Category: Other Worlds and Tech

Of triumph and tragedy

Posted on by Inara Pey

The last week has seen some momentous and tragic events occur in the annals of space flight and space exploration, with tragedy leading the way following the break-up of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo vehicle on Friday, October 31st, resulting in the death of co-pilot Michael Alsbury and the serious injury of pilot Peter Siebold.

The loss of SpaceShipTwo came just a few days after an Antares booster, operated by Orbital Sciences and which should have been launching an unmanned Cygnus resupply vehicle to the International Space Station (ISS), was ordered to self-destruct seconds after lifting off of the pad.

Understandably overshadowed by the loss of SpaceShipTwo was the news that China has enjoyed a further success as a part of its ambitious lunar mission plans, and NASA has achieved a further “first” on Mars with Curiosity.

The news from Curiosity came after what has been another period of relative quiet from the MSL team following the successful gathering of a rock sample from a drilling operation into a target rock outcrop dubbed “Confidence Hills” within the “Pahrump Hills” region at the base of “Mount Sharp”.

Since that time, Curiosity has been on something of a “walkabout”, as NASA JPL is calling it (“roll around” probably doesn’t give the right impression…) within the “Pahrump Hills” area whilst simultaneously analysing the samples gathered from “Confidence Hills” at the end of September, and also keeping an eye out for passing comets.

Curiosity’s “walkabout” in the “Pahrump Hills” at the base of “Mount Sharp” in October 2014. The route starts at “Confidence Hills”, the site of a successful drilling operation, and winds up to “Whale Rock”. Red dots indicate points at which the rover paused overnight, white dots denote points at which it stopped to gather images and data, perhaps over several days

As well as the familiar aboriginal reference, “walkabout” is also a term used by field geologists to describe walking across a rocky outcrop in order to determine the best places from which to examine it – which is precisely what Curiosity was ordered to do through October.

During the walkabout, Curiosity made a number of stops for data and image gathering, before arriving at a point dubbed “Whale Rock”, just below another high point which appears to mark the point at which “Pahrump Hills” join the “Murray formation”, the next destination for the rover once studies of “Pahrump Hills” has been completed. The rover will remain parked at “Whale Rock” as the science team analyses the images and data gathered in order to determine where the rover should return to carry out more detailed investigations.

The material obtained from the “Confidence Hills” drilling operation contained in the rover’s sample scoop after being sifted and graduated by the CHIMRA device in the rover’s robot arm turret, and about to be delivered to the input ports ready for analysis by the instruments in the rover’s body. This image was taken by Curiosity’s Mastcam, and has been white-balanced so that lighting conditions match daytime light on Earth

In the meantime, and in the “first” mentioned above, Curiosity has confirmed that the samples gathered from “Confidence Hills” contain mineral deposits what had been mapped from orbit. The mineral in question in Hematite – which has been found elsewhere on Mars by both of the MER rovers, Opportunity, and the now defunct Spirit.

However, the significance of the “Confidence Hills” analysis, carried out by the rover’s on-board Chemistry and Mineralogy (ChemMin) instrument, confirms predictions made from the analysis of data returned by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that Hematite deposits would exist within the rocks of the mountain’s lower slopes. This confirmation gives the science team greater confidence that the analysis of orbital data can help them make even better choices of while the rover should carry out drilling operations etc. It also means that the rover’s on-the-spot analysis and observations can be set directly into the broader geologic history of “Mount Sharp” as obtained by orbital data.

Curiosity may spend weeks or months at Pahrump Hills before proceeding farther up into the “Murray formation” and on to “Hematite Ridge”, a further location of interest to scientists. The mineral is of particular interest to scientists not so much because it might be indicative of a water-rich history in the region (as was the case with the discoveries made by Opportunity and Spirit) – Gale Crater has already more than yielded enough evidence of wet conditions being prevalent in its past history. Rather, the hematite on and in “Mount Sharp” helps scientists further understand oxidation conditions within the region. Continue reading “Of triumph and tragedy” →

Return to Blue Mars

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Amida Hall of the Byōdō-in Temple, Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, as recreated in Blue Mars by IDIA Labs
The Amida Hall of the Byōdō-in Temple, Uji in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan, as recreated in Blue Mars by IDIA Labs (click any image for full size)

Remember Blue Mars, the  mesh-based virtual world which arrived in open beta in 2009? Despite initially high hopes, it struggled to find an audience, either among general users or those of us familiar with the more free-form sandbox environments provided by the likes of SL. At its peak in 2010, it had attracted some 50,000 registrations , but only around one-tenth of that number were reportedly actually using the platform.

