You Can Help NASA as a Citizen scientist

In 2003, NASA launched a pair of twin rovers to Mars. Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet in early 2004. But Spirit became stuck in deep sand in 2010 while Opportunity continued functioning until 2018. Those two were followed by Curiosity, still going strong on the Martian surface. But Curiosity’s wheels became worn down early in its mission due to traveling over a field of tough, sharp rocks.

NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars, credit NASA

Now, NASA is asking for your help in training Curiosity to recognize and avoid terrain that might cause a problem. NASA partnered with the citizen science site Zooniverse (www.zooniverse.org). Zooniverse contains dozens of projects that citizen scientists, you, can help with. I have written about Zooniverse in several past columns, but the site is constantly adding new projects at the request of scientists around the world. There are many subjects that researchers need help in ranging from Arts to Language, History, Medicine, and Physics, just to name a few. Once you register on the site, you can join in any of the projects. Some Zooniverse volunteers have made significant discoveries and are even named as collaborators on the scientific papers produced with their help.

 The project that helps Curiosity drive safely is called AI4Mars. Not only will it help Curiosity, it will also teach the next Mars rover, Perseverance, expected to launch in July. For now, Curiosity needs your help as its wheels are already compromised, and NASA doesn’t want it to meet the same fate as Spirit.

Mars Perseverance Rover set for launch in late July 2020, credit NASA

The Zooniverse website describes the AI4Mars project goal: “By participating in this project, you will help improve the rovers’ ability to identify different, sometimes dangerous, terrain - an essential skill for autonomous exploration!

 “Terrain is important to get around on Mars. Spirit got stuck in a sandpit and ended its mission after 7 years of exploring Mars. Opportunity and Curiosity also have experienced getting stuck in sand, although they were able to continue on their missions. Don’t you think it would be nice if the Mars rover could identify dangerous terrain by herself? That is what a team at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on using Machine learning – essentially the same technology used by self-driving cars on Earth. To do so, the rover needs training data to learn from.

“We're counting on citizen scientists' help in labeling a set of images captured by Mars rovers so that we collectively create the Solar System's first public benchmark for Martian terrain classification.”

AI4Mars is only one of 96 projects on the Zooniverse site where scientists in all disciplines ask for the help of citizen scientists like yourself. If you have always liked science but thought you just weren’t cut out for it, this is where you can help real scientists do real, important science.

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

Walk the Entire Vertical Relief of Earth

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since this was originally written for the Oklahoman newspaper, I used reference points in Oklahoma. So, I’ve added the distances to the streets/cities listed here so you can figure out the same for wherever you live.

Now that restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have been relaxed, I imagine a lot of folks are out and about. Perhaps you are walking more, going to the park again, or even taking trips to some of our state’s great outdoor attractions.

Here’s a trip idea: walk to the top of Mt. Everest, the tallest point on Earth. Or to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the lowest point on Earth. Think those are impossible walks? Of course, they are, but you can walk a simulation of those trips.

The summit of Mt. Everest is five and a half miles above sea level. That would be about the same as walking north along May Avenue from Reno to Grand Boulevard (5.8 miles, 9.3 km). The average person walks two to three miles per hour (3.2 – 4.8 km/hour), so such a walk would only take about two hours.

Mt. Everest Credit Benjamin Oppenheimer and USGS

The Mariana Trench is just under seven miles deep, about the same as walking south on May south from Reno to SW 104^th street (7 miles, 11.3 km), a walking trip taking less than three hours. When you get there, you can turn around and walk for five hours north all the way back to Grand, and you have walked the entire vertical relief of planet Earth. That doesn’t seem so far when you think of it like that.

        Schematic of Mt. Everest with Mariana Trench, Credit Daily Mail

How about we go even farther, to the edge of space? By general agreement, space scientists define the edge of space, what’s known as the Kármán Line, as 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level. I know I could not easily walk that far. And even if I could, it would take more than a day to do so.

So, let’s drive. Hop in your car and drive to Weatherford, 110 miles (177 km) west of Oklahoma City, a bit less than half-way to the Texas Border. You passed the Karman Line at Hydro and are now ten miles (16.1 km) into space. Keep driving on to Amarillo, a total of 259 miles (416.8 km), and you’ve reached the cruising altitude of the International Space Station (254 miles, 408.8 km).

