Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Planetary Radio LIVE! With John Callas of the Mars Exploration Rovers and Joy Crisp of the Mars Science Laboratory

Episode Date: December 26, 2011

We once again go before a live audience for an all Mars rover show. We've also got singer KJ Williams, Bill Nye the Planetary Guy, and Emily Lakdawalla's proof that she is not covering up evidence of aliens in our solar system!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi everyone, I'm Matt Kaplan of Planetary Radio. In a few moments, we'll begin the first half of a special two-part Planetary Radio Live. We'll return to our regular format in two weeks. Toward the end, you're going to hear me incorrectly give the deadline for the new space trivia contest as January 9. It's actually Monday, January 2, at the usual 2 p.m. Pacific time. I hope you enjoy the show. Happy holidays. Come and take a trip in my rocket ship We'll have a lovely afternoon Kiss the world goodbye and away we fly

Destination Moon From Southern California Public Radio's Crawford Family Forum in Pasadena, California, this is Planetary Radio Live. Here is your host, the Planetary Society's Matt Kaplan. Society's Matt Kaplan. Welcome to Public Radio's travel show that takes you to the final frontier. We're back with Plan Rad Live in front of another full house here in Pasadena, the robotic space exploration capital of the world. Everybody out there ready for some hard science, some soft music, and a few laughs?

Everybody out there ready for some hard science, some soft music, and a few laughs? That's Lawrence Young you hear on the guitar, and we also opened with a few bars from our other musical guests, K.J. Williams, jazz and pop vocalist. We're going to hear more from K.J. and Lawrence soon. Our other special guests come to us from the two Mars rover missions now underway. John Callis is the project manager for the wildly successful Mars Exploration Rovers that have changed our view of the red planet. Joy Crisp is deputy project scientist for Curiosity, the Mars science laboratory,

now on its way to that still mysterious world. Joining me in conversation with Joy and John will be the Planetary Society's CEO, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and later we'll check out the night sky and get a random space fact from my pal, Bruce Betts. And a few folks in our studio audience may just win a Planetary Radio t-shirt. We're going to get underway as we usually do with Planetary Society's Science and Technology Coordinator. She is also the editor of the Society's wildly popular blog at

planetary.org slash blog. Please welcome to the PlanRad Live stage Emily Lakdawalla. Emily, you've told me we've got a big topic to cover today. We're going to split it across this week's program and next week's show. We're going to do the same thing with the main interview segment as well. Where are you going to be taking us? I'm going to take you to space, of course,

and I'm going to talk about how spacecraft take color pictures. And the reason I picked this subject is because there is a lot of confusion out there about how spacecraft do that, so much so that I have an alternate title for my talk, which is NASA's Shocking Cover-Up of Alien Bases with Photoshop. Ooh. All right. Well, I'm going to begin with a photo that I put together, a color picture of Titan and Dione. These are two of the moons of Saturn.

Now, I want to warn the folks in the listening audience, the radio audience, we're going to ask you guys in the room to ooh and ah periodically, appropriately, just to make them feel even worse at home that they can't see these great images. But we're going to put everything up. You're going to put everything on the blog. That's right. And we'll probably turn this into a little video as well. So carry on. I've started here with a picture of Titan and Dione shot by Cassini in the Saturn system. Titan and Dione are two of Saturn's moons. And I put this together a couple years ago.

I threw it on my blog. And a few months later, some guy on YouTube stretched the heck out of the contrast on this thing. And he discovered something extremely suspicious. There were brush strokes on the backside of Dione. What was being covered up? There were clearly alien bases on this Saturnian moon and NASA was trying to hide them from everybody. Well, of course, that's not true, but I forgive people for being suspicious about the fact that there were brush strokes on the backside of Dione. What exactly am I hiding here? Well, to explain, I have to explain to you how spacecraft color imaging works. And I'm going to start with some images from the Mars Exploration Rover

mission. These were actually taken only two weeks ago on the Rim of Endeavor crater. Now... Good work. Keep it up. Nearly every spacecraft camera that's out there is a black and white camera. They do not have native color capability. And the reason for that is because as much as we enjoy the pictures that are returned from the spacecraft, they are actually scientific data. The bright areas tell us about different materials that reflect light more strongly than the dark ones, which absorb sunlight. With some spacecraft cameras, that's where it ends.

