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The success of the all-civilian spacewalk on SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission shows that private space flight is starting to catch up with government space agencies

In 2003, strange features on Mars’s surface got scientists’ “spidey senses” tingling when they saw them. That’s when unusual “anareiform terrain” landforms appeared in images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They’ve returned each year, spreading across the southern hemisphere surface.

At first, nobody knew what caused these weird wrinkly spider-like formations. Now, NASA researchers have duplicated them in the lab to explain their existence. No doubt about it, though, these Mars spiders look weird. Some of them stretch across a kilometer and generally appear in clusters.

Since discovering them in 2003 via images from orbiters, scientists have marveled at these Mars spiders sprawled across the southern hemisphere of Mars. No one is entirely sure how these geologic features are created but lab simulations may provide clues. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Since carbon dioxide is common on Mars, scientists figured it had something to do with creating these weird formations. They used the “Kieffer model” to delve into the history of Mars spiders. That model explains how carbon dioxide ice slabs under the surface trap gas as it sublimates (turns to gas), usually during southern hemisphere spring.

Sunlight heats the surface and shines through transparent slabs of carbon dioxide. Those ice layers build up each winter. The soil beneath the ice absorbs heat from the Sun and causes the ice closest to it to sublimate. Gas pressure builds up, which cracks the ice and allows gas to escape. As it seeps upward, the gas takes with it a stream of dark dust and sand from the soil that lands on the surface of the ice. Those deposits take the form of spidery landforms.

Confirming Mars Spiders

To see if that process is what’s creating Mars spiders, NASA JPL scientists, led by Lauren McKeown, decided to simulate Mars conditions in their lab. “The spiders are strange, beautiful geologic features in their own right,” said McKeown. “These experiments will help tune our models for how they form.”

The DUSTIE chamber at JPL. This is where scientists simulated the surface conditions under which Mars spiders form. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Not that it’s easy to replicate Mars on Earth, even in strict laboratory conditions. For Mc Keown and her team, the hardest part was re-creating conditions found on the Martian polar surface. That region experiences extremely low air pressure. Seasonal changes bring the air and surface temperatures down to a chilly -301 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 185 degrees Celsius). To make it work, the team used a liquid-nitrogen-cooled test chamber at JPL—the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE.

“I love DUSTIE. It’s historic,” Mc Keown said, noting that the wine barrel-size chamber was used to test a prototype of a rasping tool designed for NASA’s Mars Phoenix lander. For their experiment, the team chilled Martian soil simulant in a container dipped into a nitrogen bath. Then they put the whole thing into DUSTIE and replaced Earth-normal pressure with Mars air pressure. Carbon dioxide gas flowed in and condensed to ice. The next step was to put a heater inside to simulate Martian conditions in early spring. The team did this several times before the experiment created simulated “spiders” similar to those on Mars.

Mars spider-like formations in soil simulant created during experiments at NASA/JPL in the DUSTIE chamber. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. The Next Steps

That simulation created plumes of carbon dioxide gas escaping from the soil simulant. It’s close to what happens on Mars, but not quite. So, the next step is to do the same experiment and use a simulated Sun to heat the surface materials. If that produces the same results, then the team has a good chance of proving this is what happens on Mars.

However, Mars being what it is—there are still a lot of questions about why the spiders only form in the southern hemisphere at spring. Since subsurface carbon dioxide ice isn’t limited to that region of the planet, why don’t spiders form in other places? One possibility is that these aren’t recent features. They could be left over from a more active time in the planet’s past. Maybe the climate was very different when they formed. Or something catastrophic happened to enable the formation and growth of spiders in the southern hemisphere.

The study at JPL is a good step forward in understanding the Martian terrain. It confirms several formation processes described by the Kieffer model. Of course, it would be really cool to visit those spiders someday. For now, however, lab work is as close as it gets to explaining them. Future rovers and landers could be used to study those landforms up close and personal. However, there aren’t any planned in the near future, and no other spacecraft has landed in the spider-rich southern hemisphere region. For now, scientists will continue testing the lab to understand the conditions that make these strange-looking features.