Who knew that if you turned west at the Amarillo Junction (the junction of I-44 and I-40), you’d be heading to the ISS?

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. After it is published there, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

Life Below Earths Ocean Floor Give Scientists Hope for Finding Life on Mars

Ten years ago, scientists from the University of Tokyo, Japan, led an expedition to drill into rock 400 feet below the ocean floor. They have been studying the various rock samples, ranging in age from thirteen million years to 104 million years, ever since. Theses ocean rocks formed when undersea volcanoes spewed out lava which cooled into fractured rock and became buried under ocean sediment. The cracks filled with clays from the ocean floor.

The scientists knew that rocks beneath the surface of dry land were home to bacteria, and they looked for bacteria living in the ocean rocks. After intense study, with some missteps along the way, they finally found dense bacterial colonies, numbering more than 100 billion bacterial cells per cubic inch, living in the clay-filled cracks. This density of bacteria is similar to that found in the human gut. That compares to a paltry 1000 bacteria per cubic inch living in the muddy layers above the rock on the ocean floor.

"I thought it was a dream, seeing such rich microbial life in rocks," said Associate Professor Yohey Suzuki from the University of Tokyo, one of the leaders of the expedition. "Honestly, it was a very unexpected discovery. I was very lucky because I almost gave up."

This finding excites astrobiologists who search for signs of past, or present, life on Mars. Much of Mars was once covered by lakes and oceans, with similar clay minerals. Just as in the Earth study, Martian ocean sediments were eventually covered and compressed into rock at the bottom of those bodies of water.

"Minerals are like a fingerprint for what conditions were present when the clay formed. Neutral to slightly alkaline levels, low temperature, moderate salinity, iron-rich environment, basalt rock -- all of these conditions are shared between the deep ocean and the surface of Mars," said Suzuki.

Mars 2020 Rover Perseverance. Credit NASA

NASA will launch the next Martian rover, Perseverance, in late July or early August. Among other scientific instruments, Perseverance posses a biological testing lab that will search for similar bacterial colonies, living or fossilized, in similar Martian rock that was once the bottom of a Martian sea. The findings of Dr. Suzuki’s team gave NASA scientists the road map for searching for ancient, Martian bacterial colonies that may, perhaps, tell us that Mars was once, possibly still is, a home for life.

 Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

Two Celestial Visitor over Next Two Months

Two celestial visitors grace our skies over the next couple of months. The first one is a 2-mile-wide asteroid that, if it struck Earth, would cause significant damage. The second is a comet that, if it keeps getting brighter at the rate it is now, will become bright enough to cast shadows at night.

The first cosmic guest comes calling on April 29^th when asteroid 1998 OR2 passes by. The size of a small city, and therefore quite destructive should it ever strike Earth, it was discovered on July 24^th, 1998, by the now-defunct Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program, funded by NASA and operated jointly through several major U.S. observatories.

NASA classifies 1998 OR2 a “potentially hazardous asteroid.” To receive that designation, an asteroid must be at least 500 feet across and pass within 4,650,000 miles of Earth. While an asteroid at that distance poses absolutely no threat to Earth, its orbit could be altered by gravitational tugs from other planets or moons in our solar system so that, on a future orbit, it might pass much closer to Earth or even impact our planet.

The closest approach of 1998 OR2 occurs at 4:56 CDT in the morning of the 29^th. At that time, it will still be 3.9 million miles away, or 16 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon. Even with its relatively close proximity, it won’t be visible to the naked eye. But if you have a telescope and a clear, dark sky you can spot it. Go to https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/asteroid-52768-1998-or2-april-2020-how-to-see#tips for tips and charts to locate it.

Asteroid 1998 OR2 Image credit Gianluca Masi and The Virtual Telescope Project

Comet C/2019 Y4 ATLAS may become a spectacular sight in our night sky in late May. It was discovered on December 28, 2019 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS, hence the name), another NASA-funded program, operated by the University of Hawaii. As astronomers tracked it after the discovery, the comet brightened at an unprecedented rate. While astronomers expect that rate of brightening to slow down, if it were it continue to brighten as it has been, it will rival a crescent Moon in our night sky.

