Sols 4280-4281: Last Call at Kings Canyon

Earth planning date: Monday, Aug. 19, 2024

Curiosity successfully completed the drill sequence at the Kings Canyon site within the Gediz Vallis channel. Today was a smooth planning day as we decided to stay put for sols 4280 and 4281 to obtain APXS data of the drill tailings (the crushed rock removed from the drill hole) before we reposition the rover nearby for our next set of observations. The science team is eagerly plotting the rover’s next move and is looking forward to all the interesting targets along the route ahead! 

ChemCam had a very busy day with multiple activities in the plan. ChemCam LIBS will examine the chemistry of rocks at nearby “Cathedral Lake” and “Royce Lakes” to analyze the fresh surfaces that were recently broken by the weight of the rover driving over them. Mastcam will provide their standard documentation images of these locations after the LIBS instrument zaps each target.  ChemCam planned two long distance RMI images and one passive RMI image to get a closer view of the diversity of rocks at Milestone Peak and the upper channel and the yardang unit – a white, wind-sculped rock that caps the mound in Gale crater. 

In our current workspace, we planned a MAHLI image and will use the dust removal tool (DRT) to characterize the grain size of the light-toned rock near our drill location at “Gabbot Pass.” Mastam has amassed a beautiful collection of mosaics at our current location and therefore included only one small Mastcam mosaic of the nearby Texoli butte that will provide context for a recently acquired ChemCam LD RMI image. The environmental theme group planned surveys to search for dust devils as well as measurements to observe the amount of dust in the atmosphere. 

Looking ahead, we will reposition the rover slightly to access “Fourth Recess Lake” to quantify its chemistry for comparison to past and future observations within the Gediz Vallis channel. And after that, it’s McDonald Pass or bust!

Written by Sharon Wilson Purdy, Planetary Geologist at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

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Entrepreneurs Challenge Prize Winner Uses Artificial Intelligence to Identify Methane Emissions

The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) instituted the Entrepreneurs Challenge to identify innovative ideas and technologies from small business start-ups with the potential to advance the agency’s science goals. Geolabe—a prize winner in the latest Entrepreneurs Challenge—has developed a way to use artificial intelligence to identify global methane emissions. Methane is a greenhouse gas that significantly contributes to global warming, and this promising new technology could provide data to help decision makers develop strategies to mitigate climate change.

SMD sponsored Entrepreneurs Challenge events in 2020, 2021, and 2023. Challenge winners were awarded prize money—in 2023 the total Entrepreneurs Challenge prize value was $1M. To help leverage external funding sources for the development of innovative technologies of interest to NASA, SMD involved the venture capital community in Entrepreneurs Challenge events. Numerous challenge winners have subsequently received funding from both NASA and external sources (e.g., other government agencies or the venture capital community) to further develop their technologies.

Each Entrepreneurs Challenge solicited submissions in specific focus areas such as mass spectrometry technology, quantum sensors, metamaterials-based sensor technologies, and more. The focus areas of the latest 2023 challenge included lunar surface payloads and climate science.

A recent Entrepreneurs Challenge success story involves 2023 challenge winner Geolabe—a startup founded by Dr. Claudia Hulbert and Dr. Bertrand Rouet-Leduc in 2020 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The Geolabe team developed a method that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically detect methane emissions on a global scale.

As global temperatures rise to record highs, the pressure to curb greenhouse gas emissions has intensified. Limiting methane emissions is particularly important since methane is the second largest contributor to global warming, and is estimated to account for approximately a third of global warming to date. Moreover, because methane stays in the atmosphere for a shorter amount of time compared to CO₂, curbing methane emissions is widely considered to be one of the fastest ways to slow down the rate of global warming.

However, monitoring methane emissions and determining their quantities has been challenging due to the limitations of existing detection methods. Methane plumes are invisible and odorless, so they are typically detected with specialized equipment such as infrared cameras. The difficulty in finding these leaks from space is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Leaks are distributed around the globe, and most of the methane plumes are relatively small, making them easy to miss in satellite data.

