The Future of Mars Sample Return

Astronomy guest episode seven hundred ninety six, Oceans and Organics on Mars. Welcome to Astronomy Cast Our Weekly Fact based journey through the Cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know but how we know what we know. I'm Franza Kane. I'm the publisher of University with me as always as Dr. Pamel Lagay, senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the Director of Cosmoquest. Hey Pam ela, how you doing? I am experiencing levels of spring that are unlike your levels of spring . Right. But my weeds are taller than I am in some of my flower beds. Oh my goodness , things are growing like never before. And you have them trying to breed in your nose from what I understand. Yeah, so I returned from a trip in Japan to a wall of histamines . You know, all of the plant matter had been waiting for me to return. And so it's literally the moment I got off the plane in our home city , the allergies came roaring in and I am all you know, I'm a Claretonian and still , I know you can probably hear a little a little gloopiness in my in my voice. So I will do the best that I can to minimize it and you know, our editors will clean up the dad's sound s, but yeah man, it is gorgeous. You leave your garden for two weeks, you come back and it has been busy and it's surprising it's wonderful to see all of the changes. So no and deer got in, which is great. So I get to see what trees look like when they're actually allowed to grow as opposed to savaged by brutal, cruel deer. I have one hilarious green bean plant. They're growing up strings and I have cages around the bottom and then the cage only goes up so high and there is this naked section on the vines that is the part the ground hog could reach over the cage . So leaf leaf leaf, naked leaf it's glorious and excellent and the ground hog survived getting picked up by my dog and carried off . Yeah . If you don't garden, why not? It's best . Obviously, you know, some people don't have a room to garden, but even if you have like a little balcony, get gardening Mars is cold and dry today, but the evidence is growing that it used to be warmer and wetter with seas and oceans that covered large parts of its surface. With the additional findings of the chemicals for life, the search for life on Mars is getting pretty interesting . We'll talk about it a second, but it's time for a break. Thinking about buying or leasing a car and not sure where to start? Meet FlexCar, the first and only month to month car lease with no large down payments or deal ership hassles. One simple monthly payment covers your car, insurance, maintenance, roadside assistance, and more. Swap cars when your needs change or return at any time, giving you total flexibility with FlexCar, you drive everything. Use code SFB to get fifty dollars off your first month at flexcar. com And we're back. All right, so I want to talk first about like setting the scene, which was the dead end that the Viking mission got us to in the search for life on Mars. Can you tell this story? So the Viking Mission had three different experiments on board that were designed to try and identify is there life here, both by looking to see what chemicals were getting metaboliz ed, how the air in the container was getting metabolized and by looking at the organics . And they realized that one of the experiments they had not taken into consideration the reality of Mars and it was utterly inconclusive . The best the worst kind of conclusive ? Yes . One of the experiments was like there is life . And then everyone's like, No, no, no, this must have a different explanation . And then the third one was like, I got nothing. So we have yes , no , and did we take into consideration everything we should have ? And this has led to squabbling that persists to this day . To this day . Right now as we are recording this at the National Academy of Science , there is a two day meeting going on on ast robiology and signs of life where they were discussing these experiments this morning . So literally to this day on this day this is getting discussed . Yes. And so the thinking was some people were like, yes, there is present day microbial life on Mars and they will go to graves arguing even for lichens . And then the majority the field , which is honestly over it with all of the people claiming aliens is like no , Viking did not prove anything. It did not prove anything . And so from the nineteen seventies until the early two thousands, everyone was like, No , Mars is dry, Mars has never had water. We're going to explain the canyons. We're going to explain everything that looks like fluid flow as aolian processes, which means wind, it is the coolest word and not fluvial process es, which means water , less cool of a word . And then we started landing landers again . But I think the, I mean, more than just landing landers, there were orbiters, there were images from the from orbit that told a story that was really hard to explain by wind patterns alone that you're seeing craters where rivers are flowing into them and rivers are flowing out of them. You are seeing features that can really only be explained by moving water. And and then I think so then they sort of, you know, the way they described it is they went back to the to the beginning of the foundation, went back to first principles and said, okay, let's just start by telling the story of Mars . Let's just like, was there ever liquid water on Mars ? And if we can get to there, then was there liquid water on Mars for a long time? And if we can get there , then were there organics on Mars ? And then are there any indications that there is or was ever life on Mars? Like it was like we are going to no longer make this argument inconclusive. And this was the follow the water plan . And so in two thousand three, we had a new orbiter arrive that started delivering high res