One major hurdle exists before the comet can bloom into a bright, beautiful sight in our night sky. The comet will pass closer to the sun than Mercury. Bright comets passing close to the sun often break into pieces or even disintegrate altogether. But if it survives that close pass, it could become the brightest comet since Comet Hale-Bopp, which passed by in 1997.

ATLAS C2019Y4_200318_FB credit  Rolando Ligustri

These two should excite amateur astronomers and all those who wonder at the night sky.

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. After it is published, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

A Second Moon

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, NASA astronauts brought 842 pounds of rock and soil from the Moon to Earth. In addition to those samples, scientists have found more than 370 meteorites known to have come from the Moon, weighing a total of 489 pounds.

That’s impressive, but what if astronauts could bring the entire moon back to Earth?

Not that Moon. The other one.

On February 15^th, astronomers with the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey at the University of Arizona announced the discovery of a new moon orbiting Earth. Kacper Wierzchos, one of the astronomers who made the discovery, posted several images of the object, designated 2020 CD3. Analysis of its orbit indicated that Earth’s gravity captured it three years ago when it was a small asteroid orbiting the sun. It’s tiny, only 6 to 12 feet in diameter. While it is too small to see without a large telescope, it is also small enough to be captured in a ship and returned to Earth. It is a captured asteroid and studying its makeup goes a long way to helping us better understand the origin of our solar system.

2020 CD3 Image credit: Kacper Wierzchos, Catalina Sky Survey, NASA

Wierzchos said of the discovery “It's a big deal, as out of approximately one million known asteroids, this is just the second asteroid known to orbit Earth (after 2006 RH120, which was also discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey).”

2006 RH120 eventually left Earth orbit after only nine months due to gravitational tugs and radiation pressure from the sun. 2020 CD3 will likely also leave Earth orbit eventually, but there is currently no evidence that solar radiation pressure is affecting its orbit. And it has already been a second moon for three years. So perhaps it will stick around for a while.

The Catalina Sky Survey’s mission is to hunt for and catalog all near-Earth asteroids that may pose an impact risk to Earth. While 2020 CD3 would not be a significant risk to Earth on impact, due to its small size, discovering that it is now Earth’s second moon may be even more exciting.

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for the Oklahoman newspaper. After it is published there, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from the Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.

How to Write a Bestselling Book

It seems like EVERYONE wants to write a book. When acquaintances, friends, or family members find out I’m a writer, they often describe, sometimes in long-winded detail, the book they want to write. Then, inevitably, they ask for tips on creating their great American novel.

I wrote a book about things that fall from the sky. The first chapter dealt with weather phenomena. Now, as a scientist, an astrophysicist by degree, I actually have a fair understanding of how weather works. After all, it’s just physics applied to the atmosphere. But, as so many writers do, I wanted to check to see if I incorrectly explained anything weather-wise, so I sent it to a well-known, local meteorologist. I explained that I was writing a children’s book (I had already published four at that time) and asked if she would go over the chapter dealing with meteorology. She emailed me back gushing about the children’s book SHE wanted to write. That was four years ago, and she still hasn’t written that book. (And, by the way, she never responded to what I asked her, to verify my meteorological science.)

Many of my writer friends tell me similar stories: friends wanting help in writing the book that they’re certain will be the next New York Times best-seller. Essentially they are asking for a ten- minute description (or four-text chain, or quick email exchange) on how to write a great novel.

That, of course, is impossible. The best way to learn to write a great book is to read a lot and write a lot. In fact, the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury once said about becoming a good writer, “Write a thousand words a day and in three years you will be a writer.” That’s a million words! That’s the equivalent of 10-20 full-length novels.

That is a bit of exaggeration. I honestly don’t know of any writer who wrote and threw away 15 novels before becoming a best-selling author.

Ray Bradbury’s advice, however, is sound in this sense: almost no one is born being a best-selling writer. Like any craft or skill, one must hone it over a long period of time with practice and failures to become excellent at it.

But I can, and do, tell people who ask me how to become a novelist that there are some skills they must learn to do well.

