Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Year of the Icy Worlds

Episode Date: February 10, 2015

We’ll visit the Jet Propulsion Lab on its Icy Worlds Day to learn more about spacecraft exploring Ceres, Enceladus and Europa from leaders of these missions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Year of Icy Worlds, 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. This week we visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a celebration of planetary missions that are heating up, even though they are exploring worlds of ice. Dawn is nearing Ceres, the largest of the asteroids. Cassini has begun the final phase of its mission at Saturn, near Enceladus. And we finally have a real start on a mission to Europa, Jupiter's ice and liquid ocean

moon. We begin with Emily Lakdawalla's documentation of two other moons. Emily, welcome back. I'm glad that we can talk about a piece that you posted on the 4th of February. And it is a pretty comprehensive exploration of the moons of Mars and photos of them, beginning with some photos that you were able to get from a scientist in India. That's right. The Mars orbiter mission has been relatively quiet of late, but they have taken so far 250 images of Mars.

That piece of information comes from our Lunar and Planetary Science Conference abstract. And among those are some photos of Deimos, and in particular, the far side of Deimos, which is very unusual. Deimos is the smaller and more distant of Mars' two moons. And most Mars spacecraft orbit underneath it, so they never get to see the far side. But Mars Orbiter Mission has a very long elliptical orbit that does allow it to see the far side of Deimos. So it's gotten the first pictures of that in quite a while. You also collect images, as I said, going back really far. Where did you start with this? You have to go as far back as Mariner 9 and Viking to get other images of the side of Deimos that doesn't face Mars. So it's always

wonderful to me when Mariner 9 images are still relevant as they are here. And then it's always fun also to collect an entire data set. So I've got every single image that the Viking orbiters ever took targeted at Deimos, and I collected them all into a little poster for you. All right, you folks who know Emily's past work know that she periodically puts together these sort of poster worthy collections of images. And that's what she's talking about here. Every Viking orbiter image of Mars's moons. Demos, it's really pretty, pretty beautiful. You also have your own little video here, but I don't think you're going to be up for any Academy Awards. No, but you know, it's really hard to understand the geometry of these little moons, so I figured I had better do a little vine

showing my paper model of the moon to explain where exactly we were looking on this thing. Well, it's enjoyable, and some of these other images are really just gorgeous. I'll tell you one, one that I particularly like is taken by an old Soviet spacecraft, also pretty far back, though not as far back

as Mariner 9. What took this? It's Phobos 2. It's a mission that most people don't remember. It was supposed to land a spacecraft on Phobos, and it failed before it could do that. But it got some pretty cool pictures of Phobos before it failed. Lots more to see here. And in addition, other recent blog entries from Emily, including the first images, well, the first in a long line, right, from New Horizons? That's right.

New Horizons has begun its science mission, taking the first images of Pluto and Charon for science purposes. And they're still not too impressive, and it will be a long time before it's more than just a dot. But still, it's the start of a great, great science mission to Pluto and Charon. I also like your early preview of what to expect when that closest approach happens in July. And, of course, we'll be talking about that in the months to come. Thanks very much, Emily. Thank you, Matt. Senior editor for the Planetary Society, also our planetary evangelist,

Emily Lakdawalla is a contributing editor to Sky and Telescope magazine. Up next, not Bill Nye this week, but a special visit with Casey Dreyer, the Planetary Society's Director of Advocacy, who has someone else to introduce. Casey, good to have you back in Bill's slot here with Bill's blessing, by the way, to amplify the little bit of celebration that he had last week over what certainly at that point looked like a pretty good budget, should we be celebrating. If you're a fan of exploring Europa, and I would say, I'm just going to throw out a number

and say 100% of your listeners are. I think that's almost safe. Then yes, we have a new start for Europa. That is a big deal and a really, probably the best news out of this budget. And bonus, we have an extra request for $18.5 billion. That's the highest request for NASA's budget in four years. Good, good, good news. And there is so much more in this budget

to talk about. We have a separate extended conversation with Casey that you can find online. We'll link to it from this week's show page at planetary.org slash radio. Also in that extended conversation is somebody, Casey, I'll let you introduce him. Yeah, everybody, we have been, as part of our expanding advocacy program here at the Planetary Society, we've been able to bring on this excellent new colleague of mine. His name is Jason Callahan. He is a space policy advisor to the Planetary Society. Great background working on past NASA budgets.