For More Information

NASA Scientists Re-Create Mars ‘Spiders’ in a Lab for the First Time
A Lab-scale Investigation of the Mars Kieffer Model

The post Scientists Recreate Mars Spiders in the Lab appeared first on Universe Today.

We’ve officially entered a new era of private spaceflight. Yesterday, the crew of Polaris Dawn, a privately funded mission managed by SpaceX, officially performed the first private extra-vehicular activity, commonly known as a spacewalk. The spacewalk was a success, along with the rest of the mission so far. But it’s attracted detractors as well as supporters. Let’s take a look at the mission objectives and why some pundits are opposed to it.

There are two main “firsts” for the Polaris Dawn flight, which is the first in a series of private space missions that could include a third mission that would make the first crewed use of SpaceX’s massive Starship launcher. The most talked-about “first” of the mission was a spacewalk that mission commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis took part in yesterday morning. They utilized SpaceX’s newly designed, more mobile EVA suits, which marks a clear departure from the previous bulky suit iterations.

Another first is that this crew is the farthest any private space passengers have ever been from Earth. In fact, they are farther away from Earth than anyone since to Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s. Their list of things to do so far away from home includes monitoring 36 scientific experiments ranging from monitoring bone health to how to control motion sickness during spaceflight.

Full video of the Polaris Dawn spacewalk.
Credit – VideosfromSpace YouTube Channel

But the mission has attracted its share of detractors too. Some of the most well-reasoned include experts quoted in Al-Jazeera that SpaceX might be violating a clause in the Outer Space Treaty that requires governments to be responsible for the health and safety of their missions in space, even if the mission is run by a non-governmental agency. NASA has very clearly not contracted for the safety of the mission once it is in space. However it gave permission for the rocket launch that got them there, especially since it launched from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center.

Space policy experts argue that, since this is an entirely privately funded mission, it is in itself a violation of the Outer Space Treaty. They might be right, but an alternative interpretation is that the treaty, which was signed in early 1967, might be out of date for the more modern world of private spaceflight.

A less well-reasoned line of argument against the missions is the complaint that billionaires, which include the mission commander among their number, are simply blowing the Earth’s resources on their own pet projects. This line of reasoning is supported by the fact that the missions is supported by Doritos, who supplied a specially designed chip that wouldn’t get cheese dust everywhere inside the Dragon capsule the astronauts are using.

Fraser discusses the EVA suit used in the Polaris Dawn mission.

But it is also off-set by the fact the mission is donating much of its income (admittedly some of which is derived from merchandise sales) to St. Jude Children’s Hospital, to help kids fight cancer. Whether or not you agree with the motivations behind the mission, it doesn’t seem that anyone will get upset about trying to help kids with cancer.

And noone can take away the mission’s achievements so far. Of particular note is that the two female crew members – Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon – are now officially the women that have been the farthest away from the Earth ever. With the launch and spacewalk a success, the final real test of the mission will be its return. Given that Dragon has successfully returned to Earth dozens of times at this point, there’s a good chance that part will be successful too. And then humanity will have the opportunity to hope for, or complain about, the Polaris’ next step in private space flight.

Learn More:
Polaris Program – Polaris Dawn Successfully Launches to Earth’s Orbit and Begins Five-Day Mission 
UT – See a First-Person View of the First Private Spacewalk
UT – Civilian Astronauts are Going to try Spacewalking From a Crew Dragon Capsule
UT – NASA and SpaceX Will Study Low-Cost Plan to Give Hubble a Boost

Lead Image:
Shot of the curvature of the Earth from the Polaris Dawn mission.
Credit – Polaris Program

The post Polaris Dawn is Away, Sending Another Crew Into Orbit to Perform the First Private Spacewalk appeared first on Universe Today.

The Milky Way’s outer reaches are coming into view thanks to the JWST. Astronomers pointed the powerful space telescope to a region over 58,000 light-years away called the Extreme Outer Galaxy (EOG). They found star clusters exhibiting extremely high rates of star formation.

The Milky Way’s EOG is defined as the part of the galaxy with a galactocentric radius of 18 kpc. That translates to almost 59,000 light-years, and for comparison, our Solar System is about 26,000 light-years from the galactic centre.

