Graduate student presents lecture on Guelph’s ventures into space
An unmanned vehicle continues its lone journey in an unknown, unexplored land. It takes landscape photos, selfies, and panoramas when it finds something new and interesting. It is curious about its surrounding environment. It navigates rugged terrain, crosses plateaus, and scoops up soil samples to decipher their composition. At the end of the day, it takes a nap to recharge itself.
This vehicle is not a character from popular science fiction. This vehicle is a nine-foot-long, nine-foot-wide, seven-foot-tall Mars rover, which is fittingly named Curiosity.
Curiosity was launched aboard NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Spacecraft (MSL) on Nov. 26, 2011 from Cape Canaveral, Florida and landed on the surface of Mars, on Gale Crater, on Aug. 5, 2012.
Curiosity celebrated its second Martian birthday (approximately equal to four Earth years) on May 11, 2016.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”Curiosity was sent to determine if Mars could have ever supported life.”[/pullquote]On May 18, 2016, the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph hosted a public lecture and observatory tour to mark Curiosity’s Martian birthday and to acknowledge the fact that Mars will be moving closer to Earth than it has been in a decade. The event also acknowledged the Canadian Space Agency’s contribution to both the Curiosity mission and the knowledge of Mars the institution has provided the world with.
The lecture was given by Scott Van Bommel, a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph. He explained Curiosity’s mission on Mars during the lecture.
“Curiosity is essentially a third-generation NASA Mars rover. The previous missions’ twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity, landed on opposite sides of the planet, [and were sent] to look for water. Curiosity was sent to determine if Mars could have ever supported life,” said Van Bommel.
Curiosity has covered 1353 sol (solar days on Mars) and 12.78 km since landing. It is powered by a nuclear power source (Plutonium-238), which generates heat. Since the temperature on Mars is cold (averaging about -63 C), the difference in temperature generates an electric current through a multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) to keep Curiosity functioning.
“They are planning to send humans to Mars in a couple of decades,” explained Van Bommel. “It is very important to assess the dosage of radiation that an astronaut has to endorse.”
[media-credit name=”Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS” align=”aligncenter” width=”640″]
In addition to the radiation detector, Curiosity is equipped with many self-calibrating instruments including a weather station, cameras, and an Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS).
The APXS is funded by the Canadian Space Agency and is designed and managed at the
University of Guelph. Professor Ralf Gellert, the principal investigator on both Curiosity and Opportunity’s APXS technologies, manages both rovers and stays involved with all of the rovers’ operations on the surface of Mars.
“We actually have an APXS in the lab, in the basement of the physics building, and we are constantly studying new things and increasing [our] sample library,” said Van Bommel about the team’s work.
The APXS team is comprised of scientists and team members from four Canadian universities: University of Guelph, University of New Brunswick, York University, and Brock University. The complexity of this technology is emphasized upon realizing that the APXS attached to the arm of the rover is the size of a pop can.
“There are sources on the instrument, they emit radiation and charged particles that interact with the surface of Mars and the interaction causes the atoms on the surface of Mars to emit an X-ray that is characteristic to that atom. […] From this we can determine composition […] with remarkable precision, without actually having to touch rock or soil,” said Van Bommel during the lecture.
[pullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“It is really cool to have a piece of Mars here in Guelph.”[/pullquote]In an interview with The Ontarion, Van Bommel shared the team’s excitement about Curiosity’s current and future work on Mars.
“We have made our way to the sand dunes so far and we have studied it thoroughly. Right now we have reached the base of the mountain in the middle, and we are studying and characterizing it. We are going to slowly make our way up to the top of the mountain to study different parts of mountains. From orbit, there are some signatures of different exciting minerals and stuff all along the way. We are hoping to drive far enough so that we can study each of these regions and really understand more about the history and evolution of Mars through a wide range of time periods,” said Van Bommel.
“We are looking forward to getting a piece of Mars […], a Martian Meteorite, coming to Guelph in the future to study with it,” said Van Bommel. “It is really cool to have a piece of Mars here in Guelph.”
The Ontarion had the opportunity to ask Van Bommel one of the most exciting questions to ponder: could Mars have ever supported life?
“The answer [to] that is yes,” Van Bommel said. “We have tested many different sites and this is not just one spot at one time on Mars […] this is over more than just really a short period of time.”
The lecture was concluded with an observatory tour where participants of all ages got an opportunity to see Mars, Jupiter, and the moon through the telescope from the University’s observatory deck, located on the roof of MacNaughton.