Knows his stuff. Space historian. Really excited to have him working for the Society. Jason, welcome on past NASA budgets, knows his stuff, space historian, really excited to have him working for the Society. Jason, welcome to Planetary Radio. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate it. With that experience, what stands out, if anything, about this new budget from the executive branch? Well, I think the thing that really stands out to me is that planetary science is finally back on an upward trajectory. It's been really hurting for a number of years, and to see it starting to move in the right direction is very gratifying.

Beginning in, I guess, 2013, the budget took a really serious hit for planetary science, and we've really struggled to get any traction with the White House in making planetary science a priority, but I think they've finally come around. Gentlemen, we're out of time for this very brief segment. Once again, there is an extended conversation, I think it's a good 45 minutes or so, about the budget, about the process, about how planetary science fares, and not everything fared well, but overall, as you said, Casey, very positive news. I look forward to having both of you back on the show. Certainly enjoyed that longer conversation with you. Thanks very much. Thanks, Matt. And if I can just plug that conversation, I'm just going to go ahead and just make another assertion that without hyperbole,

that may be the best 45 minutes of planetary radio your listeners will ever hear. That's just my opinion, but I think it's accurate. You have heard from the advocacy division of the Planetary Society. We'll see if Bruce Betts from the science and technology side has anything to say. Once again, guys, thank you very much. Jason Callahan is a space policy advisor to the Society. Casey Dreyer is the Society's director of advocacy. We'll be back in just a moment to talk about some stuff that happened just as that budget was being announced at the Jet Propulsion Lab, an icy world celebration.

On Monday, February 2nd, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden delivered his State of the Agency address from the Kennedy Space Center. It was a stirring review that featured much of what NASA is up to right now as well as things to come. Around the United States, each of the NASA centers celebrated in its own way. At the Jet Propulsion Lab in California, it was Icy Worlds Day. Planetary Society video producer Merck Boyan and I spent the morning on the sprawling JPL campus. Merck has created a great video that complements the special coverage you're about to hear. You can reach it from the show page at planetary.org slash radio and on the Society's YouTube and Facebook pages.

One of our first stops was the not terribly flashy control room for the Dawn spacecraft that is now approaching Ceres, a dwarf planet and the largest of the bodies in the asteroid belt. Dawn project manager and chief engineer Mark Raymond was explaining how the probe's amazing ion engines have made it the first mission to visit and orbit two worlds. The thrust is also very gentle, and so the ion engine pushes on the spacecraft as hard as this single piece of paper pushes on my hand. And yet, in the zero-gravity, frictionless environment of space, gradually the effect of this thrust can build up.

After his presentation, Mark decided to interview me about his mission. At least, that's how it started. Matt, what are these blue lights? I can't remember. Oh, I'm so glad you asked, Mark. When the blue lights are on, I think dinner is served. I thought it was our blue light special. But no, when the blue lights are on, that's when the ion propulsion system on the spacecraft is thrusting. That's so appropriate. It is. It's cool. And in fact, one of the things that I thought would be neat, we're not going to do, But when the blue lights are on, that's when the ion propulsion system on the spacecraft is thrusting.

That's so appropriate. It is. It's cool. And, in fact, one of the things that I thought would be neat we're not going to do, it would be if the data coming down from the spacecraft went through these blue lights and so they flickered on and off as the ones and zeros went through. But we haven't done that. It would be a lot of ones and zeros. It would be.

But still, it's a nice indication that our spacecraft is behaving itself and continuing its ambitious mission. And pumping out its own blue light. That's exactly right. It does produce that same blue light that you see in the science fiction movies. The reason for that is xenon glows blue like helium, or neon glows orange. Mark Raymond of the Dawn Mission. It was time to head for Historic von Karman Auditorium, where we watched a terrific new video about what's still ahead for the magnificent Cassini mission that has entered its final phase at Saturn. There is strong evidence now that most of the surface of Titan is in fact covered with organic material of some kind. fact covered with organic material of some kind. We're going to be looking at lakes on the surface of this moon in detail. We're going to be looking at the atmosphere to see how the climate changes

over time. We have some global circulation models that tell us the winds pick up. We think there could be waves on the lakes of liquid methane. We've got a link to the full video on the show page. That last voice you heard should be familiar. It was Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker. I joined Linda in von Karman in front of one heck of a great prop. Linda, we've talked a lot, but never in front of the spacecraft, or at least a model of the spacecraft. Right, right.