Multispectral satellite imagery has emerged as a viable methane detection tool in recent years, enabling routine measurements of methane plumes at a global scale every few days. However, with respect to methane, these measurements suffer from very poor signal to noise ratio, which has thus far allowed detection of only very large emissions (2-3 tons/hour) using manual methods.

The Geolabe team has developed a deep learning architecture that automatically identifies methane signatures in existing open-source spectral satellite data and deconvolves the signal from the noise. This AI method enables automatic detection of methane leaks at 200kg/hour and above, which account for over 85% of the methane emissions in well-studied, large oil and gas basins. Information gained using this new technique could help inform efforts to mitigate methane emissions on Earth and automatically validate their effects. This Geolabe project was featured in Nature Communications on May 14, 2024.

SPONSORING ORGANIZATION

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Hubble Examines a Possible Relic

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 4879 or VV124. As this image illustrates, Hubble’s high resolution can detect individual stars, even in the densest parts of the galaxy. This allows astronomers to better determine the galaxy’s distance, and the composition and age of its stars.

UGC 4879 is an isolated dwarf galaxy, lying just beyond our own Local Group of galaxies some four million light-years away. Because of its isolation, astronomers are studying UGC 4879 to determine if it is a relatively undisturbed, old galaxy. Theories suggest that the lowest mass dwarf galaxies may have been the first galaxies to form. If UGC 4879 is a relic of the early universe, it could provide clues to the hierarchical structure and evolution of galaxies, galaxy clusters, and even the universe itself. 

The image combines data from two Hubble observing programs, both focused on learning more about dwarf galaxies: how they form and evolve.

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Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

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Super Blue Moons: Your Questions Answered

A trifecta of labels is being applied to the Moon of Aug. 19, 2024. It’s a full moon, a supermoon, and finally a blue moon. You may hear it referred to as a super blue moon as a result. It sounds exciting, but what does that really mean? We’ve got you covered.

What is a supermoon?

The Moon travels around our planet in an elliptical orbit, or an elongated circle, with Earth closer to one side of the ellipse. Each month, the Moon passes through the point closest to Earth (perigee) and the point farthest from Earth (apogee). When the Moon is at or near its closest point to Earth at the same time as it is full, it is called a “supermoon.” During this event, because the full moon is a little bit closer to us than usual, it appears especially large and bright in the sky.

Because the Moon’s orbit wobbles and differs depending on where the Sun and Earth are in their orbits, the exact distance of these closest and furthest points varies. But the Moon can look up to 14 percent bigger at perigee than apogee.

OK, so what is a blue moon?

A monthly blue moon occurs when we see the full moon twice in a single month. The Moon’s cycle is 29.5 days, so just a bit shorter than the average length of a calendar month. Eventually that gap results in a full moon happening at the beginning of a month with enough days still remaining for another full cycle ― so a second full moon in the same month. In other words, a full moon that happens on the 1st or 2nd of a month will probably be followed by a second full moon on the 30th or 31st. This happens every two to three years.

A seasonal blue moon occurs when there are four full moons in a single season (spring, summer, fall and winter) instead of the usual three. The third moon in this lineup is a blue moon. This Aug. 19 moon is a seasonal blue moon.

Will the Moon be blue?

No, that’s just the term for two full moons in a month, or the third full moon in a season with four.

Is the Moon ever blue?

On rare occasions, tiny particles in the air ― typically of smoke or dust ― can scatter away red wavelengths of light, causing the Moon to appear blue.

Will this Moon be bigger and more “super?”

You probably won’t notice a big difference in size. When the Moon is closest to Earth (a “supermoon”), it can look up to 14 percent bigger than when it’s farthest from Earth. This is similar to the size difference between a quarter and a nickel. Because the Moon will be close to us in its orbit, it will appear a bit brighter than usual.

Do blue moons and supermoons always occur together?

No. The term “supermoon” is used to describe a full Moon that occurs within a day or so of perigee, so they happen three to four times a year. About 25 percent of all full moons are supermoons, but only 6 percent of full moons are blue moons (seasonal and monthly). The time between super blue moons is quite irregular ― it can be as much as 20 years ― but in general, 10 years is the average. However, if you like to celebrate both seasonal and monthly blue moons, the gap is closer to five years.