But with many, they get tricky. They use what's called a filter wheel. They rotate different filters into place in front of the camera lens, and those only allow certain wavelengths of light to pass through. So a red filter only lets red wavelengths of light pass through. It doesn't just have to be the kinds of light that we can see. There are ultraviolet and infrared filters that only let those wavelengths pass through. And so the Mars Exploration Rovers can take as many as 13 different color pictures. And they're all black and white, but they each record different kinds of information, different wavelengths of light hitting the detector. This one's infrared. You can tell that rocks are dark in infrared. And then we go back through the visible color range. So you get

a lot of information, scientific data, about the types of rocks on Mars. And in fact, scientists actually graph this because scientists like to make graphs. However, we like to see in color. So we take this wonderful data set, we throw out almost all of it, and we just pick three of the pictures

taken through red, green, and blue filters. We combine them. We shoot red light through the red filter image, green light through the green filter image, blue light through the blue filter image, and we get a lovely color picture of Mars. And it's just that easy for rover images. However, it gets much harder with Cassini images.

And to understand why, you're going to have to tune in next week. So that's really not just a tease. We just want to give her more time to go through this, and so we're going to pick this up in the second half of our Planetary Live episode, Planetary Radio Live, next week. Emily, thank you very much. Emily Lakawala is the Planetary Society's Science and Technology Coordinator. I'll be back with Joy Crisp, John Callison, Bill Nye the Science Guy after a quick break.

This is Planetary Radio Live. I'm Sally Ride. After becoming the first American woman in space, I dedicated myself to supporting space exploration and the education and inspiration of our youth. That's why I formed Sally Ride Science, and that's why I support the Planetary Society. The Society works with space agencies around the world and gets people directly involved with real space missions. It takes a lot to create exciting projects like the first solar sail, informative publications like an award-winning magazine, and many other outreach efforts like this radio show. Help make space exploration and inspiration happen.

Here's how you can join us. You can learn more about the Planetary Society at our website, planetary.org slash radio, or by calling 1-800-9-WORLDS. Planetary Radio listeners who aren't yet members can join and receive a Planetary Radio t-shirt. Members receive the internationally acclaimed Planetary Report magazine. That's planetary.org slash radio. The Planetary Society, exploring new worlds. Welcome back to Planetary Radio Live. Thank you. I'm Matt Kaplan. We're in front of a capacity crowd at Southern California Public Radio's Crawford Family Forum. Please welcome the Chief Executive Officer of the Planetary Society, my boss, Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Greetings, greetings. Good to see everyone and to hear everyone out there. Bill, I happen to know that you are a major fan of Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity. Yes, these are the names of rovers on Mars, not just fabulous English words. That's very good. Give this man a shirt. No, they're a remarkable craft. And two of them are on Mars right now. One of them is still roving. And the third one is on its way. So, let's meet two of the humans behind these awesome robotic explorers, beginning with the Deputy Project Scientist for Curiosity, also known as Mars Science Laboratory.

Please welcome Joy Crisp. And when Curiosity arrives at the Red Planet, she'll be rolling in the figurative tracks of Spirit and Opportunity, the Mars Exploration Rovers. Please welcome the MER Project Manager, John Callis. John, we'll mix it up here a little bit, but I've got to ask you, first of all, about this latest find that was just announced not long before we got here today by Opportunity. What is this vein that has been found near that big crater Endeavour? Opportunity has been roving the surface of Mars for almost eight years now. This was a three-month mission. And in that time, we've covered more than 30 kilometers, more than 20 miles on the surface. And we've come to

a giant crater called Endeavour. It's about 12 miles in diameter. Now, along the rim, we came across these white veins, these segments. They're only about a foot and a half long and maybe half an inch to three quarters of an inch wide, but they're very bright white. Well, our analysis with the instruments on Opportunity says that these veins are made of gypsum. Gypsum is calcium sulfate with a couple of water molecules attached to it. This is probably the strongest evidence that either rover has found of persistent liquid water on the surface of Mars. Water a long, long time ago. But this is a big deal.