Yeah, this is actually just a half-scale model, so that the full spacecraft is actually twice as big as this. It's a monster. It's huge. You were just talking to Merck, the video guy in me, about a new video that you guys have. Right. We have a 10-year video that talks about the exciting discoveries Cassini's made and our exciting end of mission, where we're actually going to dive in between the planet and the rings, orbiting around, going to a new place we've never experienced before. And then on our very last orbit, we'll actually go into Saturn's atmosphere and Cassini will burn up. This is such an exciting

year for not just for your mission, but for all the others. I mean, that's why we're here to talk about icy worlds, right? What's coming up with Enceladus? Well, for Cassini, we have three close Enceladus flybys this year, the last three flybys. One of those will come within 30 miles, flying through those jets and geysers, and get just some fantastic new information, measuring the particles, sniffing the gas, trying to understand this fascinating world that's only 300 miles across. And just to our side here in Von Karman Auditorium is the coolest Enceladus, or maybe any model I've ever seen of a planetary body, because it has geysers. Right, right. It has the four tiger stripes, and out of those come little jets of steam,

and you can't help but just want to pass your hand through those, just like Cassini would be doing as we fly through them. I told you, I want to pass my hand through it and taste it, see if I can taste the organics. Yeah, I think it's just all water vapor, though. So this is all about icy worlds. The reason this is such an exciting year, and you're part of this. That's pretty cool to be part of that family. Oh, absolutely. And not only are we going to fly through the plumes on Enceladus, we're actually going to look at the North Pole, see if there's ancient evidence for tiger stripes.

We're going to look at the South Pole and measure the heat coming out to try and develop a model for how Enceladus has stayed warm. Linda Spilker of the Cassini mission. We'll learn about the new kid on the block after the break. The new Europa mission is next on Planetary Radio. Greetings, Planetary Radio listeners. Bill Nye the Science Guy here. The Planetary Society's remarkable LightSail spacecraft is headed for space. We want you to come along. LightSail is a small spacecraft propelled by photons from the sun.

The excitement is building as we count down to our launch in May. Follow every aspect of the mission at sail.planetary.org. Let's change the world. Random Space Fact! Nothing new about that for you, Planetary Radio fans, right? Wrong! Random Space Fact is now a video series, too. And it's brilliant, isn't it, Matt?

I hate to say it, folks, but it really is. And hilarious. See? Matt would never lie to you, would he? I really wouldn't. A new Random Space Fact video is released each Friday at youtube.com slash planetarysociety. You can subscribe to join our growing community, and you'll never miss a fact. Can I go back to my radio now? Welcome back to Planetary Radio. I'm Matt Kaplan, continuing our visit to the Jet Propulsion Lab for a celebration of icy worlds and the spacecraft that are or will be exploring them. It had only been minutes since NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden had announced something many of us had spent years hoping for.

The agency has committed itself to a mission that will explore Jupiter's moon Europa. We watched yet another new video starring JPL scientist and Europa expert Kevin Hand. And for the first time in the history of humanity, we have the tools and technology and capability to potentially answer this question. And we know where to go to find it. Jupiter's ocean world, Europa. Also in von Karman's auditorium that day was the man who will serve as project scientist for this new mission, JPL's Robert Pappalardo.

Bob, I get the feeling that after a long, long wait, congratulations are in order. Thank you. I think so. This has been a wonderful day, a wonderful few hours. We've been working on concepts for missions to explore Europa for about 15 years. And today the NASA administrator said we're going forward to the next phase, which seems to mean Phase A, as it's called, becoming an actual mission.

And that, he said, instruments will be selected in the spring. This spring, spring of 2015. That's what he said. Amazing. A few moments ago, your JPL colleague, Kevin Hand, was here. He said he had to be careful what he says because now he's in competition, right, for an instrument. There's an open competition out there. Kevin is one of the PIs proposing.

There are some 30-some-odd proposals that NASA is carefully evaluating. And actually, some of the team here, the plan is that we'll do what's called accommodation studies. NASA will say, here are is that we'll do what's called accommodation studies. NASA will say, here are instruments that we might pick. How would that work with the spacecraft you envision? Can you accommodate those instruments? Well, how about these instruments? And so we, the project, would report back on that. And it's a fascinating process. There are firewalls between proposers and the team to ensure that the competition stays completely fair. You want the best science no matter what, right?