First, learn grammar and spelling, or use a good grammar checker and a spell checker. When Word, or whatever word processor you use, underlines a word you’ve written, it means something. It never ceases to amaze me when I judge various writing contest entries how many people ignore those and have misspellings, improper punctuation, or simply bad grammar. Editors will reject such books, and, even if you self-publish with no editing, readers will reject such books.

Second, and I can’t state this strongly enough, AVOID PASSIVE VERB CONSTRUCTION. When you use words like be, have, had, is, was, were, are, did, do, can, etc., your writing is weak. Using passive verbs TELLS the reader what happens in the story instead of SHOWING the reader how the story unfolds through actions, dialogue, and character responses to situations. And, along the same lines, avoid overuse of adverbs, all those –ly words many beginning writers use in abundance. Like passive verbs, they tell the reader what the characters think instead of showing.

Third, make sure you know everything about your two most important characters: your protagonist and your antagonist. What does the protagonist want? Why does s/he want it? What obstacles can prevent him/her from achieving the desired goal? How is the antagonist able to thwart the protagonist, and why does he/she want to? Remember also that an all-good hero or an all-bad villain is unrealistic. Those are 2-dimensional, cardboard-cutout characters. Even though the villain may be quite evil, he/she might still feed a stray dog.

And, along the same lines, KNOW YOUR STORY. What happens in the course of the story to hinder the protagonist? What is the climax and why is it a virtual do-or-die circumstance? How is the hero changed by the entire chain of events? If there is no change and growth by the hero, you don’t have a story, you have a vignette that ultimately makes no difference in the end. The reader will feel cheated by that book.

Hundreds of books exist which describe everything that goes into making a great novel, and this short blog can’t begin to cover everything a novice writer needs to learn. But those are by far the most common mistakes I see wanna-be writers make.

I also add a fourth “must” for new writers. Join a writers club and/or a critique group. Go to writer’s workshops and conferences. You need the lessons you get from the workshops and conferences and the critical reviews you receive from your critique group.

Read. Read books in the genre or genres you want to write. Read books about writing. Hell, read the newspaper. Those writers have to write every day and they eventually get quite proficient. That’s why a surprising number of great authors began their careers as journalists.

And after you’ve done all that, start on your million words. It may not take you that many, but we all need goals.

Origin of Life on Earth: The Phosphate Problem

Biologists currently don’t know where or how life began on Earth, but they do have plenty of theories. They have a pretty good idea of what chemicals are required to create life. Five elements are critical for all life on our planet: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. Of course, many other elements come into play, but the basic structures in our cells absolutely demand these five. While all exist in our environment, they need to be highly concentrated relative to the environment in general for life to take hold. So much of the investigation into the genesis of life focuses on how to concentrate these elements.

The first, widely-accepted notion suggested that life began in tidal pools at the ocean’s edge. As tides moved out, pools of water left behind concentrated chemicals when the water evaporated. This idea held sway for many years. In the late 1970s, scientists discovered hydrothermal vents on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. These are locations where seawater seeped into Earth’s interior, became super-heated, and came back out through volcano-like vents. The hot water leached minerals out of the rock as it returned to the ocean.

This seemed to many to be even more plausible. But one puzzle still remained. Neither scenario seemed to provide the needed concentration of phosphorus. As Jonathan Toner, a University of Washington research assistant professor of Earth and space sciences described it, "For 50 years, what's called 'the phosphate problem,' has plagued studies on the origin of life.” He led a research team that studied alkaline lakes for a possible solution to the ‘phosphate problem.’ These form in low-lying areas where water collects via drainage from dry environments, often in volcanic regions, like Mono Lake in California.

Mono Lake, California. Credit U. S. Geological Survey

Typically, carbonate combines with and traps phosphorus, but in these alkaline environments, carbonate also combines with calcium which would otherwise lock-up phosphorus, too. The net result is a phosphorus concentration high enough to support life on Earth. Once again, origin-of-life theories have come back to the idea of bodies of surface water as the starting point for life on our planet.

Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for The Oklahoman newspaper. On the following day, I post that same column to my blog page.

This is reprinted by permission from The Oklahoman and www.newsok.com.