I mean, this reinforces our knowledge about what Mars was like in the ancient past and that there was liquid water persistent on the surface. But this is hardly the only evidence that Spirit and Opportunity have found. What are the other standouts in terms of the discoveries made by both of these rovers? Oh, they're dramatic. Spirit found evidence of carbonates. We've been looking for carbonates on the surface of Mars because some theories say that the ancient atmosphere of Mars is sequestered in carbonate minerals in the surface.

In other words, the chemicals in the atmosphere somehow stuck to the rocks. That's right. But they suggest that it was a very wet environment, an aqueous environment, as we say. And it was also very neutral in pH because if it was acidic. The carbonates wouldn't have formed. So we're seeing evidence of environments in the ancient past on Mars that are similar to conditions here on Earth where life started. Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. So we're very excited about that.

Another finding also by Spirit, which was a very serendipitous finding because we had one of the wheels fail after two years of operation on the surface. And we would drag that wheel and it would reveal what's just beneath the surface. And we found these... It was scraping, scraping the surface, right? That's right. It's like pulling a little furrow in the surface. And we found this light-toned material that's almost pure amorphous silica. And so this is stuff that precipitated out of a hot aqueous environment. So this is evidence of not only liquid water, but some sort of an energy source, likely a volcanic energy source. That's another ingredient for the habitability of a planet. Where would I find that

kind of thing on Earth? Oh, you find it in the geysers of Yellowstone or deep ocean volcanic vents, which we know are thriving ecosystems here on the Earth. So we know that those physical conditions existed at Mars at one time in the ancient past. Now the next question, which the next rover may help to answer, is whether they're the biological materials to be building blocks for life on Mars. We're going to come back to that, but I do, you know, you've talked about spirit several times. Have you guys finished grieving for Spirit? You know, these rovers you became, they're mechanical objects.

They're machines. But we've become very attached to them, very fond of them. We built them, we labored on getting them to the surface of Mars, and we've operated them for years. And they've been like our children. I mean, they are dutiful, responsive, and cute objects on the surface, and you can't help but fall in love with them. And so when we had to say goodbye to Spirit, it was sad. But at the same time, we have to remember the significant accomplishments. This rover lasted over 20 times longer than it was designed,

and it has told us so much about the planet and that she has such a great legacy. And so we all remember those great accomplishments. Joy, let's turn to you, Joy Crisp, with now at least with the Curiosity mission, which is on its way to Mars. First of all, what's the status? Status is good. The spacecraft is healthy. We've even turned on one of our science instruments. That's the radiation assessment detector. So we're all very excited, and we have a lot of work to do to get ready for operations when we land in August. How did the work that has already been done by the Mars Exploration Rovers and folks like John,

how did that help shape what you hope to do with Curiosity? and folks like John, how did that help shape what you hope to do with Curiosity? Well, it gave us a real head start because we did not have to start from scratch. In fact, when we started working on Spirit and Opportunity, we used the heritage of Mars Pathfinder mission to get going. But we had a real leg up on starting this mission because we could design the rover in similar fashion. We could plan for science operations in a similar fashion, but then adapt things to take account for the larger size of the rover, the more capabilities, and the more complexity. It really does look like Spirit and Opportunity's big sister, but I don't know, do you think

of it as cute? Her, I should say, her. I don't think of it as cute. It's more like a wonderful beast. A beast. A tool for science. A wonderful beast that doesn't need or have solar cells. Correct.

It's got RTG, which is a radioisotope thermoelectric generator for its power, so it's converting radioisotope decay into electricity. So this means, unlike Opportunity, which John I think is what now looking for a good spot to hibernate for the winter? We're not hibernating, but we are positioned where we get favorable solar energy production by tipping the rover towards the north where the sun will be. But you guys, with Curiosity, will be able to work right through the winter? Right, and we won't have to orient ourselves with respect.

This is the winter on Mars, everybody. Right. Long winter. I'm also wondering about the decision that was made not all that long ago about where you're going to try and drop Curiosity down, this crater called Gale. Why Gale? There were a lot of other candidates.

Right. We had four very good candidates that were all safe enough for landing and scientifically interesting for meeting our goals. But we had the wonderful trouble of having to decide between these four good sites. And it turned out that the science team and the science community really focused on Gale Crater as their choice. This was because of the remarkable variety in rock types, geomorphology, and then the very nice integrated package of layers of rocks at this site

so that we can really investigate changes in the past environment on Mars by looking at the variation in rock types in these layers. It's like biting into one of those Whitman samplers, right? When this thing was hit, the surface of Mars was hit with something very big. How big is Gale Crater? Gale Crater is 96 miles in diameter, and it's got a mountain in the inside that's five miles high, so a lot of terrain.