A team of astronomers used the JWST’s powerful NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to examine star formation in two specific regions of the EOG. They’re molecular clouds named Digel Cloud 1 and Digel Cloud 2. They’re named after the astronomer Seth Digel, who discovered them in 1994.

The environment in the EOG is different than our Solar System’s neighbourhood; their metallicity and gas density are significantly lower. Metallicity and gas density play huge roles in how Solar Systems evolve and how planets form. The JWST is giving astronomers an opportunity to examine star formation in the EOG at the same level of detail they can closer to home.

The JWST’s supreme observing power allowed the researchers to examine the regions, and they found nebular structures, extremely young protostars, and outflow jets. Their findings are in research published in the Astronomical Journal titled “Overview Results of JWST Observations of Star-forming Clusters in the Extreme Outer Galaxy.” The lead author is Natsuko Izumi of Gifu University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

“What was fascinating and astounding to me from the Webb data is that there are multiple jets shooting out in all different directions from this cluster of stars.”

Mike Ressler, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

“In the past, we knew about these star forming regions but were not able to delve into their properties,” said Izumi. “The Webb data builds upon what we have incrementally gathered over the years from prior observations with different telescopes and observatories. We can get very powerful and impressive images of these clouds with Webb. In the case of Digel Cloud 2, I did not expect to see such active star formation and spectacular jets.”

Astronomers have previously observed the region with the Subaru 8.2 meter telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. In 2008, some of the same astronomers used the Subaru to observe star formation in the clusters in Digel Cloud 2S. In that research, the authors said that star-forming clusters were likely triggered by the same supernova.

This is an image of Digel Cloud2-S captured with the Subaru Telescope. If there was ever any doubt about what an improvement the JWST is over previous telescopes, this image puts it to rest. Image Credit: Yasui et al. 2008.

But the Webb’s NIR is from 10 to 80 times more sensitive than the Subaru. “Accordingly, the mass detection limit reaches to about 0.01–0.05 solar masses, which is about 10 times better than the previous observations,” the researchers explain in their paper.

This is Digel Cloud 2S, where a bright cluster of young stars has formed. The white arrows show extended jets emitted from some of the stars. To the upper right of the cluster is another, smaller sub-cluster. Astronomers suspected it was there in previous observations, and now the JWST has confirmed it. The red structures are gaseous, nebulous structures being carved and shaped by the powerful radiation coming from the young stars. The JWST captured invisible near- and mid-infrared wavelengths that have been translated into visible light. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. Ressler (NASA-JPL)

“We know from studying other nearby star-forming regions that as stars form during their early life phase, they start emitting jets of material at their poles,” said Mike Ressler, the study’s second author. Ressler is from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and is the principal investigator of the observing program. “What was fascinating and astounding to me from the Webb data is that there are multiple jets shooting out in all different directions from this cluster of stars. It’s a little bit like a firecracker, where you see things shooting this way and that.”

This image from the research gives the overall context of the Digel Clouds in galactic coordinates. Star formation in Cloud 2N was likely triggered by a nearby huge supernova remnant, according to the authors. Izumi et al. 2024.

The astronomers observed nebular structures both in and around all the main clusters. “Notably, distinct nebular structures are identified within Cloud 2N and 2S,” they write. In Cloud 2N, the nebular structures are cliff-like and pillar-like and are similar to the ones found in star-forming regions closer to home, like in the JWST’s well-known ‘Cosmic Cliffs‘ and ‘Pillars of Creation‘ images.

These images of the nebular structures in Cloud 2N show the JWST’s power to resolve detail compared to the Spitzer IR telescope. The features in the structures are similar to ones found in star-forming regions closer to home. Image Credit: Izumi et al. 2024.

These features are likely caused by intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by the nearby B-type star, MR 1, near Cloud 2N’s main structure.

This image from the research shows HI (neutral atomic hydrogen) near Digel Cloud 2. The MR1 star is labelled in the image. Its powerful UV radiation is likely responsible for carving some of the nebular cliffs and pillars. Image Credit: Izumi et al. 2024.

