Curiosity's Closing In

In less than a month, NASA's Curiosity rover is scheduled to land on Mars.  The landing site is an impressive 95 mile wide crater that boasts a 3 mile high central mountain.  Curiosity, the size of a Mini Cooper, is loaded with scientific equipment that will allow it to study Mars' atmosphere, surface, and past in an attempt to determine whether Mars boasts, or ever boasted, life.

Before Curiosity can do any of that, however, it must land safely, and NASA is going with an untried, complex landing sequence to get the most sophisticated rover ever sent to another planet on the ground.  Curiosity will enter the Martian atmosphere behind a heat shield, then descend under huge parachutes.  Rockets will take over and further slow the probe as it nears the ground, and at about twenty feet off the surface, rockets will create a kind of steady platform, a "sky crane," from which Curiosity will be dropped on to its six wheels.  Many things have to go right at the right time for the landing to be successful.

NASA decided to put so many of its eggs in one basket, then risk that basket on a complex, novel landing approach because of the high quality-- even potentially historic and breakthrough-- science the mission promises.  Another factor is surely that the agency could not count on Congress to support a step-by-step approach, so it went with some big mission gambles along with a steady orbiter progrram.  Curiosity is the last of those big gambles as Congress has indeed cut the planetary exploration program in the wake of the economic downturn.

Curiosity And Life

NASA's Curiosity rover, scheduled to land on Mars August 5, may be able to detect life.  According to a new study, though the Martian surface is likely sterile due to its constant exposure to radiation, organic molecules could exist mere inches below the surface-- within range of Curiosity's drills.

Organic molecules wouldn't clinch the case for life, however.  The study finds it'd be necessary to go down feet before real life would be likely.  That's beyond the reach of Curiosity, but a strategy might change that.  Researchers propose Curiosity should seek out a young crater and descend into it.  The floor of such a crater would be well below the surrounding surface, thus giving the rover access to what might be some interesting strata.

Oldest Crater Yet

The oldest impact crater yet found on Earth has been identified in Greenland.  The formation, badly degraded by geological processes, is put at three billion years old.

The crater is 62 miles across, and scientists put the meteor that made it at 19 miles across.  That would be a Doomsday Rock, ending virtually all life on Earth, if it struck today.  Three billion years ago, by the fossil record, all life on Earth was single-celled, and obviously some of it survived the impact.  As life gets more complex, it also gets more vulnerable.  Something to keep in mind.

Higgs Boson Likely Found

Physicists are stoked today.  The theoretical Higgs boson particle, long sought by physicists and sometimes called "The God Particle," has likely been found by researchers using the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.  Confirmation of the discovery would be a major step forward in our understanding of the universe.

The Higgs, assuming it exists, is much heavier than a proton.  Physicists think it is the key in explaining why there is mass in the universe.  Absent the Higgs, therefore, nothing we see around us would exist.

The Higgs is also predicted by the Standard Model of the creation of the universe.  Discovery of the Higgs, therefore, would also strengthen the Standard Model.

Titan's Interior Ocean

New evidence seems to confirm what scientists already suspected-- a substantial ocean of liquid water likely exists under the surface of Saturn's giant moon, Titan.

By analyzing orbital data of the Cassini spacecraft, as well as the tides raised on Titan by Saturn's powerful gravity, scientists have determined that both Titan's mass and its observed flex are consistent with a large iinterior ocean which allows the outer shell to floart and move.

They aren't sure whether the ocean is made simply of water or a mix of water and ammonia, but the existence of a large liquid water ocean, the heat energy to keep it liquid, and the organic compounnds that exist on Titan increases the possibility that life exists there.

Water Inside Early Mars

A new study using deep craters in the southern highlands of Mars as windows into the subsurface suggests that the Red Planet had a large amount of water underground through the first billion years of its history.  Minerals that are associated with water are present on the floors, walls, and rims of the craters.

The case for substantial amounts of water and water ice through Martian history is strong and seems to get stronger the more we probe.  That's good news for those looking for life on Mars.  We know that water ice exists underground over much of the northern hemisphere today.  That's good news for a possible human future on Mars.

"Chasing UFOs"

The National Geographic Channel premiered its new series, "Chasing UFOs," this weekend.  It's pretty typical of a stripe of show that seems fairly popular on cable televison-- a team of investigators seek the truth about some provocative subject.  The "Chasing UFOs" team includes a ufologist, a scientist/engineer type, and a young woman who says her mind is open on the question of alien visitation of Earth. Perfectly balanced.  This team is also foul-mouthed, for whatever that's worth.  It also seems to like to work in the dark of night.  Sometimes that's legitimate, but searching a hillside for possible spaceship shards in the middle of the night seems a bit strange.

Ultimately, this show suffers from the same weakness that all similar shows have.  Viewers who think about it know there will be no payoff.  If the team had proven aliens exist, the world would have known about it long before the show aired.