We're not expecting to go to the top of that mountain, but we want to start making progress up that. So what made the mountain? There's like a blip after you get a crater. You get a blip in the middle. Then you fill it up with with what we think are sedimentary layers. We're going to find out by going there and investigating. And then the area around the mountain was eroded out over time. So a lot of things have happened on Mars since the bloop, as you call it.

Technical term, obviously. Joy, John, I'm really sorry to say we've run out of time, but we will have much more of this conversation in next week's show. So thank you very much for joining us. Joy Crisp is a deputy project scientist for Curiosity, the Mars science laboratory. John Callis is the Mars Exploration Rover project manager. With luck, his Opportunity Rover will still be exploring the red planet when Curiosity arrives. Joy, is it August 5th? August 5th, Pacific Time. August 5th, Pacific Time 2012. Something to look forward to. We'll have Planet Fest 2012.

That's right. Come on down to Pasadena. We'll be celebrating. We thank the Jet Propulsion Lab for making both John and Joy available. Bill, you'll be back next week with your regular Planetary Radio commentary, isn't it? Looking forward. Bill Nye, the science and planetary guy, is the Planetary Society CEO. Nine years. That's how long we have finished every episode of Planetary Radio with my friend Bruce Betts, astronomer and Planetary Society Director of Projects. Welcome, Bruce. Thank you, Matt. Great to be here.

All right, so we're going to talk about what's up in the night sky. What do we always talk about? Well, let's start out with planets that are up there right now. And we've got super bright Venus and Jupiter both in the evening sky making a lovely sight. So look over after sunset in the west. And you can check out Venus as the super bright star-like object. Turn your head around and over towards the east, the other really bright star-like object is Jupiter. And we've also got Saturn and Mars coming up in the middle of night, high overhead in the pre-dawn. Okay. Was this a significant week in space history? Well, it's always hard to judge, but yes, I'd say it was significant. It certainly was significant for a man named Giuseppe Piazzi.

Giuseppe Piazzi. I'm sorry, his significance? Oh, okay, I thought it was intuitively obvious. In 1801, 210 years ago by last count, he discovered Ceres. Ceres that became a planet, stopped being a planet. It actually is an old club with Pluto now. stopped being a planet. It actually is an old club with Pluto now. And then became the largest asteroid and still is an asteroid and also a dwarf planet.

And the target of the Dawn spacecraft after it leaves Vesta and heads off there for 2015. Yeah. Regular listeners know that this is the time when we do random space fact. And we usually rely on Bruce for that. But to give his tonsils a rest this time, we're going to look out into our studio audience. And way over there is, I think, Ian.

Hi. Hi. How old are you, Ian? Ten. Do you remember your line? Random space fact. I do it one more time, real big. Random space fact.

Yeah. Now, I happen to know that Ian came prepared with his own random space facts, but go ahead and give us yours first. Really? Yeah. Gosh, competition. Competition. All right, talking Mars rovers and such.

All right, talking Mars rovers and such. When you land on Mars, often they characterize the landing site as a landing ellipse, the place where you are most likely to land, and the kind of probability of landing within a 99% probability. We'll talk about those landing ellipses, the one they've improved them for MSL. They're getting fancy with Mars Science Laboratory. For Mars Exploration rovers, the long dimension of the landing ellipse is the one they've improved them for MSL. They're getting fancy with Mars Science Laboratory. For Mars Exploration Rovers, the long dimension of the landing ellipse was about 150 kilometers from here down into San Diego County. And now we're more like 25 kilometers. So kind of from downtown LA to the ocean. I wish we had had time to talk with Joy about that crazy sky crane,

but maybe another time. Crazy sky crane. Sorry, I had to get it in. Yes, so there we have it. Ian, do you really have a random space fact for us? Yes. Did you know that all the outer planets have rings? Jupiter, Saturn, Mars.

Yeah, that's cool. I like it. Can you throw that man a Planetary Radio t-shirt, please? I can, and I'm sure it'll fit. No, I will throw one, and then you can exchange it if you wish, outside in the back. And let's see, there you are. Yeah, and he caught it. Which is a nice segue into our trivia contest.