That's right, absolutely. And the decision is NASA's. We provide information to them that they ask for. Have we overcome, have we, have you guys overcome the big challenges? And they are big challenges making a mission like this work. Oh, absolutely. One of the biggest challenges is the radiation environment at Europa. And the concept we had been talking about was a Europa orbiter. If you're orbiting Europa, then you stay in the radiation environment for the whole mission. So the whole mission can only be a few months long or guaranteed to be. Instead, now we're talking about a multiple flyby mission that dips into the radiation zones as it's orbiting

Jupiter, flies by Europa, dips into the radiation zones, and then out again. And does that in our candidate mission scenario about 45 times. And that way you build up coverage through those three years of Europa encounters. The mission designers have been so clever and so responsive to the desires of the science community. Science community says, oh, that's great. You can make flybys of Europa, but we want to see all parts of Europa. And we want the orbits to be like this and crossing like that. And through that iteration, we have come up with a really outstanding mission design for covering most of Europa's surface, multiple flybys, kind of like Cassini has been doing at Titan. The Cassini spacecraft at Saturn flies by Titan lots of times, and we're putting together this global map of that moon. But this mission would carry instruments to address scientific questions specifically related to Europa's ocean and its potential habitability.

This thing we're standing next to, this mock-up, would seem to be additional evidence of how far along this mission is. Tell us about this. Oh, absolutely. So this is a mock-up of what we call the vault. The concept comes from the Juno mission, which is headed to Jupiter and has a vault to protect its electronics. That is, there's a lot of shielding there.

And so we're building on that in the Europa mission concept. So the vault would have a bunch of shielding, a bunch of metal that protects the sensitive electronics of the spacecraft, the brains of the spacecraft. This is kind of the skull of the spacecraft, if you like. The most sensitive electronics would be buried the deepest with the most shielding. But, of course, the instrument sensors would be out in the breeze, as we like to call it. And so the instrument proposers need to worry about that. And those instruments will then get incorporated into the one vault as we're envisioning it now. I like that, the skull of the mission.

Of the spacecraft. Yeah, right. You said during your presentation that in spite of how sophisticated the spacecraft will be, it might be that it would still take a lander to detect life. But I don't imagine you would mind if one of those, one or more of those instruments some people propose pretty soon, might have that potential. Are you hoping for that? Really knowing that we have detected life is a very hard thing, right?

We want to, even defining life is a hard thing. Think about the Mars meteorite, where there were some signs that there could have been life in there. It took years of scientific debates with a sample in hand and laboratory analysis on Earth to resolve that debate. There's probably not signs of life in that meteorite. But then imagine going to another planet, sending remote instruments, and asking the same question. But there might be tantalizing clues. So someday we send a lander to Europa, then we would want to analyze the organic materials and look at a sample with a microscope.

And you can imagine a scenario where there are little round bits, and you put those round bits in the mass spectrometer, and it says, hey, these are all right-handed amino acids. You'd say, wait, maybe there's life there, and you probably want to bring a sample back to Earth to confirm ultimately. And so one can look for signs of life. But with this mission, we're really after habitability, right? We're a multiple flyby mission. We're doing remote sensing. Ideally, we'll fly through plumes if they exist. And so if there is a mass spectrometer, for example, then one could look for organics.

One could look for interesting signs in those organics, patterns in those organics. But we really can't make any guarantees there. We're really trying to understand whether Europa has the ingredients for life, water, the right chemistry, and chemical energy that might allow life to exist in its ocean. And that will set up the next steps in Europa exploration, which I hope will be a lander to the surface. One step at a time, but this is an awfully big step. Can't wait for launch. This is huge.

It's now in NASA's hands in terms of the timeline, It's now in NASA's hands in terms of the timeline. But we've been working toward a possible launch in the beginning of the next decade. And if this spacecraft goes on the new space launch system, the SLS that NASA is developing, it could be as little as three years from Earth to Jupiter and Europa. Sounds like a great use for a big new rocket. Exactly. It really is. The SOS could potentially open up outer planets exploration, right? Think about Mars. Mars is just a couple of years away.

And so we've been able to send many spacecraft launch after launch. You could find out new things and then go with the next mission and answer questions. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do that with the outer solar system? And how. And you know we'll be following along. Thanks so much, Bob. Thank you. Bob Pappalardo at the Jet Propulsion Lab's February 2nd celebration of some of the icy world's humanity is or will soon explore. No, we didn't forget Pluto. Stick with us in the coming weeks for more on the New Horizons mission. Lots of great links are on the show page at planetary.org slash radio. He's back. He's healthy. He's better than ever.

It's Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society. Fully recovered, I hope, right? Hi, Matt. How you doing? Maybe you went too far. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. I'm good. I'm good. Cold medicine. Cold medication, yeah, that's what I thought. All right, well, take it easy there, guy, and, maybe. I'm good. I'm good. Cold medicine. It's the cold medication. Yeah, that's what I thought.

All right. Well, take it easy there, guy. And tell us what's up. Okay. Calm. But I can't be calm. No. Venus.

