Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Curiosity Sniffs Martian Air/Shuttle Endeavour Opens to the World

Episode Date: November 5, 2012

Scientists have revealed the first data gathered by Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory Rover, about the Martian atmosphere, while Space Shuttle Endeavour has opened to the public.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Greetings, podcast listeners. Time for another one of these special informal messages that I have for you folks and you folks alone. I want to thank you again for listening. I do have a couple of favors to ask, and one opportunity that is also sort of a favor. Here is one of the favors. If you have never reviewed Planetary Radio on your favorite podcast aggregator, iTunes, Stitcher, whatever. Would you do that for us? It's easy to do. You can just rate us, but it's much more effective if you actually rate us and write out a little review. That does make a big difference to these folks and would be very, very helpful. So here's the opportunity. How many of you have just been dying to get a Planetary Radio shirt of your own, a t-shirt, but just can't

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Testing the air on Mars and shuttle Endeavour opens to the world, this week on Planetary Radio. Welcome to the travel show that takes you to the final frontier. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. All the usual players this week and much more, including excerpts from a November 2nd press conference that shared what scientists have already learned about the atmosphere of Mars from Curiosity's advanced instruments. Then we'll take you to the opening ceremony for Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Let's begin with Emily Lakdawalla. Emily, I included one of these self-portraits that Curiosity can take of itself in a presentation I did last week, but I kind of wish I'd waited a week because this image that you posted on November 1st is just truly amazing. It really is amazing. And the more I learn about how it was taken, the more amazing it becomes. So this is a portrait of Curiosity. You can actually see the entire rover sitting on the ground with mountains in the background. It looks like somebody stood apart from the rover and took a photo. But it's, of course, the rover's own camera mounted on the end of the robotic arm that they used to take the picture.

And they had to do it with that the camera's lens, the optical center of the camera was held still while they kind of rotated the camera about that point. So there is absolutely no parallax between the frames. It stitches together perfectly. So it's incredible and it's going to get even better because they actually took two separate portraits separated by a position of about 7 centimeters. That's human eye separation. So we're going to have a stereo 3D color picture of Curiosity sitting on the surface of Mars.

It's really quite amazing. Well, I can't wait to look at that one with the glasses on. You can take a look at this. I said it's a November 1st entry in Emily's blog. And you can also play along with her little visual riddle game. What's the difference between a couple of images? Don't worry, she provides the answer. Emily, I guess that'll do it for this week, but I look forward to having you join us at our celebration of Sagan Day on Friday, November 9.

That'll be fun. Looking forward to it myself. Emily's going to be part of a panel of young scientists talking about how Carl Sagan influenced their lives. It's full up, folks. We sold out, if you can say that, about a free event at the Southern California Public Radio Crawford Family Forum. But there will be a live webcast. It begins at 7 p.m. on Friday, November 9. So hope you're hearing this soon after we make this episode of Planetary Radio available. Hope you're hearing this soon after we make this episode of Planetary Radio available.

Emily Lachtwal is the senior editor for the Planetary Society and a planetary evangelist for us and also a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Up next is the CEO of the society, Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy. Bill, the science guy continues to be much in demand up at the podium for space-related events. You've had at least a couple in the last week and a half. Oh man, it's been exciting. I was in Washington for the celebration of 50 years of interplanetary missions. This is the anniversary of the Mariner 2 mission to Venus. The first time people realized Venus wasn't this lush, wonderful jungle full of great-looking people. Darn.

And so there was Ed Stone, who's the chief scientist of the Voyager missions. He's been the chief scientist for 40 years. He was there with Margie Kivelson, the woman who has the magnetometer on the Galileo spacecraft near Jupiter, around Jupiter, that discovered the oceans on Europa because it's saltwater under ice with a magnetometer. And then Kevin Hand from Caltech studies that ocean, trying to learn about it, trying to see if there's living things there. And then Bethany Ellman from the Curiosity, she's from Caltech, but she's working on the Curiosity mission. They were there, and the crowd was just into it, asking these cool questions. And then one thing led to another, and was in an airport and I got a message,

hey, can you be the emcee of this event for the Endeavor Space Shuttle dedication? I said, yeah. So the next day I ended up on stage with the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa, and the governor of California, Jerry Brown, who is a longtime space advocate. Well, they both are. They all are. The mayor of Inglewood, where the space shuttle made those really tight turns on those narrow city streets, he was there. All these councilmen, assembly people. Oh, it was crazy. We're going to feature that in just a few moments, some of the material that I recorded there. We

talked to the guy, one of the guys who was in charge of getting the shuttle through down the streets in Englewood. And people will hear him say that it came within the width of a credit card of some obstructions of some buildings. But you know what was really exciting? The governor. The governor. You're absolutely right. He's a real space enthusiast. Well, he appreciates the value of it, I think, to the economy.

