ESA's Mars Express: Becquerel crater - The erosive power of wind and water

A striking scene in and around Becquerel crater – the largest crater in this view – reveals both the power of wind and water in the turbulent history of Mars. 

A mound of light-coloured sulphate deposits formed from evaporating water sits inside the crater amid a sea of dark wind-blown deposits. 

The darker material has blown towards the south-southwest (top left) of the image in a wide swath and across tiny craters there – their raised rims protect the material immediately downwind from being swept away. 

Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Exceptional structures deposited and shaped by water and winds adorn these interlocking craters and sculpt radiating patterns in the sands of Mars.

This mosaic, which focuses on Becquerel crater in Arabia Terra, is composed of four images taken by the high-resolution stereo camera on ESA's Mars Express.

Arabia Terra is in the transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands of Mars.

Becquerel crater is named for the 19th-century French physicist Antoine Henri Becquerel (1852–1908), winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 along with Marie and Pierre Curie for the discovery of radioactivity.

It is the largest crater in this scene, with a diameter of 167 km, and drops to a depth of about 3.5 km below the surrounding terrain.

A second large crater lies within Becquerel, punching even deeper into the surface, as seen in the Mars Express topography and 3D images.

The perspective view below reveals an intriguing, large mound within Becquerel's crater walls, reminiscent of Mount Sharp in Gale crater, currently being explored by NASA's Curiosity rover.

The mound rises about 1 km above the crater floor and comprises hundreds of layers of light-toned sediments, each just a few metres thick, made of sulphate-bearing rocks.

Location of Becquerel crater within Arabia Terra, at about 22°N/352°E. 

The main image is a mosaic of four images taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on ESA’s Mars Express on 22 July 2006 (orbit 3253), 26 February 2008 (orbit 5332), 2 March 2008 (orbit 5332) and 7 March 2008 (orbit 5368). 

The orbit tracks and the area highlighted in the main image are indicated by the white rectangles. 

Credit: NASA MGS MOLA Science Team

On Earth, sulphates are most often formed via the evaporation of water, so the presence of these minerals in Becquerel crater suggests that water may once have pooled here in a vast crater lake, before evaporating away.

It is likely that the entire crater floor was once covered with such sediments, but over billions of years much of it has been eroded away by wind, leaving just a polished, rounded mound behind.

Similar light-toned sulphate-bearing deposits are seen all over Arabia Terra, including in the crater walls in this scene, pointing to a large-scale process that affected the entire region.

One popular theory is that large changes in the tilt of the rotational axis of Mars leads to significant changes in its climate, reflected in the thickness and repeating patterns found in the layers of sediment.

A change in the environmental conditions would affect the way in which the sediments were initially deposited, as well as their subsequent resistance to erosion.

Read the full story here

BRITE Constellation Satellite Mission

Each BRITE satellite -- about the size and mass of a car battery -- houses a small optical telescope feeding a CCD detector

BRITE Constellation represents new frontiers in aerospace technology and astrophysical science.

BRITE stands for "BRIght Target Explorer," because the targets in the sky for this mission are the most luminous stars in our galaxy.

It's a "constellation" because there will eventually be six BRITE satellites in orbit, monitoring the sky regularly for years to come.

Each BRITE satellite -- about the size and mass of a car battery -- houses a small optical telescope feeding a CCD detector.

Canadian aerospace technology is at the heart of the BRITE design, and Canadian astronomers have partnered with colleagues in Austria and Poland to make the mission a reality.

Each country is contributing a set of twins to the planned sextuplet of satellites. The first two BRITE nanosatellites were launched in late February, and it's expected all six will be in orbit by the end of 2014.

Focusing on the brightest stars in the sky, visible on a clear dark night with the unaided eye, the tiny BRITE eyes will measure subtle changes in the brightnesses of these stars.

The changes can be oscillations in brightness due to actual physical vibrations of the star, which astronomers translate into the otherwise hidden internal structure through a technique called stellar seismology.

The changes can be due to spots on the stars' surfaces -- bad complexions which alternate between 'breakouts' and 'clear skin', like our Sun's 11-year sunspot activity cycle.

The changes can also be due to ejections of gas from a star's surface, like the Sun's wind and its flares.

Sometimes the changes are not due to the star itself, but caused by a planet passing in front of the star, causing dips in the star's apparent brightness.

BRITE Constellation will capture all these types of changes in hundreds of stars to be monitored, and the mission is expected to discover new planets.

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NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover: Discovers Weird 'Hood Ornament'

A close-up of a shiny, wind-sculpted rock photographed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity on Jan. 30, 2013. 

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has photographed a shiny, metallic-looking object that bears a passing resemblance to a door handle or a hood ornament.

However, the Curiosity rover has not stumbled onto evidence of an ancient civilization that took the family van to Olympus Mons for vacation.

The object is simply a rock that the wind has sculpted into an interesting shape, scientists said.

Curiosity scientists stated that "The shiny surface suggests that this rock has a fine grain and is relatively hard."

"Hard, fine-grained rocks can be polished by the wind to form very smooth surfaces."

A shiny-looking Martian rock is visible in this image taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity's Mast Camera (Mastcam) during the mission's 173rd Martian day, or sol (Jan. 30, 2013).

CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems

Strong Signs of El Niño Brewing In The Pacific, Causing Global temps to jump to new record highs

Imagine you are slowly filling a bathtub with water, and are measuring how deep the water is at frequent intervals.

Also imagine, that at times your dog jumps in while you’re measuring, and this of course causes you to get a higher water level.

The dog gets back out, and the water level drops slightly, but not as much as it was before because the faucet is still running, and the water is still slowly filling the tub.

Imagine too that the faucet is bad, and that it is slowly opening wider, so the rate of increase is also itself increasing.

The same thing is happening to our planet’s temperature. Increasing greenhouse gases are slowly raising the temperature of the planet, but ocean currents like La Niña and El Niño also have a significant effect.

The gases are increasing at an ever faster rate as well, just like the bad faucet. When there is a La Niña with a large region of cold water in the Pacific, the planet cools (it’s the same as the dog jumping out of the tub).

An El Niño, which fills much of the Pacific with warm water, warms the planet.

It’s the same as the dog jumping into the bath tub.

The water is sloshing up and down, but as long as the faucet is running, you know that in the long run the water level is going up.

If an El Niño does indeed develop later this summer and linger into the Northern Hemisphere winter then we will likely see a new record temperature for the planet.

The super El Niño of 1998 brought us a very warm planet and the following La Niña cooled us back somewhat.

Since then, we have started rising again, and in spite of last year’s La Niña we have seen the planet get even warmer.

The cooling after the 98 El Niño led political extremists (with little or no knowledge of atmospheric science) to boldly claim that climate change stopped in 1998.

Hopefully, you can now see what a load of pure poppycock that is.

So here are some real facts. You know, the kind of thing that North Carolina legislators need to outlaw as soon as possible:

1. The World will see an increase in droughts and floods over the upcoming year. How bad it will be varies with each El Niño. Most likely, Australia will get the drought and the Gulf Coast will get the floods.
2. The number of Atlantic hurricanes will likely drop, but other factors can override this to a significant degree.
3. 15 of the last 16 years have been the warmest on record and there will likely be a new record warm year on the books for planet Earth.
4. The few remaining skeptics will claim that it is all just a natural cycle, which is partially true!
Interesting isn’t it, how a partial truth can be the biggest of lies.


Read the full article here: El Nino Report