Why Scientists Are Intrigued by Air in NASA’s Mars Sample Tubes - UNIVERSE

NASA’s Perseverance rover viewed these dust devils swirling across the surface of Mars on July 20, 2021. Scientists want to study the air trapped in samples being collected in metal tubes by Perseverance. Those air samples could help them better understand the Martian atmosphere. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Tucked away with each rock and soil sample collected by the agency’s Perseverance rover is a potential boon for atmospheric scientists.

Atmospheric scientists get a little more excited with every rock core NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover seals in its titanium sample tubes, which are being gathered for eventual delivery to Earth as part of the Mars Sample Return campaign. Twenty-four have been taken so far.

Most of those samples consist of rock cores or regolith (broken rock and dust) that might reveal important information about the history of the planet and whether microbial life was present billions of years ago. But some scientists are just as thrilled at the prospect of studying the “headspace,” or air in the extra room around the rocky material, in the tubes.

They want to learn more about the Martian atmosphere, which is composed mostly of carbon dioxide but could also include trace amounts of other gases that may have been around since the planet’s formation.

“The air samples from Mars would tell us not just about the current climate and atmosphere, but how it’s changed over time,” said Brandi Carrier, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It will help us understand how climates different from our own evolve.”

The Value of Headspace

Among the samples that could be brought to Earth is one tube filled solely with gas deposited on the Martian surface as part of a sample depot. But far more of the gas in the rover’s collection is within the headspace of rock samples. These are unique because the gas will be interacting with rocky material inside the tubes for years before the samples can be opened and analyzed in laboratories on Earth. What scientists glean from them will lend insight into how much water vapor hovers near the Martian surface, one factor that determines why ice forms where it does on the planet and how Mars’ water cycle has evolved over time.

Scientists also want a better understanding of trace gases in the air at Mars. Most scientifically tantalizing would be the detection of noble gases (such as neon, argon, and xenon), which are so nonreactive that they may have been around, unchanged in the atmosphere, since forming billions of years ago. If captured, those gases could reveal whether Mars started with an atmosphere. (Ancient Mars had a much thicker atmosphere than it does today, but scientists aren’t sure whether it was always there or whether it developed later). There are also big questions about how the planet’s ancient atmosphere compared with early Earth’s.

The headspace would additionally provide a chance to assess the size and toxicity of dust particles — information that will help future astronauts on Mars.

“The gas samples have a lot to offer Mars scientists,” said Justin Simon, a geochemist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, who is part of a group of over a dozen international experts that helps decide which samples the rover should collect. “Even scientists who don’t study Mars would be interested because it will shed light on how planets form and evolve.”

Apollo’s Air Samples

In 2021, a group of planetary researchers, including scientists from NASA, studied the air brought back from the Moon in a steel container by Apollo 17 astronauts some 50 years earlier.

“People think of the Moon as airless, but it has a very tenuous atmosphere that interacts with the lunar surface rocks over time,” said Simon, who studies a variety of planetary samples at Johnson. “That includes noble gases leaking out of the Moon’s interior and collecting at the lunar surface.”

The way Simon’s team extracted the gas for study is similar to what could be done with Perseverance’s air samples. First, they put the previously unopened container into an airtight enclosure. Then they pierced the steel with a needle to extract the gas into a cold trap — essentially a U-shaped pipe that extends into a liquid, like nitrogen, with a low freezing point. By changing the temperature of the liquid, scientists captured some of the gases with lower freezing points at the bottom of the cold trap.

“There’s maybe 25 labs in the world that manipulate gas in this way,” Simon said. Besides being used to study the origin of planetary materials, this approach can be applied to gases from hot springs and those emitted from the walls of active volcanoes, he added.

Of course, those sources provide much more gas than Perseverance has in its sample tubes. But if a single tube doesn’t carry enough gas for a particular experiment, Mars scientists could combine gases from multiple tubes to get a larger aggregate sample — one more way the headspace offers a bonus opportunity for science. 

Source: Why Scientists Are Intrigued by Air in NASA’s Mars Sample Tubes - NASA   

Study finds plants store carbon for shorter periods than thought - Climate models underestimate carbon cycling through plants

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

The carbon stored globally by plants is shorter-lived and more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought, according to a new study.