Monthly blue moons always occur in the last two or three days of the month. A monthly blue moon in January is usually followed by another one in March of the same year. And in fact, the next monthly super blue moons will occur as a pair, in January and March 2037. Seasonal blue moons always occur almost exactly one month before an equinox or a solstice. The next seasonal blue moon will be on Aug. 21, 2032.

So if it’s not blue and not super-sized, is this worth checking out?

Hey, it’s always a good time to look at the Moon! Try our Daily Moon Guide to see if you can locate some of our recommended daily Moon sights.

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NextSTEP R: Lunar Logistics and Mobility Studies

Solicitation Number: NNH16ZCQ001K-Appendix-R

August 16, 2024 – Draft Solicitation Released

Solicitation Overview

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) intends to release a solicitation under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-2 (Next STEP-2) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) to seek industry-led concept definition and maturation studies that address lunar surface logistics and uncrewed surface mobility capabilities.

NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture defines the elements needed for long-term, human-led scientific discovery in deep space. NASA’s architecture approach distills agency-developed objectives into operational capabilities and elements that support science and exploration goals. Working with experts across the agency, industry, academia, and the international community, NASA continuously evolves that blueprint for crewed exploration, setting humanity on a path to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

NASA has identified two gaps in its lunar architecture: an integrated surface logistics architecture and uncrewed surface mobility systems for lunar surface assets. The objective of these studies is to seek proposals from industry for the conduct of studies specifically focused on the envisioned logistics and mobility capabilities as stated in NASA’s 2024 Architecture Concept Review White Papers (Lunar Surface Cargo, Lunar Mobility Drivers and Needs) and 2023 Architecture Concept Review White Paper (Lunar Logistics Drivers and Needs).

The Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) Strategy and Architecture Office (SAO) Lunar Logistics and Mobility Studies BAA (NextSTEP-2 Appendix R) is structured to meet the following goals:

• Identify innovative strategies and concepts for logistics and mobility solutions. This could include a variety of topics, including but not limited to:
  • synergies between logistics- and mobility-specific capabilities.
  • identification of logistics- and mobility-specific needs that may be beyond current and/or planned commercial capabilities.
  • innovative ideas for partnership business models, including intellectual property, asset ownership, and timing of asset delivery, and/or services to the government.
  • the use of advanced robotic and/or autonomous capabilities.

• Evaluate and understand driving technology maturity, cost, and schedule drivers for meeting reference technical requirements, and/or drivers for validating a concept of operations.
• Obtain data that supports NASA’s ability to define, derive, and validate logistics and mobility requirements. Said data could inform a baseline mission concept that identifies options for and approaches to meeting logistics- and mobility-specific capabilities. This data could also contribute to the verification/validation of logistics and mobility approaches that could support NASA’s lunar architecture.

To support lunar surface operations, NASA is seeking state-of-the-art industry studies that provide an approach for technology investigation/maturation and concept development for the following:

• Logistics carriers – Logistics carriers of various sizes, volumes, and configurations and the environmental control of the cargo compartment.
• Logistics Handling and Offloading – Handling and offloading unpressurized cargo, carriers, fluids, and gases.
• Logistics Transfer – The transfer of cargo from the lunar surface to a pressurized volume,
• Staging, Storage and Tracking – Managing surface logistics inventory prior to, during, and after delivery to the final point of use.
• Trash Management – Trash management that contributes to mission sustainability and maximizes crew efficiency,
• Surface Cargo Transportation and Mobility Systems – The movement of cargo containers on the lunar surface after delivery by a lander.
• Integrated Strategy – An approach for an integrated assessment of the lunar surface logistics strategy and the transportation of the logistics to the pressurized habitation elements. This can also include the incorporation of the launch vehicle and cargo lander as part of the transportation.

The resulting studies will ensure advancement of NASA’s development of lunar surface logistics and mobility technologies, capabilities, and concepts. 

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Danny Baird