This research provides an overview of the JWST’s observing effort in the EOG and the Digel Clouds. The authors say it’s just a starting point, and there’s lots more to discover. They want to determine the relative abundance of stars of different masses in the EOG and understand how the different environments shape that abundance.

“I’m interested in continuing to study how star formation is occurring in these regions. By combining data from different observatories and telescopes, we can examine each stage in the evolution process,” said Izumi. “We also plan to investigate circumstellar disks within the Extreme Outer Galaxy. We still don’t know why their lifetimes are shorter than in star-forming regions much closer to us. And of course, I’d like to understand the kinematics of the jets we detected in Cloud 2S.”

The post The Outer Reaches of the Milky Way are Full of Stars, and the JWST is Observing Them appeared first on Universe Today.

The outer Solar System has been a treasure trove of discoveries in recent decades. Using ground-based telescopes, astronomers have identified eight large bodies since 2002 – Quouar, Sedna, Orcus, Haumea, Salacia, Eris, Makemake, and Gonggang. These discoveries led to the “Great Planet Debate” and the designation “dwarf planet,” an issue that remains contentious today. On December 21st, 2018, the New Horizons mission made history when it became the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) named Arrokoth – the Powhatan/Algonquin word for “sky.”

Since 2006, the Subaru Telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii has been observing the outer Solar System to search for other KBOs the New Horizons mission could study someday. In that time, these observations have led to the discovery of 263 KBOs within the traditionally accepted boundaries of the Kuiper Belt. However, in a recent study, an international team of astronomers identified 11 new KBOs beyond the edge of what was thought to be the outer boundary of the Kuiper Belt. This discovery has profound implications for our understanding of the structure and evolution of the Solar System.

The research team was led by Wesley C. Fraser, a Plaskett Fellow and a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Victoria (UVic) and the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre. He was joined by colleagues from UVic, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), NOIRLab, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and many other institutes and universities. The paper that describes their findings recently appeared in the Planetary Science Journal.

Since its last flyby of the KBO Arrokoth, the New Horizons mission has been exploring objects in the Kuiper Belt as well as performing heliospheric and astrophysical observations. Courtesy: Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI/Roman Tkachenko

In recent years, mounting evidence has been provided that objects exist beyond the edge of the Kuiper Belt. However, this study is the first to provide clear evidence of a large number of objects in a relatively small search area that cannot be attributed to false positives. Moreover, these KBOs appear to represent a new class of objects that orbit in a ring separated from the known Kuiper Belt by a gap where very few objects exist. This type of structure has been observed around many young planetary systems observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) array.

This suggests that the Solar System has more in common with extrasolar systems than previously thought, which could have implications for astrobiology—the search for extraterrestrial life in the Universe. Dr. Fraser, who is also a co-investigator on the New Horizons mission science team, explained in a NOAJ press release:

“Our Solar System’s Kuiper Belt long appeared to be very small in comparison with many other planetary systems, but our results suggest that idea might just have arisen due to an observational bias. So maybe, if this result is confirmed, our Kuiper Belt isn’t all that small and unusual after all compared to those around other stars.”

As any astrobiologist knows, the search for life is a major challenge because of our limited perspective. To date, we know of only one planet where life emerged and evolved (i.e., Earth), making it difficult to understand what conditions life can arise from. As such, scientists are eager to identify what sets our Solar System apart from others to constrain the prerequisites for life. Discovering that the Kuiper Belt may be larger than previously thought eliminates the idea that larger belts are an impediment to the emergence of life in extrasolar systems (possibly because they constitute a larger population of potential comets).

Artist’s impression of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. Credit: NASA/APL/SwRI and NASA/JPL-Caltech

“If this is confirmed, it would be a major discovery,” said study co-author Dr. Fumi Yoshida of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health and the Planetary Exploration Research Center. “The primordial solar nebula was much larger than previously thought, and this may have implications for studying the planet formation process in our Solar System.”

“This is a groundbreaking discovery revealing something unexpected, new, and exciting in the distant reaches of the Solar System; this discovery probably would not have been possible without the world-class capabilities of Subaru Telescope,” added New Horizons mission Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern.

