Three tales from NASA - September 24, 2007
It’s been a busy weekend for NASA stories: the space agency has announced the discovery of caves on Mars, said yes to a ‘black hole finder’ satellite, and given preliminary approval to resurrect a British space probe for a mission to the Moon.
Mars caves
With now almost standard hyperbole the Mars caves have been hailed as potential shelters for future astronauts or reservoirs of life (AFP). Actually though this story first appeared in March this year (Nature, subscription required). All that’s new is the results have now been published (abstract).
Images from the Mars Odyssey orbiter show dark circles on the surface of the planet up to 250 meters wide (press release). As these were cooler than the surrounding surface during the day and warmer at night researchers think they could be openings to underground caverns. “Their thermal behavior is not as steady as large caves on Earth that often maintain a fairly constant temperature, but it is consistent with these being deep holes in the ground,” said astrogeologist Glen Cushing of the Northern Arizona University.
Image: NASA. Explanation.
NuSTAR
The black hole finder is actually a restart for a space mission previously shelved due to budget problems (press release). NuSTAR will be launched in 2011 to map high energy X-rays, which should help show where black holes are distributed in the universe (press release).
According to AP, NuSTAR will set NASA back around $100 million. This is pretty small change for the agency, especially compared to the couple of billion that will be needed for the Constellation X programme. One observer recently remarked: “In another few years, if there are further assessments to rationalize and prioritize spending, will Con-X survive? And without Con-X, I feel like I might as well pack up and give in.”
Could the resurrection of NuSTAR be a sop to the X-ray astronomy community to prepare them for some bad news?
Beagle Moon
Finally we come to the plans to send the UK’s Beagle probe to the moon. You may remember this as the super-cheap probe that went AWOL on Mars in 2003. Now NASA says the probe may be used to find water on the Moon (Guardian). Again, this story surfaced earlier this year (Nature, subscription required).