images And we started getting neutron measurements indicative of frozen water . And what was really interesting was the two thousand three Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference , the headliners were all alien processes. It's wind . And at the end of the session , which is usually when people's brains are dead and they're no longer taking notes was when you'd hear the but fluvial explains this better. Let me count the ways . Yes. And then a couple years later, we finally had spirit an opportunity to get to the surface . And as spirit and opportunity climbed around looking at the landscape , we were finding things like cracked mud landscapes that listen to the words I just used to describe it cracked mud cracked mud yeah . And suddenly the language that was headlining changed to water process . And so you're still sort of living in this. This seems to indicate cracked mud. This appears to indicate water. But then you're seeing things like the famous blueber ries , concretions . So you talked about cracked mud and that was just one. I mean, there were a lot of smoking gun evidence. And I think one of the ones that was most exciting people are probably very familiar with were these sphereols or these Martian blueberries. So these were actually discovered the opportunity rover, again part of that spirit and opportunity pair of rovers . And these were the kind of small minerals that we really only expect to be formed in water. And it got people thinking , okay , so how do we need to rewrite the history of Mars to make sense of this ? And the revolution started there. And spirit and Opportunity had a lot of really good equipment. They had their stereoscopic vision. They had arms, they could drill a bit . They had some spectral capacity , but they didn't have that dig deep and they didn't have the power necessary . All right, so we're going to continue this story, but it's time for another break. It's game day. Are you moderate to severe Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms keeping you from the action? Sky Rizzi, Risen Kizumabriza, could help you get back to the game . Skyrizi is proven to help people feel significant symptom relief, achieve remission, and visibly improved damage of the intestinal lining. Skyrizi is a prescription injection medicine for adults. Don't use if allergic to Skyrisi. Serious allergic reactions, increased infections, or lower ability to fight them may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor about any flu sympt likeoms or v accines. Liver problems leading to hospitalization may occur when treated for crohns or ulcerative colitis. Ask your doctor about Skyrizzi, the number one prescribed bi ologic encrons and ulcerative colitis combined. Learn more at Skyrizzy. com or one eight six six Sky Rizzy and we're back. All right, so Spirit Oortppunity said, Okay, yes, there appear to be geological traces that water was acting here on the surface of Mars. But it was you could have had a deluge and then it was over one rain four billion years ago and then it was over. And then the world was dry forevermore. And that is not conducive to life. So NASA , Okay, let's build up the picture . How long water present on the surface of Mars? And this is where we saw a trio of missions that started with Mars Phoenix , which was launched in two thousand seven, landed in two thousand eight and its sole raise on debt to identify water flat out, is there water ice ? It went to a polar region . It had a scoop, it had an amazing social media campaign . And it landed on the surface. It went scrapy, scrapy , it revealed white stuff and the white stuff sublimated exactly the way water ice should sublimate. There it was. Right. And you look at Martina Telescope, you see the polar ice caps. Like there is water ice. It is, but it is hard as rock ice at the poles. Right. Question is, is it mixed in with the regolith at more , you know, more southern latitud . It was sixty eight degrees north. So right. Yeah . So you're seeing that this that water ice is blended in to the regolith just below the surface in the one spot that Phoenix landed and so must be in other places as well. And this was where we also saw discussions start to arise about the dark stripes that we're getting seen is that water? Is there brine beneath the surface ? So all of that was coming out and this led to funding of Curiosity Rover and Insight Land er . Insight went with a seismograph looking to see Mars was still geologically active. It went with equipment to drill the failed spectacularly and was the most amazing we're going to problem solve this ever . Insight is amazing . And then curiosity was sent with a radiothermal generator, which is a lump of nuclear materials that as it decays, generates heat, generates power . So with its radiothermal generator, it had more power to be able to do more science. And it also carried with it a sample analysis ability that we had never had before. So the sample analysis at Mars , SAM, located in Curiosity's Belly, had the ability to take samples and twice , which is not a lot, but it had to carry chemicals with it to drop on the samples it scooped up . So the samples that it scooped up, the chemical it dropped on allowed it to break apart organics to see what are these complex molecules made of. The first paper to come from this just came out. They did a sample at Mary Annings the name of the rock. It's named after woman in Dover that the she sells okay she sells sea cell. Yeah, that tongue twister that I am incapable of saying is actually because of her. She collected fossils and sold them to sold seashells by the sea. Exactly. And she was also like the first citizen science, but also became a leading paleontologist. Awesome story, Garrett. They named this rock after her. That's awesome. And they found twenty organics that had never previously been seen on Mars and the broken up