This is my take on it, Matt. And it wasn't it's not just that you spend money on contract for contractors who in turn employ people. It's different. It's this expectation of what humans can do, of what people working together can achieve. When you have a vibrant space program, everybody's expectations are just higher of what a society can do, of what people working together can achieve. When you have a vibrant space program, everybody's expectations are just higher of what a society can do. And that's an old message from a guy like Jerry Brown. It's very gratifying.

And it was great fun, and I hope that everybody will feel that excitement in just a few moments here. Bill, thanks very much. Thank you, Matt. He is the CEO, the Chief Executive Officer of the Planetary Society. He's also here with us almost every week here on Planetary Radio. That's Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Science data from Curiosity.

The Mars Science Laboratory rover has been coming faster and faster in recent weeks. On Friday, November 2nd, researchers gathered for a telephone press conference to present the first data about the Martian atmosphere. The big question on everyone's mind was about one very small component of that atmosphere. The big question on everyone's mind was about one very small component of that atmosphere. Tiny amounts of methane have been detected in a few regions of the red planet. Would Curiosity also find this gas that could be evidence of life on Mars? We'll hear first from Paul Mahaffey, principal investigator for SAM, short for Sample Analysis at Mars, a miniature laboratory that has been sniffing the Martian air. A really important task of the Curiosity rover is to explore how early environmental conditions

on Mars are tied to habitability. For example, what might those beautiful layers we're seeing on Mount Sharp tell us about different processes occurring at different times on Mars, and really what was the potential of that environment to support microbial life. So one path to understanding ancient habitability is a capability that SAM provides to study volatiles, not only the gases in the present atmosphere, but also volatiles released from rocks and soils formed in the distant past. For example, we carry out a search for complex organic compounds in the soils and rocks, and the simplest of compounds, simplest of organic compounds, methane, in the atmosphere.

Paul Mahaffey then turned the phone over to Chris Webster, PI, for an instrument called the Tunable Laser Spectrometer. The TLS is an exquisitely sensitive detector. Imagine the laser is one note of a piano, one key of a piano, and the three methane lines we're looking for are, say, a dozen keys apart in front of you. Then the infrared region as a whole would be a piano 100 miles wide. So this gives you an idea of how we tune very precisely to only the keys or pure colors that excite any methane present.

So the bottom line is that we have no detection of methane so far, but we're going to keep looking in the months ahead since Mars, as we all know, may yet hold surprises for us. Susil Atreya is another SAM scientist. He echoed Chris Webster's message about methane, noting that the balance of gases on Mars changes over time, and especially from season to season. TLS on SAM will continue to search for methane on Mars throughout the MSL mission to determine if indeed methane does vary with time.

No matter what we find in the end, it would be a significant result. So stay tuned. The story of methane has just begun, and it's not over. Mars could hold surprises for us. I should also mention that the SAM measurements are rock solid from one run to another, and they have a high precision. solid from one run to another, and they have a high precision. So even at this early stage in the mission, SAM is already proving to be a robust laboratory on the surface of Mars. Now that we have confidence in the SAM data on gas abundances, what we'll be

doing next is going to be even more exciting, and that is to find out how these gases change from season to season, considering that Mars is a very dynamic planet. Just to give you an idea, every year in the winter, 7 trillion tons of carbon dioxide gas condenses as dry ice from the atmosphere onto the polar region, and then it sublimates back into the atmosphere during spring and summer. This causes a huge change of 35% in the atmospheric pressure from summer to winter and back again. We don't see such dramatic swings in pressure on Earth, even during largest of storms such as Hurricane Sandy. What that means is that relative amounts of gases that don't freeze out on Mars, particularly