These results indicate that more discoveries await beyond the traditionally recognized edge of the Kuiper Belt, which was thought to be a cold, empty end of space. They also entice astronomers to conduct follow-up studies to confirm these results and identify additional families of objects. Last but certainly not least, they offer a tantalizing clue as to what objects the New Horizons mission may be able to study someday.

Further Reading: NAOJ, Planetary Science Journal

The post More Bodies Discovered in the Outer Solar System appeared first on Universe Today.

When a patient needs a new heart valve, the current mechanical and tissue replacements each have strengths and weaknesses. Now, a team of researchers believe they have found a way to harness the strengths of both technologies in a way that could be life-changing -- and life-saving -- for many.

Spike-in normalization helps molecular biologists ensure the accuracy of their results, but the technique is easily misused. New study suggests new guidelines for use of this valuable technique.

Existing global energy projections underestimate the impact of climate change on urban heating and cooling systems by roughly 50% by 2099 if greenhouse gas emissions remain high, researchers report. This disparity could profoundly affect critical sustainable energy planning for the future.

A nationwide analysis of community-level floodplain development found that over two-million acres of floodplain were developed over the past two decades across the United States, with roughly half of all new floodplain housing built in Florida.

The common practice of building dams to prevent flooding can actually contribute to more intense coastal flood events, according to a new study. By analyzing data and measurements from Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, dating back more than a century, researchers determined that coastal dams don't necessarily mitigate flooding. Dams can either increase or decrease flood risks, depending on the duration of a surge event and friction from the flow of water.

Greg Lukianoff is, as most of you know, President of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He’s also a lawyer and co-author, with Jon Haidt, of the excellent book  The Coddling of the American Mind.  Yesterday in Quillette, Lukianoff wrote a piece that many of us may find useful, outlining how to give comebacks to flimsy arguments against free speech.  The advice is especially useful now that both extreme Left and extreme Right are finding reasons to curtail speech, the former through demonizing certain opinions that go against Righthink and the latter through banning or censoring books.  I think the article below is free, so have a look.

I’m just going to put the arguments down, and if you’re savvy you should be able to give comebacks to most of these.  Nobody will get them all, I think, so go back and read the piece. I’ve indented Lukianoff’s arguments below, but have left out the ripostes. For some reason I can’t see the graphics that Lukianoff has embedded in the article.

I’ll note first that anyone using the phrase “freeze peach” when referring to free speech is simply mocking this important concept. On to the objecftions (Lukianoff thanks some people at the end for helping him out.)

Assertion 1: Free speech was created under the false notion that words and violence are distinct, but we now know that certain speech is more akin to violence.

Assertion 2: Free speech rests on the faulty notion that words are harmless.

Assertion 3: Free speech is the tool of the powerful, not the powerless.

Assertion 4: The right to free speech means the government can’t arrest you for what you say; it still leaves other people free to kick you out.

Assertion 5: But you can’t shout fire! in a crowded theatre. (I have to do some self-aggrandizing here by quoting part of his answer):

This old canard, afavourite reference of censorship apologists, needs to be retired. It’s repeatedly and inappropriately used to justify speech limitations. People have been using this cliché as if it had some legal meaning, while First Amendment lawyers point out that it is, as Alan Dershowitz puts it, “a caricature of logical argumentation.” Ken White penned a brilliant and thorough takedown of this misconception. While his piece is no longer available online, you can find a thorough discussion of the arguments by Jerry Coyne here. Please read it before proclaiming that your least favourite language is analogous to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre.”

Assertion 6: The arguments for freedom of speech are outdated.

Assertion 7: Hate speech laws are important for reducing intolerance, even if there may be some examples of abuse.

Assertion 8: Free speech is nothing but a conservative talking point.

Assertion 9: Restrictions on free speech are OK if they are made in the name of civility. (Note that this argument doesn’t hold for this website; as I explain in the Roolz, if your comment is uncivil or insulting to another reader, I don’t have to publish it. On a website like this, I do not have to put up every comment that comes in, though I try to use a light hand when moderating. But First-Amendment-style free speech doesn’t apply to websites, discussion groups, and the like.)

Assertion 10: You need speech restrictions to preserve cultural diversity. 