The statue of Buddha in the Amida Hall
The statue of Buddha in the Amida Hall

By January 2011, Avatar Reality, the company behind the platform, had reduced staffing by two-thirds, to just 10 people, before opting to try the mobile route with an iOS app, and then pinning their hopes on a “Lite” version for the PC and Mac which offered  users a “mixed reality” chatroom tool  utilising Google Street View. Neither of these really worked out, and in 2012, Avatar Reality granted expanded rights to the Blue Mars technology, valued at $10 million in research and development, to Ball State University for 3-D simulation and research projects outside of gaming applications.

For most people, that seemed to be the end for Blue Mars – but that isn’t actually the case. Since 2012, the Institute for Digital Intermedia Arts (IDIA) Laboratories at Ball State University has undertaken a number of projects utilising the platform for a variety of educational, media and research activities as a part of their  Hybrid Design Technologies initiative.

This work has been a natural outgrowth of IDIA’s early use of Blue Mars to create the Virtual Middletown Project, a simulation of the Ball Glass factory from early 20th century Muncie, Indiana. The factory and its personnel were key factors in studies carried out by Robert and Helen Merrell in the late 1930s, which became classic sociological studies, establishing the community as a barometer of social trends in the United States.

Today, the Virtual Middletown Project remains a part of Blue Mars, accessible to anyone with the original Blue Mars Windows client, as is IDIA’s other major early Blue Mars project, a reconstruction of the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco. In addition, a number of more recent historical and educational projects have been created for a range of purposes, and these all sit alongside some of the surviving original “city” builds from Blue Mars, all of which are also open to exploration by the curious.

My own curiosity about the status of Blue Mars was rekindled in early 2014, when I caught a re-run of the BBC’s The Sky At Night, which examined the ancient monument of Stonehenge as a place for prehistoric solar and lunar studies (potentially up to and including predicting eclipses. The programme featured models of Stonehenge constructed in Blue Mars by IDIA Labs in 2013, and which were subsequently used in programmes for the History Channel as well.

Stonehenge in Blue Mars during the 2014 summer soltice. The model can also be viewed from the persepective of 2700 BC and in a range of lighting conditions
Stonehenge in Blue Mars during the 2014 summer solstice.

As well as Stonehenge, Middletown and the 1915 World’s Fair, the existing IDIA catalogue includes models of Edo from the 1700s, the Mayan city of Chichen Itza; the pre-Columbian archaeological site of Izapa; Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers experimented with powered flight; the Giza Necropolis, the Apollo 15 landing site on Hadley Rille,  and so on.

All of the builds are fairly static in nature, although they can be explored, and some offer various levels of interaction, which itself comes in a variety of forms. In Edo, for example, there are various items asking visitors to CLICK ME, in order to reveal additional information within the client; elsewhere, such as in the art gallery, clicking on the displayed pictures takes you to an associated web or wiki page; elsewhere still, “transport spheres” offer the opportunity to “jump into” real-world images of the place you’re visiting.

In addition, all of the builds offered by IDIA Lab feature a HUD system, located in the bottom right corner of the screen, which in turn offers differing options, depending on the model, which may range from a pop-up, browser-like panel offering further information on the location being visited, or which may also include opportunities for setting different lighting conditions, time of day, or even views of the location, based on different dates in history.