nitrogen, argon, and carbon monoxide, should also change seasonally. And there are indications from previous observations that they do for argon and carbon monoxide, at least where the data are available. Currently, there are no data on the seasonal changes in nitrogen. We'll let Lori Leshin have the last word. She is a co-PI for SAM and the Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer on Curiosity. So to wrap up, these first SAM data are exciting not only for what they're telling us about the atmosphere, but because they give us critical data to compare our future SAM measurements with, So to wrap up, these first SAM data are exciting not only for what they're telling us about the atmosphere,

but because they give us critical data to compare our future SAM measurements with, we'll be using a lot more tools than our Swiss Army knife. In the atmosphere, we'll be able to measure isotope ratios of other noble gases and of water, which will shed more light on the amount of atmosphere that's been lost. Doing that's going to require a special kind of experiment where we concentrate these gases in sand before they are analyzed. We want to search for variations in gas abundances and isotopes over the course of a day and of the seasons. And of course, we are also coming up to the first sand, soil, and rock analyses and comparing these to the present atmosphere will be very exciting. I think each of the sand results is like a piece in a puzzle. Today we've got some exciting

pieces, but they'll be even better as the puzzle comes together over the course of the mission to give us a full picture of Mars' habitability. Excerpts from the first press briefing about the early science findings by Curiosity about the Martian atmosphere. Stay tuned. Planetary Radio will be back in a minute for Shuttle Endeavors opening day. Hey, hey, Bill Nye here, CEO of the Planetary Society, speaking to you from PlanetFest 2012, the celebration of the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity landing on the surface of Mars. This is taking us our next steps in following the water and the search for life, to understand those two deep questions. Where did we come from, and are we alone? This is the most exciting thing that people do. And together, we can advocate for planetary

science and, dare I say it, change the worlds. Hi, this is Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society. We've spent the last year creating an informative, exciting, and beautiful new website. Your place in space is now open for business. You'll find a whole new look with lots of images, great stories, my popular blog, and new blogs from my colleagues and expert guests. And as the world becomes more social, we are too, giving you the opportunity to join in through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and much more. It's all at planetary.org. I hope you'll check it out. Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan.

When I went to the California Science Center, I knew I was going to get much closer to a space shuttle than I had ever been. I did not know that I and a few hundred other people, including school children, would be serenaded by Grammy winner James Ingram. I can fly. I can fly. I can fly. Endeavor is a magnificent sight, and you really are right there with her and under her. The line outside the opening ceremony contained hundreds and hundreds of thrilled first-day visitors.

No one seemed happier than Jeff Rudolph. He's the California Science Center's president and CEO. I caught him right after he had finished answering questions from a big group of fourth graders. That was a nice way to start, talking to the kids. It's the best part of the job. It really is. And you guys know that from working with Bill. It's what we're here for, is to inspire kids and the future generations of scientists and engineers. And it really is what keeps us going on days that are really draining.

I suspect this is a day that they and the rest of us will always remember. I think it is. We've had many memorable days in the last couple of months, and this is certainly a big one among them. Quite a coup. I know you've been asked this many, many times, but so many facilities fought for one of these guys standing up behind us here. And, boy, it's a lot bigger in person.

these guys standing up behind us here. And boy, it's a lot bigger in person. How do you feel getting to be the host of one of these rare and amazing objects? I feel really proud and really, really most excited for the community. I mean, space shuttles were built in California, and so it just is so appropriate they're going to bring one home to California. And for the tens of thousands of people who worked on the program and for all the kids in the future generations that will be inspired to learn science and to want to be the future explorers is what it's really so exciting about.

And so we are so proud to do this. It's been an incredible couple of months. The passion with which all of Californiaifornia welcomed endeavor home from the flyovers where we flew over sacramento and san francisco bay area and la area and had literally millions of people looking skyward excited passionate inspired to want to learn to the two weeks ago the travel through the streets of la and englewood was an amazing experience and and again we had a million and a half people lining the streets for three days and three nights, not a single arrest, nothing but positive. People were thrilled and all inspired. And we've already

gotten from our few previews we've done here just the same thing. People are passionate, they're inspired, they feel it in their hearts and want to come and want to get involved. I just wonder if this says as much about, I mean obviously it says a lot about national pride and local pride as well, but how about the excitement for the science that this center is all about? Well that's what I think is so great about it. It isn't national pride, but it's national pride about what we can accomplish. When we put our minds to it and we use our knowledge of science

and our technology, we're able to accomplish things that no one else in the world can do. And that's what this is a symbol of, is how our innovation and creativity and knowledge can do amazing things and help us expand our knowledge. Thanks so much and congratulations on a great day. Thank you very much. Jeff Rudolph of the California Science Center. Getting Endeavor to the center was quite an endeavor in itself. Harry Frisbee works for the city of Inglewood. The shuttle had to pass ever so carefully through his town to get to its new home. You had a big day.