Assertion 11: Free speech is an outdated idea; it’s time for new thinking.  (Note that this is the same argument made in #6 above).

Assertion 12: I believe in free speech, but not for blasphemy. 

Of these, the one I think it’s most useful to understand is the rebuttal to #7: the claim that “hate speech” doesn’t count as free speech. To answer this properly you’ll have to know what exceptions to First Amendment-style free speech have been carved out of that Amendment by the courts (false advertising, defamation, etc). Indeed, in countries like Germany and Britain, “hate speech” is a violation of the law, but Lukianoff notes that, at least crudely, “hate speech” laws don’t seem to go along with a strong reduction in bigotry, nor would you expect them to.

In his conclusion, Lukianoff once underlines the need for free speech. And speaking personally, I’d recommend that everyone who hasn’t read Mill’s “On Liberty” do so now (it’s free here on the Internet).

Lukianoff:

Free speech is valuable, first and foremost, because, without it, there is no way to know the world as it actually is. Understanding human perceptions, even incorrect ones, is always of scientific or scholarly value, and, in a democracy, it is essential to know what people really believe. This is my “pure informational theory of freedom of speech.” To think that, without openness, we can know what people really believe is not only hubris, but magical thinking. The process of coming to know the world as it is is much more arduous than we usually appreciate. It starts with this: recognise that you are probably wrong about any number of things, exercise genuine curiosity about everything (including each other), and always remember that it is better to know the world as it really is—and that the process of finding that out never ends.

Feeding bees edible bits of hydrogel increases their odds of surviving pesticide exposure by 30 per cent

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From the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the rise of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives and Artificial Intelligence, in this episode Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, and Michael Shermer challenge conventional narratives and explore how we can continue to move forward.

They discuss the state of democracy, autocracy, and the lessons learned from historical crises, while offering insights into how innovation, rationality, and education can lead us through challenging times.

This session was presented at FreedomFest 2024. To see more speeches and sessions from FreedomFest, visit freedomfest.com/civl.

If you enjoy the podcast, please show your support by making a $5 or $10 monthly donation.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) is on a roll to clean up its act and promulgate freedom of speech and divisive DEI actions. I’ve written before about how UNC-CH adopted institutional neutrality, making it one of seven schools that have done so. Now, according to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE), the entire UNC system is dismantling its DEI apparatus. Remember, the CHE isn’t a right-wing site, but the most respected source of reportage about developments in higher education.  Click headline to read:

The reporter, Jasper Smith, seems to concentrate on issues of colleges and race.

An excerpt:

In a report released on Wednesday, campuses in the University of North Carolina system outlined how they’ve complied with a directive to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts — such as eliminating staff positions, altering or ending programs, and cutting spending.

Across the system, institutions eliminated 59 jobs and restructured 132 positions. The DEI-related cuts added up to more than $17 million, a majority of which was redirected to “student success” initiatives, according to university officials.

At a time when colleges across the country have been dismantling diversity programs in response to political pressure, the UNC report offers a particularly comprehensive look at how a wide-ranging group of institutions approached the purging of DEI.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the state’s flagship, accounted for the biggest changes: It axed 20 staff positions, reassigned 27 positions, and redirected more than $5 million away from DEI efforts.

The Chapel Hill campus eliminated seven positions in central administration, including the vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer. Reassignments include the senior associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion, who in a new role will focus on “professional and leadership development” for students and faculty.

First, why is this something to celebrate?  While the origin of DEI (“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”) may be well intentioned—to give a hand to underperforming minority students—the way it’s worked out has been counterproductive. And not just that—it’s divisive as well. Here are some of its problems (h/t Luana):

a.) DEI initiatives are universally associated with a particular ideology, one derived largely from postmodernism. It sees society as a clash between competing worldviews (in this case, among different ethnic groups or among the sexes), with the most powerful people getting to promulgate their worldview. In that sense it’s divisive, as it sets up a hierarchy of privilege that has led to things like increased anti-semitism in particular and the chilling of speech in general.

b.) DEI instills those lower on the “power” hierarchy with a sense of victimhood, which in some (but not all) cases leads to a sense of futility among those deemed “minoritized”. Why strive to improve if society is holding you down you from the outset?

