes as planned, it will be lowered to the floor of Gale Crater next August by a new landing system called a sky crane. Previously, NASA has used airbags or thruster jets to cushion touchdown on Mars but the 900-kilogram Curiosity needed a beefier system.
The launch of NASA's US$2.5 billion Mars science laboratory aboard a United Space Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is set for 10:02am on Saturday from Cape Canaveral, just south of the Kennedy Space Center in the US state of Florida.
The mission is the first since NASA's 1970s-era Viking program to tackle the age-old question of whether there is life beyond Earth.
"This is the most complicated mission we have attempted on the surface of Mars," said Peter Theisinger, Mars science laboratory project manager with NASA contractor Lockheed Martin.
The consensus of scientists after experiments by the twin Viking landers was that life did not exist on Mars. Two decades later, NASA is embarking on a new strategy to find signs of past water on Mars, believing the issue of life there cannot be examined without a better understanding of the planet's environment.
"Everything we know about life and what makes a livable environment is peculiar to Earth," said astrobiologist Pamela Conrad of NASA's jet propulsion laboratory in California, a deputy lead scientist for the mission. "What things look like on Mars are a function of not only the initial set of ingredients that Mars had when it was made, but the processes that have affected it."
Without a moon large enough to stabilize its tilt, Mars has undergone dramatic climate changes over the eons as its spin axis wobbled.
The history of what happened on Mars during those times is chemically locked in its rocks, including whether liquid water and other ingredients believed necessary for life existed there and, if so, for how long.
In 2004, the golf cart-sized rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of Mars' equator to tackle the water question. Both found signs that water mingled with rocks in the past.
The new rover - Curiosity - shifts the hunt to other elements key to life, particularly organic compounds.
"One of the ingredients of life is water," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's astrobiology program. "We are now looking to see if we can find other conditions necessary for life by defining habitability or what it takes in the environment to support life."
Curiosity, designed to last two years, is outfitted with 10 tools to analyze a particularly alluring site called Gale Crater - a 154-kilometer basin that has a layered mountain of deposits stretching 4.8km above its floor, twice as tall as the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon.
Scientists do not know how the mound formed but suspect it is the eroded remains of sediment that once filled the crater.
Curiosity's toolkit includes a robotic arm with a drill, chemistry labs to analyze powdered samples and a laser that can pulverize rock and soil samples from a distance of 6 meters. If all goes as planned, it will be lowered to the floor of Gale Crater next August by a new landing system called a sky crane. Previously, NASA has used airbags or thruster jets to cushion touchdown on Mars but the 900-kilogram Curiosity needed a beefier system.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