The winter solstice, Stonehenge, 2700 BC. Note the Map buttons, lower right, which provide access to additional options and resources
The winter solstice, Stonehenge, circa 2700 BC. Note the HUD buttons, lower right, which provide access to additional options and resources

Continue reading “Return to Blue Mars” →

Between the comets

Posted on by Inara Pey
Siding Spring (circled) passing Mars (the glowing object, bottom left) as seen via the SLOOH telescope at the Pontificia Universidad Católica De Chile (PUC) Chile (images via SLOOH live feed, October 19th, 2014)
Siding Spring (circled) passing Mars (the glowing object, bottom left) as seen via the SLOOH telescope at the Pontificia Universidad Católica De Chile (PUC) – image via SLOOH live feed, October 19th, 2014

It’s now a week since Siding Spring passed by Mars as it hurtled through the inner solar system for what might be the very first time. As I reported on the day of the comet’s flyby, C/2013 A1 – to give the comet its official designation – passed by Mars at a distance of around 136,000km (85,000 miles) and at a speed of some 56 kilometres (35 miles) per second. Since then, the comet reached perihelion – the point of its closest approach to the Sun (Saturday, October 25th, 2014), and it is now on its way back out of the solar system, travelling “up” and out of the plane of the ecliptic as it does so.

It will not be back this way for at least a million years.

Despite some getting their knickers in something of a knot over video footage apparently showing an “explosion”/ “electromagnetic pulse” in the Martian atmosphere around the time of the comet’s closest approach to Mars. In particular, the video footage – some 75 images captured by amateur astronomer Fritz Helmut Hemmerich M.D., captured between 21:00 and 22:00 UT on October 19th, from an altitude of some 1200 metres in Tenerife, have had proponents of the “electric universe” theory (aka Plasma Cosmology) in something of a tizzy.

Quite what caused the artefact in Dr. Hemmerich’s images is unclear – but lens flare cannot be entirely ruled-out. Given that within hours of the comment’s passage the various orbital vehicles around Mars started popping-up and reporting their status, it would appear highly unlikely that the artefact was anything to do with some kind of massive electrical discharge within the Martian atmosphere, simply because it is not unreasonable to suppose had this been the case, it would have adversely affected at least some of the craft.

Siding Spring passing Mars, October 19th, 2014 (image: Scott Ferguson, Florida, USA)
Siding Spring passing Mars, October 19th, 2014 (image: Scott Ferguson, Florida, USA)

As it is, all of NASA’s vehicles reported absolutely no ill effects from the comet’s passage or as a result of the period of “peak dust flux” when they were expected to be at the greatest risk from the passage of very high velocity dust particles (travelling at tens of kilometres per second), and all were back in full operation within hours of the comet’s passage past Mars, as were both India’s MOM and Europe’s Mars Express. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in particular remained in contact with Earth throughout the time the comet passed by Mars and reported nothing to suggest the Tenerife images were showing anything of major significance occurring around Mars at the time of the flyby.

Currently, all of NASA’s orbital assets are continuing to study the comet and how dust and debris ejected from it has affected the Martian atmosphere, although it is expected to be several more days before the data being returned has been analysed and assessed.

In the meantime, on Friday, October 24th, and in a timely move, the European Space Agency reminded the world of another cometary encounter that is taking place. This was via the public premier of Ambition, a short film by Tomek Bagiński, starring Aidan Gillen (“Petyr Baelish” in Game of Thrones) and Aisling Franciosi (“Katie” in The Fall).

The film takes a unique look at the decade-long Rosetta mission, which is only now commencing its primary mission to observe a comet at very close quarters, including landing a robot vehicle on the surface of the comet on November 12th, 2014.

Rosetta and Philae (image: European Space Agency)
Rosetta and Philae (image: European Space Agency)

Continue reading “Between the comets” →

castAR gets a Mountain View as the developer kits appear

Posted on by Inara Pey
The new Deve Kit version of castAR
The new Dev Kit version of castAR (image via Engadget)

I’ve been following the work of Technical Illusions, the creators of the castAR projected augmented reality headset with a VR capability, for some time now, although things have been quiet on the news front for a while. However, that’s starting to change.

The first item of news is that the company in the process of moving its operations from Seattle, Washington, to Mountain View, California.