Yes, we did. This is actually emotional for me right now. Yeah, it must be terrific to see, I mean, after a lot of work that your city and a lot of other people went through, to see this amazing bird right over our head. It's truly incredible. The amount of work that we put into this with the removal of 43 street lighting poles, 19 traffic signals, numerous signs, pavement, center medians, the trees themselves. It was a lot of pre-planning, a lot of work, but just to see her here, it was all worth

it and it's really emotional. I'll give you a second there. I know, it's a wonderful moment. Listen, was it Englewood where there were some pretty tight tolerances, you really had to squeeze through? Yes, mainly the Crenshaw Drive where the street really choked down. And we're actually, as thin as a credit card, getting the wings through that area. It was really so tight of the tolerances.

How much sleep did you get over what couple of days? A little bit more than my friend Marty Fabric, but probably two hours over 48. Amazing. Congratulations. Thank you. It's great to see you here on this terrific day. Thank you. Thank you so much. With Bill Nye as emcee and a host of VIPs on stage, the opening day ceremony was covered by at least 30 TV stations

and networks from around the world. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was one of those who welcomed Endeavor. Now today the Endeavor goes on display and the public can experience this landmark in the history of human technology and space travel. Visitors from up and down the Golden State, from all across the country, and from the four corners of the Earth will have a chance to share in the Endeavor experience.

They can touch the tires used on its final flight. They can watch real mission footage on original equipment from NASA's California-based control room. They can learn how astronauts live day to day in outer space. They can stand here and take in the magic of this tremendous feat of human engineering. And, of course, none of this would have been possible without the help of the many departments and agencies that came together and worked tirelessly to bring Endeavor here. Jerry Brown is on his second go-around

as governor of California. Back in the late 70s and early 80s when he became the youngest person ever in the state's top job, he was already a big fan of space. He doesn't seem to have changed his mind. This wonderful space shuttle was built by Rockwell, not too many miles from here. And even today, the Mars rover is out there on Mars being driven by people in Pasadena, Californians. Thousands and thousands of hours went into that Mars rover. Tens of thousands of hours went into that Mars rover. Tens of thousands of hours went into the shuttle program. It's amazing what it does for the human imagination. And yet today, there are still some, I call them declinists, naysayers. Why do we have a space program? Why in the world do we spend

two and a half billion dollars for the Mars rover? Why do we spend tens of billions of dollars on the shuttle and other space programs? Because human beings are about exploration, experimentation, the human imagination. And even today, some people are saying we've got to climb in our hole, we've got to pull the hatch down, don't spend money on things that are new, cut the taxes, don't invest in the university, don't invest in high-speed rail. Well, I'm not one of those. I think space is the ultimate of our human imagination. California Governor Jerry Brown at the October 30 opening ceremony

for Space Shuttle Endeavor at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. We have links and photos at planetary.org slash radio. I'll be right back with Bruce Betts. Time for What's Up on Planetary Radio. Bruce Betts is the director of projects. He's standing by to give us the penultimate What's Up report. No, we're not ending next week. It's the penultimate What's Up before our—I hope I'm using the word correctly—prior to our 10th anniversary celebration. So you must be excited. I'm using the word correctly, prior to our 10th anniversary celebration. So you must be excited.

I'm very excited, Matt. You realize it has to have been over 500 shows, because there's one or two shows each year, no more than that, that we don't record a brand new show. Speaking of awesome, check out Jupiter in the evening sky. Speaking of awesome, check out Jupiter in the evening sky. Now coming up in the early to mid-evening over in the east and up super bright in the sky. That's the easy thing to see. You still might catch some Mars low shortly after sunset in the west. And Venus still dominating the east, dominating the pre-dawn sky over there in the east. East, dominating the pre-dawn sky over there in the East.

