lecture 11 Flashcards
lecture 11 material
What are UFO’s?
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO) or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)
- reports became more common when aircrafts (WW2) became rapidly produced
- UFO acronym coined by Captain Edward J Rupplet to remove alien association with aliens
- does not provide evidence that aliens exist
UFO’s and citizens
everytime someones sees one, they believe its an alien “saucer”
- realistically they are terrestrial aircrafts, or atmospheric phenomena (mirages that distort things because of the bending of light)
- rarely does a UFO remain unexplained
- low resolution images also distort peoples beliefs into thinking that its aliens
venus
- people mistook the light of venus as a UFO as it “followed” them
drones
- people trick other people into dressing up drones similar to UFOs
All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (ADASO)
- recieves UFO claims and reaches explanations for them with scientifc framework
Brief overview of Mars
- most well known of all planets
- most likely to have life
- next planet for humans to visit (15-20 years)
- mars used to be more like earth (had water)
- has the same axis of rotation as earth
- its distinct orange-red hue named it mars after the greek god Ares
Name the main people who had involvement with Mars
- Brahe and Kepler; Brahe observed motions in the sky, which Kepler used to create his 3 laws
- italian astronomer Giovannit Schiaparelli created very detailed drawings of mars (its canals whom people believed aliens dug)
- Percival Lowell was infatuated with life on mars, and dedicated his life to reseaching this and planet 9
Name the main characterisitcs of Mars
- half the size of earth
- less dense (more metal)
- one year is 687 days, one day is 24h and 37m
- 2 moons (phobos and deimos)
- weaker gravity (can jump higher)
- very thin atmosphere (1% of earths + 95% CO2)
- heavily cratered
- red appearance bc of rust
Explain martian volcanoes and icecaps + more
volcanoes
- Contains largest volcano in solar system (olympus mons; 65km across)
- Tharsis bulge area (3 more volcanoes + olympus mons)
- clouds form over volcanoes
Ice caps
- grow and shrink seasonally
- permanent icecap; water
- seasonal icecap: CO2 (gets larger in winter), dry ice
more
- valles marineris runs from Tharis region nearly 5000km along, 8km deep (martian grand canyon)
- landslides are common
First missons to mars
- Mariner (orbiters)
- Vikings (landers)
- point was to find life on mars (bio labs were on the landers, and analyzed samples found on mars)
- most missions failed
- Sojourner (landed with airbags)
- took a picture of a “face”, ppl thought it was aliens, was a mesa (hill thats flattened on top) because of bad lighting and resolution (pareidolia) with your mind filling in the blanks
Water on mars
- if life exists on mars, its going to be in the water
- evidence for past water on mars (runoff and outflow channels) that basically made indents of rivers
- gullies; features found on steep mountains with vertical lines indicated waterflow (salt melting temp)
- they think that ice beneath the surface comes into contact with salt, it melts a bit, and gets trapped in the soil, then freezes back again
- current martian environment cannot handle water for more than a couple seconds
- there could be water that comes out through the cliff with significant pressure to irrigate the surface (thousands of years)
What is the surface topography of mars?
- area of mars comparable to contiental land area on earth
- the 2 hemispheres of mars are quite different
- range elevations of 21 km
- the northern hemisphere tends to be younger and at a lower elevation
- hemispheres have gone through much different evolution processes over the last 4.5 billion years
- lots of dust storms on mars; mariner nine was engulfed in dust
- pick up every 10ish years
What were the mars exploration rovers (MER)?
spirit and opportunity (names)
- contained solar panels
- deploted airbags to land
- goal was to find physical evidence for water/past water
- opportunity found hematite which is only produced in the presence of water
- both were lost because of a sandstorm blocking the solar panels (lasted 7-14 years)
What are dust devils and how can they actually be beneficial?
- it snows a bit on mars
- there are some clouds on mars
- dust devils are basically dust tornadoes sorta
- arise from afternoon heating of the surface
- theyre not dangerous
- they actually clean the dust off of solar panels :)
- wind on mars is very very strong, but the atmospheric pressure being so week puts no pressure on you
- the most danger youll be in is not being able to see for a while because of the copious amounts of dust
Mars reconnaissance orbiter (phoenix)
ground penetrating radar = detecting hydrogen deposits = detecting water
- land near equator to take advantage of sunlight for energy
- since mars has light for 6 months, anything would last for only 6 months than die without sunlight
- was able to find icewater with acceptable pH level
- used light instrument to find snow
what changed on mars?
- used to have magnetic field
- 4b years ago, it cooled faster than earth, therfore its heat dissipated faster, and eventually its atmosphere stripped away by solar winds causing any water ot evapourtate ( solar wind acting like sandpaper, making atmosphere so thin that water froze)
- earth had water formed 3.8b years ago around same time life occured (likely same thing happened on mars)
life on mars???
- did life form some 4b years ago and manage to survive the changes to the surfaces conditions
- likely moved underground for habitability factors (organic materials, metals, and escaping radiation)
- new rovers had to do missions to figure this out
mars helicpoter
- small (1.5kg)
- flew 72 missions
- scouted and explored
- helpful for rovers
china and mars
- deployed a spacecraft into orbit and on the ground
- rover stopped abt a yaer ago
- they wanted to attempt a sample return
- NASA and ESA have been wanting to do this
- send a EUA vehicle to mars to pick up all the samples that perseverance has been picking up and bring them back
- very hard to do