Henkel-Wallace
David Henkel-Wallace – castAR’s recently appointed CEO (image: Technical Illusions)

The move is being overseen by the company’s new CEO, David Henkel-Wallace, who joined the company in June 2014. The move is in part to try to drive-up the company’s ability to hire hardware talent – they’ve found it hard to get hardware specialists in Seattle, where software rules the roost. It also puts them in the middle of “Nerdvana” – as Co-founder Jeri Ellsworth puts it, which could do much to raise their visibility in terms of inward investment opportunities.

As it is, the company numbers around a dozen full-time employees, including Henkel-Wallace, founders Ellsworth and Rick Johnson and CFO Paul Denton. Both Denton and Henkel-Wallace have considerable experience in building-up start-ups. There’s also Toby the cat, also listed as co-founder, and fulfilling the role of Senior Cat, with responsibilities for eating, sleeping, purring and lap-sitting.

The other major news for the company is that a year after their Kickstarter campaign, their initial developer kits are now ready, and will soon be shipping to those people who pre-ordered kit through the campaign. The new headsets have also been on show to the likes of Engadget and Venture Beat’s Gamesbeat, where Ellsworth talked to Dean Takahashi.

Ellsworth is the first to admit the new headsets are still some way short of a production-ready version, but they’ve still come a long way from even the 2nd prototype versions seen just seven  months ago.

castAR - from pre-prototype (top) in early 2014 to the developer version of the headset (bottom), October 2014
castAR – from pre-prototype (top) in early 2014 to the developer version of the headset (bottom), October 2014 (images via Engadget)

The revised developer headset weighs-in at some 140 grams, and the company is aiming to get this down to around 80 grams in the production version. Included in that are two 120 Hz cameras with 135 degrees tracking, and 1,000 Hz gyro. The optics, now supplied by a Japanese company, deliver a resolution of 2,560-by-720, with every pixel addressable and capable of being resolved at a distances of between half a metre and 2 metres when using the retro-reflective system.

The headset is admittedly still nerdy-looking, resembling a pair of heavily framed sunglasses with a bulky silver mounting for the LEDs and cameras on top. However, Technical Illusions state that they opted to make the headset somewhat on the big / clunky side, as they weren’t sure how well all the tech would fit into it. They’re now confident that the package can be shrunk down to something which not only meets their target weight, but which is also more pleasing to the eye and closer to their conceptual look for production versions.

As well as the headset, the other major components of the system  – the interactive wand, the retro-reflective surface and the VR clip-on – have all been refined and improved. Work is still ongoing with the wand, which allows a user to manipulate virtual items projected by the headset onto the retro-reflective surface with “sub-millimetre accuracy”. Kits, when shipped, will also include Technical Illusions’s own game, mARbles, designed to demonstrate the gameplay capability of the system to developers.

mARbles has been designed by the castAR team to demonstrate the potential of project AR games to developers
mARbles is a “Marble Madness”-style game which can be played individually or by two r more players. It is shipping with the castAR dev kits (image: Technical Illusions)

So what is the market for the castAR? Ellsworth believes that games “will be king for a while”, and admits to looking forward to seeing flight simulators that use the castAR projection system, although she also notes other potential uses when talking to GamesBeat’s Takahashi.

A lot of people are going to get excited about tabletop collaborative experiences, where multiple people sit around a table and work in the same physical space. All the game characters are in the same space. We have a lot of companies approaching us that want to use it for visualization – architecture, things like that, where you can sit around and table and work in the same space.

Nor do users necessarily need to be in the same physical space, in order to engage with one another, as the company has demonstrated in a number of its videos.

In terms of practical applications, Technical Illusions have been working with medical experts to see how the castAR system might be used alongside MRI scans, the castAR system being use to build 3D holograms of scanned patients which can be examined by doctors and / or surgeons, helping them to build a more complete understanding of the patient’s condition.

The conceptualised castAR production headset and VR clip-on system (image: Technical Illusions)
The conceptualised castAR production headset and VR clip-on system (image: Technical Illusions)

How successful castAR is likely to be is hard to judge; the world is awash with excitement over VR that all things AR have been largely sidelined. Even the involvement of Google (and others) in Magic Wand hasn’t really done much to change that.

castAR is also somewhat different to other AR systems seen so far, potentially making it an oddball in the eyes of some media, although its potential to enter into the VR sphere through the VR clip-on may serve to generate wider interest. How big a footprint castAR might actually make in the VR world is hard to judge; a key here might be in whether it can be made compatible with games being specifically developed for Rift-type hardware.

