Mars Atmospheric Pressure affecting Ingenuity

Seasonal pressure variation on Mars

A very interesting update on the Mars 2020 mission appeared recently - specifically the Ingenuity helicopter's ability to fly in relationship to Mars' atmospheric pressure. The atmospheric density of Jezero crater is dropping. 

Seasonally, the atmospheric pressure on Mars varies approximates 25-30% peak-to-peak (Smith 2008) due to the exchange of CO2 with the polar ice cap. Ingenuity was designed for flights in atmospheric densities of 1.2-1.5% of Earth's. However, the density may drop to 1.0% requiring some extra spin-up of the blades to stop any aerodynamic stalling.

This does imply some considerations on how atmospheric variability might affect habitability when deeper exoplanet data is analyzed (Linsenmeier et al. 2015 have a good overview)

You can read more about the Ingenuity issues here.

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Avi Loeb Continues to Push the Science of ET

Oumuamua - Credit ESO M. Kornmesser

It's great to see a respected Harvard scientist push the envelope on extraterrestrial life. Avi Loeb was chastised for his speculation on Oumuamua but has bounced back with backing for his Galileo Project - "the search for extraterrestrial technological signatures of Extraterrestrial Technological Civilizations (ETCs) from accidental or anecdotal observations".

 

Loeb published an interesting op ed in Scientific American yesterday outlining his opinions on AI-enabled self-replicating technologies exploring the galaxy and how we might be able to detect these extraterrestrial objects. It's a short read but demonstrates the core idea of his project.

 

Loeb is no lightweight here and has published a number of scientific papers (one example Lingam & Loeb 2019) working through the problems of alien panspermia, probabilities of encounters and implications of the galactic environments on extraterrestrial life.

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ExoAstronomy Next Steps

ESA/Hubble,
M. Kornmesser

I've been thinking about where to go with this blog for quite a while now. So many new things and ideas have popped up in the last year of Covid its been difficult to focus on a particular topic - to name a few: UAPs and Government releases, James Webb Telescope, Avi Loeb's Galileo Project, Mars 2020, Cambrian evolution, new ocean exoplanets, reassessment of the Drake Equation, etc.

As I noted earlier, if anything, it is more than apparent that extraterrestrial life is more than just a scientific problem, it is a sociological problem (there's a full blog post being drafted just on that point alone). But the problem is exciting because it is becoming readily apparent that we will discover some form of alien life soon. The implications are immense and hopefully, I will be able to keep you updated here!

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