The findings have implications for our understanding of the role of nature in mitigating climate change, including the potential for nature-based carbon removal projects such as mass tree-planting.

The research, carried out by an international team led by Dr. Heather Graven at Imperial College London and published in Science, reveals that existing climate models underestimate the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that is taken up by vegetation globally each year, while overestimating how long that carbon remains there.

Dr. Graven, Reader in Climate Physics in Imperial's Department of Physics, said, "Plants across the world are actually more productive than we thought they were."

The findings also mean that while carbon is taken up by plants quicker than thought, the carbon is also locked up for a shorter time, meaning carbon from human activities will be released back into the atmosphere sooner than previously predicted.

Dr. Graven added, "Many of the strategies being developed by governments and corporations to address climate change rely on plants and forests to draw down planet-warming CO₂ and lock it away in the ecosystem.

"But our study suggests that carbon stored in living plants does not stay there as long as we thought. It emphasizes that the potential for such nature-based carbon removal projects is limited, and fossil fuel emissions need to be ramped down quickly to minimize the impact of climate change." 

Video abstract. Credit: Heather Graven / Imperial College London

Using carbon

Until now, the rate at which plants use CO₂ to produce new tissues and other parts globally—a measure known as Net Primary Productivity—has been approximated by scaling up data from individual sites. But the sparsity of sites with comprehensive measurements means it has not been possible to accurately calculate Net Primary Productivity globally.

Plants' productivity has been increasing since the early 1900s and more CO₂ is currently taken up by plants than is released back to the air. Researchers know that approximately 30% of CO₂ emissions by human activities are therefore stored in plants and soils each year, reducing climate change and its impacts.

However, the details of how this storage happens, and its stability into the future, are not yet well understood.

In this study, radiocarbon (¹⁴C)—a radioactive isotope of carbon—was combined with model simulations to understand how plants use CO₂ at a global scale, unlocking valuable insights into the interaction between the atmosphere and the biosphere.

Tracking carbon from bomb tests

Radiocarbon is produced naturally, but nuclear bomb testing in the 1950s and 1960s increased the level of ¹⁴C in the atmosphere. This extra ¹⁴C was available to plants globally, giving researchers a good tool to measure how fast they could take it up.

By examining the accumulation of ¹⁴C in plants between 1963 and 1967—a period when there were no significant nuclear detonations and the total ¹⁴C in the Earth system was relatively constant—the authors could assess how quickly carbon moves from the atmosphere to vegetation and what happens to it once it's there.

The results show that current, widely-used models that simulate how land and vegetation interact with the atmosphere underestimate the net primary productivity of plants globally. The results also show that the models overestimate the storage time of carbon in plants.

Role of the biosphere

Co-author Dr. Charles Koven, from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S., said, "These observations are from a unique moment in history, just after the peak of atomic weapons testing in the atmosphere in the 1960s.

"The observations show that the growth of plants at the time was faster than current climate models estimate that it was. The significance is that it implies that carbon cycles more rapidly between the atmosphere and biosphere than we have thought, and that we need to better understand and account for this more rapid cycling in climate models."

The authors say the research demonstrates the need to improve theories about how plants grow and interact with their ecosystems, and to adjust global climate models accordingly, to better understand how the biosphere is mitigating climate change.

Co-author Dr. Will Wieder, from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, U.S., said, "Scientists and policymakers need improved estimates of historical land carbon uptake to inform projections of this critical ecosystem service in future decades. Our study provides critical insights into terrestrial carbon cycle dynamics, which can inform models that are used for climate change projections."

The work highlights the usefulness of radiocarbon measurements in helping to unpick the complexities of the biosphere. The study's authors include German physicist Ingeborg Levin, a pioneer in radiocarbon and atmospheric research, who sadly died in February.  

by Imperial College London

Source: Study finds plants store carbon for shorter periods than thought (phys.org)

NASA Webb, Hubble Scientist Marcia Rieke Awarded Gruber Cosmology Prize

Marcia Rieke, a scientist who worked on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope, has received the Gruber Foundation’s 2024 Cosmology Prize. Rieke will receive the award and gold laureate pin at a ceremony August 8, 2024, at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Cape Town, South Africa.

Marcia Rieke is Regents’ Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and was the principal investigator for the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the Webb telescope.