c.) It has largely replaced merit as a criterion for success with ethnicity, race, or gender. This has largely reduced the quality of education in various fields. It’s because of this that most of the elite schools that initially got rid of standardized testing have now reinstated it.

d.) The initiatives almost uniformly state that their goal is “equity” (equal representation) rather than “equality of opportunity.” These are not the same thing, and leads to the notion that inequities are not the result of anything besides systemic racism and ubiquitous bigotry. This in turn buttresses the view that society is totally and inseparably wedded to racism. I know that, at least in academia, this is not true; but DEI pushes its false narrative that it is.

At any rate, What’s important for the UNC system is that positions aren’t just being “restructured” (a euphemism under which the system continues but with jobs given different names). but eliminated.  Maybe there should be a small group of “DEI” people in charge of investigating claims about bias, but, as you know, the whole system has become bloated. (The University of Michigan, for example, has over 240 DEI jobs that costs the system over $30 million a year.)

This is, of course, blamed on the Republicans, and, indeed, it’s mostly the GOP that has pushed these changes, but I can’t say it’s all to the bad:

The changes in the UNC system come as Republican lawmakers, conservative activists, and others continue to push a national anti-DEI movement. Since 2023, 86 anti-DEI bills have been introduced, and 14 have been signed into law, according to The Chronicle’s DEI Legislation Tracker.

The Chronicle has also tallied more than 200 campuses in 30 states that have eliminated or altered diversity offices or programs.

Last year, North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature banned the use of diversity statements and mandatory DEI training, overriding a veto from the state’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper. The legislation went into effect in December of 2023.

In May of this year, the UNC system’s Board of Governors voted to replace a policy that had mandated certain diversity-related activities on each campus. The system’s new policy emphasized a commitment to nondiscrimination and “institutional neutrality.”

Of course one likely result is that minority representation will fall, especially since the Supreme Court banned race-based admissions. Now I don’t think there’s equality of opportunity of any means, and that is one reason for inequities. But to me the solution is not to substantially lower the admissions bar to create equity for minorities, but to increase equality of opportunity, which must be done by starting with kids at a very young age. We all know how hard that will be, requiring a substantial investment of effort and money (throwing money at schools doesn’t seem to work).  And I still believe in a form of affirmative action, one that nevertheless may be illegal under the Supreme Court ruling. In muy view, if two students are pretty much equally qualified, go for the minority student.  But that may be “race-based” admissions, and may be prohibited by the Court’s decision.

Regardless, we simply don’t need the DEI bloat that is causing more problems on campus than it solves.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine has delayed its launch, but the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover is heading toward completion. It was originally scheduled to launch in 2018, but technical delays prevented it. Now, after dropping Russia from the project because of their invasion, the ESA says it won’t launch before 2028.

But when it does launch and then land on Mars, it will do something no other rover has done: drill down two meters into Mars and collect samples.

The Rosalind Franklin Rover (RFR) was initially called the ExoMars Rover. ExoMars was a two-part joint mission between the ESA and Roscosmos (Russia). The first part is the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, which is currently in orbit around Mars. The rover is meant to follow the orbiter and has been renamed in honour of British chemist and DNA researcher Rosalind Franklin.

The rover will land in Oxia Planum, a 3.9 billion-year-old, 200-km-wide plain that contains one of the largest regions of exposed clay-bearing rocks on the planet. Oxia Planum was initially a candidate landing site for NASA’s Perseverance Rover, which eventually landed in Jezero Crater. There’s overwhelming evidence that this region was once watery. Oxia Planum is also geologically diverse, with plains, craters, and hills, and is flat and mostly free of obstacles.

Ancient water channels flowed into Oxia Planum in Mars’ past, and it’s possible that these flows carried evidence of life with them. In that sense, the water did some of the work for the rover. Rather than have to traverse a much larger area looking for evidence of life, nature might have delivered it to Oxia Planum for the RFR to find.