Venus. Venus and Mars. That's what you should focus on. That's what I'm trying to focus. Focus. Venus and Mars. Low in the west. Shortly after sunset, Venus looking super bright.

Mars looking much dimmer and reddish. And they will actually be growing closer together until they're less than half a degree apart on February 21st. So check them out. You can also see Jupiter on the other side of the sky rising in the east in the early evening and Saturn rising in the middle of the night. I want to mention also Comet Lovejoy back in the sky, at least for northern observers. You can see it in the early evening if you find a finder chart and get some binoculars good energy keep it up this week in space history in 1971 apollo 14 returned from the moon in 2001 the near asteroid

orbiter was turned into a lander where they successfully landed an orbiter on an asteroid and 2013 two years ago anniversary of the chelyabinsk bolide exploding in the atmosphere above chelyabinsk russia but alas we move on to random space fact ap, which, you know, we're on its anniversary, had the last post-mission quarantine of the Apollo mission. So they locked the astronauts up for a couple weeks to make sure they didn't have moon germs. But then they figured out that there weren't moon germs, for sure. So after that, the astronauts did not have to be quarantined. I remember this. They had to live in an Airstream trailer and look out the window. I think that's how the Apollo 11 guys or somebody greeted Richard Nixon, which was kind of a surreal view.

Apollo, sponsored by Airstream. We move on to the trivia contest. I told you Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta are the largest known asteroids, and asked you what is the fourth largest. How did we do, Matt? There was a huge response this time, perhaps because of our double prize, both the year in space desk and wall calendars and a planetary radio T-shirt. Hmm, maybe we'll do that again. It's still early in the year.

I think maybe one more time, give away the calendars. But anyway, our winner, chosen by Random.org, as always, was Matthew Sandoval of Irvine, California, not too far away, who said, as did everybody else, and it was a big crowd, that the fourth largest of those asteroids is Hygieia. That is correct. Hygieia, the goddess of personal hygiene. I guess she is actually the goddess of cleanliness.

So, Matthew, congratulations. We're going to get those prizes out to you. Got a few other interesting ones here to mention. For instance, Andy Kerr mentioned, as did several other people, that Hygieia represents almost 3% of the total mass of the asteroid belt. Craig Journet had some basic facts, like it was discovered in 1849. Not a gold nugget, I suppose. It's about 431 kilometers long or wide. He also said that it's a Class C asteroid.

And we got a question from Bruce Cordell that said that he noticed that it had a number in front of the name, 10 Hygieia, and that a lot of the asteroids, 1 Ceres, 4 Vesta, 121 Hermione. I'm hoping, and Bruce Cordell is hoping, that you could tell us what those numbers mean and maybe what a Class C is. I'm not allowed to tell you that. It's classified. That's what it stands for. It doesn't. Exactly. It's stamped top secret. No, no, no. Class C, the letters, designations refer to its spectral categorization, which basically is what's the surface made of. So class C is carbonaceous, has a richer carbon amount than other asteroids. The numbers are basically assigned sequentially in order

of discovery. So if you're number 10, it was the 10th asteroid discovered. And not surprisingly, the largest asteroids have the lowest numbers because they're bigger, brighter, and therefore were discovered earlier. Fascinating. Thank you for clarifying that. We had one other nice hint here, a pointer, that came from

Dan Campbell in Cumming, Georgia. He said that, and he's right, Wikipedia has a fascinating animation of Hygieia's orbit relative to Jupiter that makes the solar system look like a cosmic spirograph. Orbital resonances are beautiful. It really is cool. It's in the English edition of the Wikipedia.

Just look up Hygieia. That's cool. Spirographs, always good. We move on to the next trivia question. What is the diameter of the largest deep space network antennas, the antennas that NASA uses to communicate with spacecraft way off in deep space? What's the diameter of the

largest antennas? Go to planetary.org slash radio contest. One more time, we'll give you a chance to win the year in space wall and desk calendars and a Planetary Radio t-shirt to boot. You have until the 17th, that'll be Tuesday, the 17th of February at 8 a.m. Pacific time to get us your answer.

All right, Guy, thank you and glad you're feeling good. Thank you. All right, everybody, go out there, look up at the night sky and think about canned vegetables. Thank you and good night. That's Bruce Betts, the Director of Science and Technology for the Planetary Society, no doubt getting his spinach nowadays. He joins us every week here for What's Up. Planetary Radio is produced by the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by its Icy World thrilled members.

Josh Doyle wrote our theme music. I'm Matt Kaplan of the Planetary Society. Clear skies.