University of Arizona

Rieke was awarded the prize “for her pioneering work on astronomical instrumentation to reveal the breadth and details of the infrared universe. Her contributions to flagship space missions have opened new avenues for understanding the history and mechanisms of star and galaxy formation. She enabled the development and delivery of premier instruments providing groundbreaking sensitivity to near-infrared wavelengths to both the Webb and the Hubble telescopes. Through these substantive contributions along with earlier work, Marcia Rieke has had a lasting impact on our understanding of the universe,” according to the Gruber Foundation’s announcement.

The Cosmology Prize honors a leading cosmologist, astronomer, astrophysicist, or scientific philosopher for theoretical, analytical, conceptual, or observational discoveries leading to fundamental advances in our understanding of the universe. Since 2001, the Cosmology Prize has been cosponsored by the International Astronomical Union. Presented annually, the Cosmology Prize acknowledges and encourages further exploration in a field that shapes the way we perceive and comprehend our universe.

Rieke is Regents’ Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona and was the principal investigator for the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the Webb telescope.

As principal investigator for the NIRCam, Rieke was responsible for ensuring that the instrument was built and delivered on time and on budget. She worked with the engineers at Lockheed Martin who built NIRCam and helped them decipher and meet the instruments’ requirements.

“As principal investigator of the James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam instrument, Dr. Rieke’s vision, dedication, and leadership were inspirational to the entire team and a key contribution to the success of the Webb telescope,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb telescope manager and optics lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. 

Rieke’s research interests include infrared observations of the center of the Milky Way and of other galactic nuclei. She has served as the deputy principal investigator on the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer for the Hubble Space Telescope (NICMOS), and the outreach coordinator for NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope.

“As a leading scientist on a premiere Hubble Space Telescope science camera, NICMOS, Dr. Rieke’s expertise enabled ground-breaking discoveries on everything from star formation to distant galaxies,” said Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, Hubble Space Telescope senior project scientist at NASA Goddard. “Subsequent cameras on Hubble, and infrared space telescopes like Spitzer and Webb, have built upon Dr. Rieke’s pioneering work.”

“Dr. Rieke has also poured herself into wide international scientific leadership, leading countless scientific panels that envision and shape the best instruments for future powerful astronomical discovery,” Wiseman said.

“There’s a story beginning to emerge,” Rieke said about the science Webb has returned in the first two years of its mission. “But we still need some more pieces to the story.” For the duration of Webb’s lifetime, many of those pieces will emerge from the instrument that Rieke led.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Media Contact

Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center 

Source: NASA Webb, Hubble Scientist Marcia Rieke Awarded Gruber Cosmology Prize - NASA

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Hubble Captures Infant Stars Transforming a Nebula - UNIVERSE

This striking NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the nebula RCW 7.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust. Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis.

Nebulae are areas rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into very young, developing stars, called protostars, which are still surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. The protostars forming in RCW 7 are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionizing radiation and fierce stellar winds that transformed the nebula into a H II region.

H II regions are filled with hydrogen ions — H I refers to a normal hydrogen atom, while H II is hydrogen that lost its electron making it an ion. Ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen in the nebula, causing it to emit light that gives this nebula its soft pinkish glow.

The Hubble data in this image came from the study of a particularly massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds toward the top of the image. To expose this star and its siblings, astronomers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars in this image are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light too. Infrared light’s longer wavelength lets it pass through much of the gas and dust in the cloud allowing Hubble to capture it. Many of the larger-looking stars in this image are foreground stars that are not part of the nebula. Instead, they sit between the nebula and our solar system.

The creation of an H II region marks the beginning of the end for a molecular cloud like RCW 7. Within only a few million years, radiation and winds from the massive stars will gradually disperse the nebula’s gas — even more so as the most massive stars come to the end of their lives in supernova explosions. New stars in this nebula will incorporate only a fraction of the nebula’s gas, the rest will spread throughout the galaxy to eventually form new molecular clouds.