much bigger molecules . And so this is one of the amazing wet chemistry labs that they're able to do with curiosity . And curiosity's early successes led to the launch of Perseverance Rover , which is in J ezero Crater. So Gael Crater is clearly a former lake. It has Mount Sharp, which is the central peak of the crater . It has been climbing Mount Sharp, looking at organics at different places as it goes. Jezero Crater is another previously filled with water crater, but its wall collapsed creating this amazing river delta . And while crossing the river , it came across it's called Sapphire Canyon where this river to talk about persevere. Yes. So persecuted in Jezero Crater had been going through Sapphire Canyon where this river used to flow and came across what they've named the Bright Angel formation . And this was about a year ago . And with all the capabilities this little rover has, they poked and prodded this rock . And the organics they're finding are completely consistent with a biosignature. Now they can't say for certain that there was life on Mars . They don't have the capacity . Percy did its best. It could only get us so far. We need to do a sample return. We have cancelled our sample return. We hate everything right now. Yeah. All right. We are going to talk about this more but it's time for another break . Get three months free plus free install on oneed hundred percent fiber internet from race communications . Stream, game and work without buffering. Order online today at offer dot race dot com and get three months free And we're back. So just to sort of recap the story so far, right? The purpose of curiosity was to say was there water acting on the surface of Mars for a long period of time ? And in the cr ater that it landed in climbing the flanks of Mount Sharp , it found ample evidence that this place was not only wet once, but it was wet for a long time. That the rains fell, the crater filled that this was a lake. Yeah , and that water was doing water stuff for a very long . Curiosity kind of nailed that. Yes. So then you move on to that next step and you say, Okay , then were the conditions habitable for life for a long period of time? And this was the purpose of perseverance . And so in addition to it confirming that that Jezero Crater had water acting on it for long periods of time , it also found that the conditions were the stuff of life . It found the stuff of life, that the conditions were reasonable, that if we dropped earth life down, it would stand a good chance of surviving in this environment. And then as you said found some really exciting and this is fairly fresh stuff. I mean, we're talking within the last year here from a exploration mission that has been in this new phase since Spirit and Opportunity. I mean, we are twenty years into Let's Find Life on Mars V two , right ? And we are now getting to the point where there is a rock , there are chemicals in that rock , which we'll talk about in a little bit more detail here , that the scientists have said we've tried to explain it in every non life way that we can and we have come out we have run out of ideas someone please explain this rock. Right. Now obviously other astrobologists are saying hold my beer yeah , right. I got plenty of explanations. But that's the thing is they said hold my beer and they said, give me my beer back. I got nothing us. One more gear no, I'm getting my ear back. Okay, one more time. No, wait, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think you're exactly right, which is that we are now , we have gone as far as I mean, obviously we can get farther. I mean, if we saw a fossil, right, if we saw a stromatolite, if we saw something really exciting . But they've seen things that look exactly like Trimatolites. I know, I know, I know, I know. But if we, but if we did see a b Mars unny run by, then that would be more evidence, right? But now we need that sample return because there is only so much lab equipment you can pile into these rovers . We need to bring these things home. And Rosalind Franklin just doesn't have it. It's right Rosalind Franklin Rover is several year old technology because this poor rover got cursed by the Russian Ukrainian war and losing its launch vehicle and a bunch of other stuff . The U. S. has canceled all NASA funded missions to Mars in Le u of commercial missions to the Moon . And we have these samples scattered all over Mars that just need someone not sampled in perseverance sample collection I think people caches as it goes. It has done both. Yeah . So it has taken samples, put them inside its special sample collection apparatus, and then it has taken backups and dropped them on the landscape behind it. And so you could either meet up with perseverance, hand over to the samples, put them on your return vehicle, bring them home to Earth, or you could chase down the pathway that perseverance has traveled and pick up samples that are lying around the surface of Mars both are options and that you get twenty or whatever of the finest most interesting samples that the scientists on Earth were able to direct perseverance towards into the hands of the biggest labs on Earth, you are going to make some magic. Yeah and but this is, you know, this is not we're not going to trauma dump. This is not a grieving session here where we are just going to whine about a lack of a Mars sample return mission. We want to celebrate what's been discovered. Yeah, we want to bring you right up to speed with what is the cutting edge of the search for the story of life on Mars ? And it's really amazing. And the details are still coming out. It takes time to analyze results. We're going to continue to see new results about bright angel rock . I'm having to be so careful during this episode because I read a paper that is not yet published that I'm working on putting together press stuff for. And it's so cool, people . And so here we have a river delta that has essentially been fossilized in place. And there's so much other cool stuff on Mars . There was work done a few years ago where by looking at how the landscape was altered response to water , they were able to identify where tsunamis have historically taken place. So you can imagine one of these crater lakes that gets swamped by either a landslide or an incoming meteor, both . And as a result , a tsunami moved across the Caterr lake. And there's some evidence this is still being discussed , how long it would have lasted , that the reason that one side of Mars is at a radically different altitude than the other is there used to be an ocean. And so what we're seeing is the ocean floor and the continental landmasses , sands oce an. Right. And I just love that idea. Kevin Gill has amazing graphics related to that. We used one of them for the slide cover for this video . Go look at Kevin Gill's work. It's science based . And this is like a multi country exploration. So we got a really interesting discovery from the Chinese rover , Tamwen , which found it was able to map the ancient shoreline. They targeted the landing site for Timwin to be at what they was thought to be the ancient shoreline and it was able to map out and see that yes ind,eed, this was the place where water was probably lapping at the side of an ancient sea for a very long period of time. Very exciting. So again, the evidence is building. Now the Chinese are going to be sending sample ret aurn to January three. And yeah, and it's going twenty eight . It launches in twenty eight, it lands in twenty thirty one and they're not going to have a multiyear rover ahead of it collecting samples , but they are going to carefully target where it lands. It's too early to know where it will land at this point. Grab something interesting nearby, put it on a rocket, send it home. So we will by the middle of next decade, well, early next decade get our hands on a fresh piece of Mars. Which is pretty exciting, not as good as the best samples perseverance could find, but it is still a good first step forwards getting some samples from Mars. So do you think like are we now in the end game of the V two search for life on Mars . I don't know if we're endgame yet just because time scales are so wibbly wobbly . I mean, that's the thing is our exploration of Mars limited by the technology we've been able to land, which is where Percy did the best it could and said I think biosignatures, but we can't prove it without a full laboratory of equipment that has a whole lot more power than that little robot has , the helicopters we're planning to send aren't gonna be able to do chemistry . Right, this guy fall . Yeah . And so the end game question is when are we going to bring back right samples to incontrovertibly say yep, yes . Yeah. And I think I'm sure people are listening to this right now, their thought is, well, aren't humans going to go to Mars and so can't they do this in the same way that humans went to the moon ? And the tech stack for sending humans to Mars and bringing them safely home to Earth is the same thing , but vastly more complicated than sending a robot, picking up a bunch of samples and bringing them back home to Earth. The robots are hardier, they can handle a lot more. So if you can't do the first thing, then you can't do the second thing. Right . And your other option is we'll send the humans and send good lab equipment. But again, good lab, like we are talking devices that are the size of a small building. Right. You cannot take one of those and put them on the surface of Mars . You really want to bring that stuff back home to Earth. And so I think you're going to see that gate be can we get good samples back from Mars that allow the scientists to conclusively search. And I think a great analogy of this is what's happening with the samples of Rayugu and Vanuk. Benu. Yeah. We're seeing these just little whiffs of asteroids amazing science turning into some of the most incredible discoveries that science has made about our understanding of the history of the solar system. I mean, they finding am'reino ac ids, they're finding ratios of water to deuterium . They are putting together the history of the solar system in a way that you just have never been able to do with meteorites that the solar system has deigned to drop on our planet up until this point. So yeah, end game is sample return . I'm hoping that we can do fossil hunting while we're both still alive. That is my dream is fossil hunting on Mars. Fossil hunting on Mars, yeah, walking around, chipping open a rock, looking inside. I mean, it can be a robot. It can be a super powerful robot. Yeah, yeah. But why not astonaut? Like I like to go with a little hammer and chip away at rocks and look for fossils and science, so let's let an astronaut do that too. That might be a good use of astronauts . It's true. It says something that I've always said I hope to be a little lady fossil hunting on Mars. I think I'm just a little bit scarred by the double boom starship 's Booster and Blue Origin . So last week was a really bad day and currently we have Starship New Glen and Vulcan all grounded . Yeah, we are not go for lunch. We are not go for lunch. Right. All right, well Pamela, that was awesome. Thank you. It was my pleasure and thank you to all our patrons . Some of you have realized you can get me to say truly ridiculous things by having truly ridiculous usernames. To those of you who make me laugh, I salute you. To those of you whose names I'm about to mispronounce , I'm just really sorry . This week we would like to thank Adam and Eise Brown, Alexis, Andy Moore, Astro Bob, Bart Flarety, Benjamin Mueller, Breznik , Bruce Amazing, Christian Berg , Cooper , David Fiance, David Green, Dr. Woah , Ed, Evil Melkey, Frank Stewart, Jeff McDonald, Gordon Dewis, How McKinney, Jacob