QUEST Community Science Blog

Mockup of Phoenix (top) and ‘Robinson Crusoe on Mars’
(bottom)—both set in Death Valley National Park…
Credit: NASA (top), Paramount Pictures (bottom)It’s that time of the Martian year again: when a flying saucer from Earth appears in the skies of Mars. Imagine if there actually were Martians up there: what’s science fiction here on Earth would pass for reality on the Red Planet—and a routine occurrence at that!

This time the flavor of the day is the Phoenix Lander, courtesy of NASA, scheduled to land on May 25th at about 4:38 PM PDT. We’ll be watching live NASA coverage of the landing at Chabot Space & Science Center that afternoon, if you’d care to join us…

Following somewhat in the footsteps of the Viking landers of the 1970s, Phoenix’s primary mission is to look for evidence of life, or at least the chemical conditions that might be suitable for life to exist. The two Viking landers carried small chemical laboratories that analyzed soil samples scooped up from the surface, as does Phoenix.

While its mission parallels that of Viking, one big difference from Phoenix is its destination: the Northern Polar Ice Cap of Mars. The Vikings landed much farther south in the mid latitudes. Phoenix is targeting the ices of Mars’ arctic region.

Growing up, one of my favorite sci-fi films was Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Made in 1964, the same year that Mariner 4, the first space probe to Mars, was launched, RCOM made a descent stab at imagining what it was like. So what if the main character walked around in apparent t-shirt weather and with sufficient atmospheric pressure to keep his blood from boilin–he still wore a respirator that doled out oxygen from an ever-dwindling supply tank, a nod to Mars’ thin atmosphere.

A couple of other things our astronaut Robinson Crusoe found on that fictional Mars that we are now looking for on the real one: liquid water and life…Our hero found small caches of water (with the help of a monkey) in grottos between the rocks, and, lo and behold, living in that water was a vine-like life form with edible fruit or tubers. He even took a foot-trek, along with his guy Friday, to the polar ice cap…

(I also loved the film because some of its “Martian terrain” scenes were shot in my favorite spot on Earth, Death Valley…)

Though evidence of past liquid water action seems to be all about the planet, Phoenix certainly won’t find any brooks or pools or grottos of spring water, owing at least in part to the frigid arctic region it will set feet on–an arctic zone on a world where the warmest temperatures in the tropics might reach levels of the coldest climates on Earth. What’s important about landing on Mars’ ice cap is that Phoenix is almost certain to dig up some water–albeit frozen.

And it is the chemical compounds either locked up in that ice or preserved by its proximity that Phoenix is interested in. (Similarly, climatologists on Earth study ice cores from Antarctica to analyze the trapped and preserved gases of Earth’s atmosphere of past millennia.)

We wish Phoenix a happy landing, and look forward to the first images and discoveries from the Martian North Pole. And I’m fairly confident the epic polar adventure ahead won’t resemble in the least another “great” film of 1964: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians….

Benjamin Burress is a staff astronomer at The Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.

There’s nothing like a trip away from the city lights to remind you just how bad light pollution can be here in the Bay Area.

The Milky Way in the skies of Death Valley’s
Devil’s Racetrack. Credit: Dan Duriscoe, U.S. National
Park ServiceI just got back from my semi-yearly pilgrimage to my favorite spot on Earth: Death Valley National Park. My main reasons for returning to this place again and again have mostly to do with hiking in the stunning natural beauty of the place, reconnecting with good times in my childhood, and reflecting spiritually on life, the Universe, and everything.

But, I can’t go to a place like that and not feel more connected with outer space. Not only is the night sky a celestial spectacle–but it’s darned cold there too, this time of year! Cold, like space. Each turn of the Earth through its own shadow is like a quick dip in the icy pool of space….

After twilight had faded, after the campfire had burned to embers–and as the frigid cold of the desert winter night started seeping through my layers of clothing–I lay down on the picnic bench and raised my binoculars to my eyes…

…and that’s all I had to do. Arcing overhead was the section of the Milky Way around the constellations Cassiopeia, Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus–a section of the sky rich in a variety of “deep sky” objects (objects typically only visible through binoculars or telescopes).

There was the Double Cluster in Perseus–a pair of “open” clusters of stars.

Open clusters are stars bound together gravitationally, still clinging to each other after their “group infancy” in the gaseous cloud that gave birth to them. Stars in these clusters are young–and because of their youth, open clusters often contain a number of large, bright, blue stars that shine brilliantly–but which have short life spans as stars go, being more prolific hydrogen-burners (gas guzzlers). (In a word, you can’t find an old blue giant star.)

You can’t avoid seeing open clusters in this region; the place is positively littered with them….

This is also where the famous Andromeda Galaxy can be found, in the constellation Andromeda (where else?). What’s special about the Andromeda Galaxy? For one, it’s the closest large galaxy to our own, as well as the most distant object in the Universe that can be seen with the unaided human eye (without telescopic help). Looking at the Andromeda is like looking through a peephole into the realm beyond our Milky Way…

I could go on and on yakking about what I got to see in the clear, dark Death Valley skies last week, so I’ll have to stop myself now. Suffice to say that with a dark sky, a pair of binoculars, and a segment of the Milky Way in view, encountering the celestial wonders of the Universe in a very personal way is like shooting ducks in a barrel.

But don’t let the light polluted skies of the Bay Area stop you from trying it from your own backyard; there’s a lot to behold despite the city lights…

Benjamin Burress is a staff astronomer at The Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.