So far, the company has managed to achieve a lot while remaining relatively low-profile. Their emphasis for the foreseeable future is on building relationship with developers and getting content integrated into the system as the hardware itself continues to mature towards the desired consumer format.

Even so, if the company is to make its mark, it is liable to need the support of investors – and the move to Mountain View is, as noted by Technical Illusions themselves, perhaps as much about that as putting them more readily at the hub of available expertise. As such, it’ll be interesting to see where the move leads.

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Magic Leap: the elephant (or dragon, or…) in your room (or street, or…)

Posted on by Inara Pey
You'll believe a whale can fly - or that's perhaps Magic Leap's hope (among more practical things)
You’ll believe a whale can fly – or that’s Magic Leap’s hope (among more practical things)

Augmented Reality took a shot in the arm this week with the new that Google is at the forefront of some US$542 million investment in technology company Magic Leap. What’s more, not only is the coming putting the money forward directly, rather than through their investment arm, Google Ventures (which has previously put money into things like Philip Rosedale’s High Fidelity, alongside of investment house True Ventures), but two senior executives from Google will be joining the Magic Leap board. These are Sundar Pichai, Android and Chrome leader, and Don Harrison, Google’s corporate development vice-president.

The funding round comes on top of an initial round of investment in February 2014, which drew some US$50 million to the company.

But who or what is Magic Leap? According to the company’s website, it is essentially an augmented reality system which uses a “Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal”, although they note we can call it “Digital Lightfield™”, capable of merging realistic computer graphics with everything the user sees in the real world. This appears to be something of a merging of both VR and AR (with the emphasis on the latter), to create an immersive whole. The system doesn’t use the Oculus Rift, but apparently uses a headset system possibly akin to, say, the castAR system or perhaps Google Glass; the latter of which might explain Google’s interest – or it might not.

However, no-one knows precisely what Magic Leap is or how it works, because there haven’t been any public demonstrations of the system, nor have any images of the hardware been released. And while trendy terms like “Digital Lightfield™” are used on the equally trendy website, there is little to tell what is going on.

So far all that has been released are a series of pretty stunning images and videos – witness the video above, or the images top and centre in this article. However, that’s not so say the company don’t have something to get investors excited.

“It was incredibly natural and almost jarring — you’re in the room, and there’s a dragon flying around, it’s jaw-dropping and I couldn’t get the smile off of my face,” Thomas Tull, CEO of Legendary Entertainment (aka Legendary Pictures) told the Wall Street Journal. Images, projected into the wearer’s eyes, can even be made to appear to pass in front of or behind real-world objects. Tull was so impressed by what he saw, he not only had Legendary Pictures to invest in Magic Leap, he also made a personal investment as well.

Nor are Legendary Pictures and Google alone. Other investors in the funding round include Qualcomm, Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Vulcan Capital, Obvious Ventures and Caufield & Byers. Qualcomm’s executive chairman, Paul Jacobs, is also joining Magic Leap’s board, and will sit alongside Google’s Don Harrison and an observer.

One of the Magic Leap promotional images: a yellow submarine apparently floats down a street the Magic Leap wearer is walking along
Another Magic Leap promotional image: a yellow submarine apparently floats down a street the Magic Leap wearer is walking along

Such a broad spread of investment potential speaks to the vision held by Magic Leap’s CEO, Rony Abovitz, who wants the company to become “a creative hub for gamers, game designers, writers, coders, musicians, filmmakers, and artists.”

The potential for something like Magic Leap in films is clear; imagine sitting down in a movie theatre, donning a pair of glasses perhaps not too dissimilar to the current 3D glasses provided at theatres, and then seeing a film where events can become a shared experience as they extend into the audience…

That may well be why co-founder of Weta Workshop, the SFx company behind the visual effects for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies (among others), Richard Taylor, was also drawn to the project. He participated in the first round of funding for Magic Leap, and now sits on the company’s board of directors.