The Oxia Planum landing site. Image Credit: By NASA – http://marsnext.jpl.nasa.gov/workshops/2014_05/14_Oxia_Thollot_webpage.pdf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44399172

The RFR is aimed at astrobiology rather than geology, and if there’s any astrobiological evidence for it to find, it’ll be buried. The subsurface is protected from harmful radiation that could degrade evidence of life. As it moves around Oxia Planum, the RFR will use its ground-penetrating radar to study the subsurface. The radar is called WISDOM for Water Ice Subsurface Deposits Observation on Mars. Its data will be transmitted to Earth, where the ESA will create images of the subsurface, looking for ideal places to drill. Other instruments, like the Adron-RM neutron spectrometer, will help it find desirable water-rich deposits underground.

It will also discover buried obstacles that could make drilling difficult. Though the drill is robust and designed to operate in Mars’ harsh conditions, it could still be damaged.

The Rosalind Franklin Rover will map the subsurface, looking for desirable drilling sites. It can drill down as deep as two meters and collect samples. Image Credit: ESA

The RFR also has wide-angle cameras on a mast to help it investigate its surroundings and find routes. The cameras will also identify hydrothermal deposits for further investigation.

Once a drilling site is selected, the RFR will drill down to a maximum depth of two meters, collecting either a rock core or loose material. After withdrawing its drill, it will place the sample in its Analytical Laboratory Drawer (ALD), where a suite of instruments will examine it for both chemical and morphological evidence of past life.

The suite of instruments is called the Pasteur Payload and includes spectrometers, imagers, molecular analyzers, and other instruments.

The mission will also showcase advanced technologies. It’ll use machine learning to analyze data from its Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer(MOMA) instrument. Its PanCam (Panoramic Camera) system is an advanced system that will provide high-resolution, 3D, multispectral images of the Martian landscape. It even has a miniaturized infrared spectrometer integrated into the drill, called Ma_MISS (Mars Multispectral Imager for Subsurface Studies), to analyze the walls of the borehole as the drill penetrates the surface.

The RFR will have solar panels, but it’ll also be powered by an Americium power unit called a radioisotope heater unit (RHU). This is the first time Americium-241 has been used on a spacecraft, and its job is to keep the rover’s components warm in Mars’ frigid temperatures.

The Rosalind Franklin Rover will be more agile and autonomous than other rovers. It can drive over boulders as large as its wheels and should be able to safely navigate steep slopes. It also has the ability to lift its wheels if they’re stuck in sand or loose material. It can use its wheels to “walk” its way out of the sand.

The ESA deserves credit for severing its relationship with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine and pivoting to complete the mission without Roscosmos’ involvement.

“The war in Ukraine has had a big impact on ExoMars. The spacecraft was ready to move to the launch campaign in Baikonur in April 2022 but was halted because of the invasion and the subsequent termination of the cooperation with Roscosmos, with whom the mission was partnered,” the ESA said in a statement in 2023. “The impact on the team and the disappointment for what happened was tangible, as a lot of effort had been spent in preparing this long-awaited mission.”

Russia was originally going to supply the launch vehicle and the landing platform for the rover. However, after Russia was ousted from the mission, the USA stepped in to provide the launch vehicle. The mission still needs a replacement landing platform, which is one of the reasons for the delayed launch. The ESA says that, unlike the original landing platform, the replacement will be simpler and won’t perform any science of its own. It won’t even have solar panels and once the rover is functioning, the platform will shut down a few days after deploying the lander.

This mission is about science, intellectual curiosity, and nature, not politics. Despite humanity’s woeful behaviour towards one another, our appetite for knowledge remains robust. Many missions suffer delays and other problems, so the RFR is in good company.

If the ESA can achieve its 2028 launch date, the RFR will arrive on Mars six to nine months later, most likely, and begin its scheduled seven-month-long mission to search for evidence of past life. Despite Russia’s bluster and terrible decisions, the mission will continue.

The Rosalind Franklin Rover is a remarkable machine. There’s still a lot of work to do, and the mission still has to land successfully, which is a daunting challenge. But if it does, it may finally provide an answer to one of our most pressing questions: Was there ever life on Mars?

The post How the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin Rover Will Drill for Samples on Mars appeared first on Universe Today.

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