All right, we go to the trivia contest. First we start with the trivia contest from before. I asked you a fairly simple one. From before, I asked you a fairly simple one. What year will Halley's Comet have its next perihelion? And also, consequently, its next good view from the Earth. How do we do? When will it be closest to the sun next time?

Yes. And it's amazing how many people told us how old they will be when this happens. With the exception of our listener, Hannes, who said, I'm not telling you how old I'll be. Here's our winner, Etienne Fellman. Etienne from Haute-Rive, France. France. In our tongue. Who said, it's 2061. It's predicted to be July 28th of 2061.

Is he correct? That is correct. Okay. Well, Etienne, we are going to send you not just a Planetary Radio t-shirt, but a copy of The Christmas Planet, that book for kids by Dave Dooling. And I think you can just go to thechristmasplanet.org and learn more about that. And we also had an entry, he got the answer right, but random.org didn't pick him, from, get this, Juan Diego Rodriguez Blanco. But he said, you can call me Johnny White, my nickname. Is he nuts?

Who would not want to be Juan Diego Rodriguez Blanco? Now, he's British, so maybe that explains it. It does mean Johnny White. True enough, but still. All right, here's the question. Spirit, before the Martians got a hold of it and put it up on blocks, when they did that and they looked at the odometer, what did they see on Spirit? How far did Spirit drive? Go to planetary.org slash radio.

Find out how to enter. And you have until, I've got to look it up fast, January 9th. January 9th, that's a Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific time to get us that answer. And you might win yourself your own Planetary Radio t-shirt. Okay, the time has come to give our folks in the audience a chance. So be ready, folks. Raise your hands. And we'll race over there with the microphone. What is the name given by the science team to the little spheres of coarse-grained hematite seen by Opportunity? Way in the back there.

Blueberries? Yes, indeed. You are right, sir. Blueberries, that is correct. These are all people in the back. I know. Can we get people farther forward? Oh, no. Oh, no. It unfolded on the way. That was the Can we get people farther forward? Oh, no.

Oh, no. It unfolded on the way. That was the only part. Otherwise, it would have been perfect. Okay, one more. Get the trainer in here. Okay. To the nearest integer, what is the ratio of the masses of Curiosity to a Mars exploration rover?

So say Curiosity to Opportunity, the ratio in masses. I can see Emily is squinting, thinking about it. She's already got a shirt. So roughly. Wait, John Callis might know. John Callis is not eligible for this question. Neither is Joy Crisp. Okay, way over on the other side.

We're going to get back over there in just a second. Yes, sir. Five to one. Excellent. Five to one. Excellent. Five to one. Not bad. Congratulations. Alright, this one's closer, but over to the side. Oh, made it. Alright. And with that, we

are out of time. So, thank you, Bruce, as always. He is Bruce Betts, the Planetary Society's Director of Projects, joins me each week for What's Up. We'll end this edition of Planetary Radio Live with one more tune from roboticist and singer K.J. Williams with Lawrence Young on guitar. By the way, you can learn more about K.J. the roboticist and hear more of K.J. the singer, at www.kjerstin.com. Don't worry, we've got that site at planetary.org slash radio. Clear skies, everyone.

Please welcome back K.J. Williams and Lawrence Young. applause Baby's gonna trip to the moon And he won't be back too soon He can't write me and I can't sleep All I hear from him is My baby's up in a rocket machine Since he left he ain't been seen He can't call me and I can't sleep

All I hear from him is I wonder if Means I miss you And maybe Means I wanna kiss you I'm hoping Means I love you And I'm coming down to earth again

Baby's high in the stratosphere I'm so low and I'm coming down to earth again. Baby's high in the stratosphere. I'm so low because I'm stuck down here. My love for him is sure going to keep till he comes back and whispers. Well, I wonder if means I miss you and maybe means I want to kiss you I'm hoping that means I love you.

And he's coming down to earth again. My baby's hanging with some satellite. Now you know that just ain't right. My love for him is going to have to keep till he comes back and whispers. Oh, I love it when you talk to me that way. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and made possible by a grant from the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation,

and by the members of the Planetary Society. We thank the staff and management of Southern California Public Radio for their support, Thank you. I'm Claire Kaplan.