Weta Workshop co-founder Richard Taylor: Magic Leap investor and board member (image via Stuff)

“What Rony and the Magic Leap team have created is nothing short of remarkable and will forever change the way we interact with images and information,” Taylor said at the time of his investment.

“The wearable technology they have developed is revolutionary in its ability to create amazingly immersive and fantastical experiences. This goal alone would be a Herculean endeavor for any development group, but the fact that the Magic Leap team is driven by the mantra of also delivering devices that complement human physiology is extraordinary,”

Bing Gordon, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and a former executive at EA Games sees a huge the potential for Magic Leap. Commenting on how the system is better coordinated with how the human eye and brain process images, making the computer graphics feel, and move, more naturally, he told the New York Times that Magic Leap could help drive augmented reality to outstrip mobile devices in terms of popularity in its possible range of uses.

It would seem that Google is looking more broadly at the potential of the technology as well, rather than button-holing it for any particular use or in combination with any particular product (Glass itself has been somewhat low-key this year, and was all but absent at the corporation’s Google i/o in July). Many commentators believe that Google’s investment, coming as it does from the company, rather than its investment arm, is a strategic move, with Google willing to see how the Magic Leap technology matures. Abovitz has gone a little further on matters, stating that Glass and Magic Leap use different approaches and will not be merged.

Rony Abovitz (in the space suit) and friends appearing at TEDx Sarasota event in December 2012 - still generating a "Wut?" response in many people today
Rony Abovitz (in the space suit) and friends appearing at TEDx Sarasota in December 2012 – still generating a “Wut?” response in many people today

Abovitz himself cuts something of an unusual figure – as anyone who witnesses his appearance at the TEDx Sarasota’s inaugural conference is liable to agree. The Magic Leap website is equally somewhat offbeat, indicating that the Magic Leap team comprises (among others) “rocket scientists”, “software ninjas”, “computing hobbits”, and “psychedelic physicists”.  however, it might not be wise to underestimate him. Abovitz also founded MAKO Surgical, producing surgical robotic arm assistance platforms, a company he took from start-up in 2004 to being named, in 2011, the fastest growing technology company on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500.. In 2013, he orchestrated the sale of MAKO to Stryker Medical in a US$1.65 billion deal.

“Magic Leap is going beyond the current perception of mobile computing, augmented reality and virtual reality,” Abovitz said in a company statement following the funding round. “We are transcending all three, and will revolutionize the way people communicate, purchase, learn, share and play.”

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Duck and Cover

Posted on by Inara Pey

Sunday October 19th marked the culmination of what is regarded as one of the most unique astronomical events to take place in human history – so unique, some commentators believe it may only happen once every million years or so: the opportunity to study something which may have existed before the Earth was created.

For the last several months, comet Siding Spring has been under observation as it hurtles through the solar system at an acute angle relative to the plane of the ecliptic – the imaginary line along which the planets orbit, and on Sunday October 19th, it made its closest approach to Mars, passing just in front of the planet relative to the Sun.

Siding Spring was first identified by Australian astronomer Rob McNaught, and bears the name of his observatory as a result, although officially it is catalogued as C/2013 A1. Since then, it has been under observation from a veritable armada of international space craft, and its passage past Mars presents further unique opportunities for observation and data-gathering.

Siding spring is a comet originating in the Oort cloud, and beleived to be making perhaps its first foray into the inner solar system, passing inside the orbit of Jupiter
Siding spring is a comet originating in the Oort cloud, and believed to be making perhaps its first foray into the inner solar system, passing inside the orbit of Jupiter

The comet has been identified as coming from the Oort cloud (or the Öpik–Oort cloud, to give proper recognition both astronomers who initially and independently postulated its existence). This is a spherical cloud of debris left-over from the creation of the solar system, occupying a huge area starting some 2,000-5,000 AU (2,000 to 5,000 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun) and extending out to around 50-100,000 AU – or about one light year away. Thus, Siding Spring represents some of the material “left-over” from the formation of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago – older than the Earth itself. In fact, such is the distance of the Oort cloud from the Sun, that some postulate the much of the material within it may actually come from stars which shared the same “stellar nursery” as the Sun.