Download the above image 

Source: Hubble Captures Infant Stars Transforming a Nebula - NASA Science 

Augmented Reality Speeds Spacecraft Construction at NASA Goddard

 

• Augmented reality tools have helped technicians improve accuracy and save time on fit checks for the Roman Space Telescope being assembled at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
• In one instance, manipulating a digital model of Roman’s propulsion system into the real telescope structure revealed the planned design would not fit around existing wiring. The finding helped avoid a need to rebuild any components.
• The R&D team at Goddard working on this AR project suggests broader adoption in the future could potentially save weeks of construction time and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In this photograph from Feb. 29, 2024, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the Roman Space Telescope’s propulsion system is positioned by engineers and technicians under the spacecraft bus. Engineers used augmented reality tools to prepare for the assembly. NASA/Chris Gunn

Technicians armed with advanced measuring equipment, augmented reality headsets, and QR codes virtually checked the fit of some Roman Space Telescope structures before building or moving them through facilities at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

“We’ve been able to place sensors, mounting interfaces, and other spacecraft hardware in 3D space faster and more accurately than previous techniques,” said NASA Goddard engineer Ron Glenn. “That could be a huge benefit to any program’s cost and schedule.” 

Projecting digital models onto the real world allows the technicians to align parts and look for potential interference among them. The AR heads-up display also enables precise positioning of flight hardware for assembly with accuracy down to thousandths of an inch.

Engineers wearing augmented reality headsets test the placement of a scaffolding design before it is built to ensure accurate fit in the largest clean room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NASA

Using NASA’s Internal Research and Development program, Glenn said his team keeps finding new ways to improve how NASA builds spacecraft with AR technology in a project aiding Roman’s construction at NASA Goddard. 

Glenn said the team has achieved far more than they originally sought to prove. “The original project goal was to develop enhanced assembly solutions utilizing AR and find out if we could eliminate costly fabrication time,” he said. “We found the team could do so much more.”

For instance, engineers using a robotic arm for precision measuring and 3D laser scanning mapped Roman’s complex wiring harness and the volume within the spacecraft structure.  

“Manipulating the virtual model of Roman’s propulsion assembly into that frame, we found places where it interfered with the existing wiring harness, team engineer Eric Brune said. “Adjusting the propulsion assembly before building it allowed the mission to avoid costly and time-consuming delays.”

Roman’s propulsion system was successfully integrated earlier this year.

The Roman Space Telescope is a NASA mission designed to explore dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. Equipped with a powerful telescope and advanced instruments, it aims to unravel mysteries of the universe and expand our understanding of cosmic phenomena. Roman is scheduled to launch by May 2027. 
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio

Considering the time it takes to design, build, move, redesign, and rebuild, Brune added, their work saved many workdays by multiple engineers and technicians.

“We have identified many additional benefits to these combinations of technologies,” team engineer Aaron Sanford said. “Partners at other locations can collaborate directly through the technicians’ point of view. Using QR codes for metadata storage and document transfer adds another layer of efficiency, enabling quick access to relevant information right at your fingertips. Developing AR techniques for reverse engineering and advanced structures opens many possibilities such as training and documentation.” 

The technologies allow 3D designs of parts and assemblies to be shared or virtually handed off from remote locations. They also enable dry runs of moving and installing structures as well as help capture precise measurements after parts are built to compare to their designs. 

Adding a precision laser tracker to the mix can also eliminate the need to create elaborate physical templates to ensure components are accurately mounted in precise positions and orientations, Sanford said. Even details such as whether a technician can physically extend an arm inside a structure to turn a bolt or manipulate a part can be worked out in augmented reality before construction. 

During construction, an engineer wearing a headset can reference vital information, like the torque specifications for individual bolts, using a hand gesture. In fact, the engineer could achieve this without having to pause and find the information on another device or in paper documents.  

In the future, the team hopes to help integrate various components, conduct inspections, and document final construction. Sanford said, “it’s a cultural shift. It takes time to adopt these new tools.”  

“It will help us rapidly produce spacecraft and instruments, saving weeks and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Glenn said. “That allows us to return resources to the agency to develop new missions.” 

This project is part of NASA’s Center Innovation Fund portfolio for fiscal year 2024 at Goddard. The Center Innovation Fund, within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, stimulates and encourages creativity and innovation at NASA centers while addressing the technology needs of NASA and the nation.

To learn more, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/center-innovation-fund/

By Karl B. Hille
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 

Source: Augmented Reality Speeds Spacecraft Construction at NASA Goddard - NASA  

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