November 13th, there is a total solar eclipse visible in northern Australia and the South Pacific. A partial eclipse will be visible in eastern Australia and New Zealand and throughout the South Pacific. Don't miss it. I mean, we'll miss it, but if you can, go see it. Go see it. This week in space history. Go see it. Go see it. This week in space history, 1996, the launch of Mars Global Surveyor, which lasted for about 10 years working in Mars orbit, has been eclipsed in its longevity record by Mars Odyssey now,

but still an amazing technical feat. And then 2005, European Space Agency Mars Express launched, still working great in its seventh year. Part of that human flotilla, that invasion fleet at the planet Mars. Yep, we got a serious reconnaissance going on. We move on to... That was quite a Doppler shift. You must be moving fast.

I am, my friend. Close to the speed of light in my head. So Gemini 12 was the last of the Gemini missions, launched in 1966. And it was the last launch by NASA of a two-person crew until 1981 with the first flight of the space shuttle. And we might come back to some details about that in just a little bit. We move on to the trivia question. And I asked you about how much brighter is the sun compared to the full moon as seen from the earth. How'd we do, Matt? I have to say that I think I was as surprised by the correct answer to this one as I have been by any other question you have asked in the trivia contest.

Wow. It is impressive, but that's surprising. Yeah, I just am blown away. So here's the answer that we got from our winner this week, chosen by random.org, Todd Yampole. Todd Yampole. I don't think he's won before. He's out of Gilbert, Arizona. He actually is one of those who went above and beyond. He came up with this number, He came up with this number, 398,350 times brighter than the full moon. But like a lot of other people, more proof that our listeners, by and large, are much smarter than I am, he did some of the math and figured out.

Nice, driving us. Yeah, he took it from the difference in apparent magnitudes of the sun and the moon, apparent from Earth, minus 26.74 for the sun, minus 26.74 for the sun, minus 12.74 for the moon. And you come up with this huge number. Is it any wonder that I'm so amazed? It's pretty impressive. 400,000 is the ballpark. Yeah, it's a lot brighter. It's quite a testament to the auto-gain feature of our eyes that we don't perceive it that way. Of course, we also don't stare at the sun often. Well, most of us don't.

We actually have some people who talked about that. In fact, Andis Bruling in Sweden said that he went out to stare at the sun to kind of judge. He did it for a millisecond, and his eyes started to hurt. Then he stared at the moon for about seven and a half minutes, and his mind started to hurt. So he tried that. Here are two. You're going to love this. Two guys came up with the same thing,

Torsten Zimmer and Craig Journet, regular listeners, that even if the entire sky, and we're talking about the entire sky of Earth, daytime and nighttime sides of the sky, were full of full moons, it would still only be about half as bright, all of those together, as the sun. That is a cool random space fact. Isn't that?

We are going to send a t-shirt out to Todd Yampole. I do want to mention this one as well. He gets the kiss-up prize of the week. It's Mark Wilson who said, many people believe that Bruce Betts outshines them both. That's awesome. Everything's awesome this week. What do you got for next time?

All I can say is the rest of the listeners are lucky that you manage the random.org. Because I'd be right there, right there with the T-shirt going out for that. I'll give you Mark's email address, and you can send him a fiver. How about just a thanks? Okay. All right.

Here's your next question. What was the last space mission that launched exactly two people, no more, no less? Go to planetary.org slash radio. Find out how to enter. You got until the 12th, Monday, November 12th at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us that answer. And here's one more deadline. If you're hearing this show shortly after it's made available, you still have time to get in on our contest to help us celebrate the 10th anniversary.

I'm going to set a specific deadline this time. It's a bit earlier than I thought. The 9th, Friday the 9th at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Friday the 9th at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Send your little audio file to planetaryradio at planetary.org. And one person is going to win Bill Nye's voice on their answering machine or service or system, whatever you want to call it.

There you go. All right, everybody. Go out there, look at the night sky and think about purple. Thank you and good night. He's Bruce Betts, the director of projects for the Planetary Society. He's obviously thinking about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, those purple people eaters out there. He'll join us again next week for What's Up.

Go Vikings! Join us for our live Sagan Day celebration Friday, November 9th at 7 p.m. Pacific Time. You'll hear from many of Dr. Sagan's friends and colleagues, including Caltech physicist Kip Thorne. Don't worry if you miss the live webcast. The archived video will be available soon after and will feature the tribute on next week's 10th anniversary episode of Planetary Radio. There's a link on the show page at planetary.org. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California

and is made possible by the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation and by the members of the Planetary Society. Geniuses all. Clear skies.