There is nothing unique per se about comets coming from the Oort cloud – it is one of two places from which all comets originate, the other being the Kuiper belt (or Edgeworth–Kuiper belt, as it is also known in recognition of the two astronomers to postulate its existence in the form we now know it has). A disk of material also from the early history of the solar system, the Kuiper belt orbits the Sun at a distance of around 30-50 AU, and gives rise to “periodic” comets. These are comets which circle the Sun in periods of up to 200 years. Two of the most famous Kuiper belt comets are comet Halley, with it 76-year orbit, and comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which broke-up during a close approach to Jupiter in 1992 prior to colliding with the gas giant in 1994.

Siding Springs passage through the solar system
Siding Springs passage through the solar system

What makes Siding Spring of interest to astronomers is that this is probably the first time in its long, cold history it has ever come inside the orbit of Jupiter since it was first nudged out of the Oort cloud. This led Dr Michael Brown, an astronomer at Monash University, to describe the comet as “essentially a refrigerator of pristine parts of the creation of the solar system. The particles it gives off are effectively opening up the door of the fridge so we can see what the solar system was like 4.6 billion years ago.”

John Grunsfeld, former astronaut and associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington was equally enthused by the comet’s passage, referring to it as “a cosmic science gift that could potentially keep on giving.” Speaking at a press conference held earlier in the year to discuss NASA’s plans to observe Siding Spring, he continued, “The agency’s diverse science missions will be in full receive mode.” He went on, “This particular comet has never before entered the inner solar system, so it will provide a fresh source of clues to our solar system’s earliest days.”

The chance for scientific discovery notwithstanding, the comet’s path was initially a cause for concern, at least in terms of Mars’ future. Early attempts to track the comet’s likely route  “up” through the solar system suggested that rather than passing the Red Planet, Siding Spring would in fact smash into it.

Had the comet struck, estimates suggest it would have created a crater between 10 and 15km in diameter, depending on the actual size of the comet’s nucleus, thought to be between 700m and 1km across.  While that is certainly enough to result in quite an extraordinary bang and some severe changes in the Martian atmosphere (not to mention the sizable dent it would make in the planet’s surface), Mars has actually withstood much larger impacts in its time.

Take Hellas Basin, for example. It is the largest visible crater in the solar system, some 2,300km (1,440 miles) across, and with an ejecta ring some 7,000km (4,375 miles) across. It is believed to have been created by the impact of an asteroid some 400km (250 miles) in diameter.

The Hellas Basin, shown in purple in the image of the right, above. Deeper than Mount Everest is tall, the depression was likely caused by the impact of an asteroid some 400km across. The impact also resulted in the Tharsis Bulge on the opposite side of the planet, and shown in red in the image on the left, topped by the three massive Tharsis volcanoes, and split by the 5,000km length of the Vallis Marineris
The Hellas Basin, shown in purple in the image of the right, above. Deeper than Mount Everest is tall, the depression was likely caused by the impact of an asteroid some 400km across. The impact also resulted in the Tharsis Bulge on the opposite side of the planet, and shown in red in the image on the left, topped by the three massive Tharsis volcanoes, and split by the 5,000km length of the Vallis Marineris

As Grunsfeld noted, such is the scientific opportunity presented by the comet, that NASA has put a significant number of assets in the front line of tracking and observing Siding Spring. These include the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer infra-red space telescope, the WISE infra-red space telescope, the Chandra X-ray observatory, the Kepler orbital observatory (used in the search for Earth-sized extra-solar planets) and more, as well a host of ground-based observatories.

Foremost in the front line, by dint of the comet’s close passage past Mars, are NASA’s orbital and surface vehicles there. Curiosity, Opportunity, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), Mars Odyssey and MAVEN, together with Europe’s Mars Express and India’s MOM, are all watching the comet, although for the orbiting spacecraft, this comes with a degree of risk.

Siding Spring has been, and is, under observation by an armada of science probes and also from observatories on Earth
Siding Spring has been, and is, under observation by an armada of science probes and also from observatories on Earth – including these from NASA

Continue reading “Duck and Cover” →