Lucy Hanrahan
Chang, Kenneth. "NASA Craft Is Orbiting
Mars, to Study Its Air." The New York Times. The New York
Times, 21 Sept. 2014. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.
The title, NASA Craft is Orbiting Mars, to Study Its Air,
could be misleading considering the new NASA spacecraft which is orbiting mars is studying how the Comets orbiting Mars affect the atmosphere on Mars. NASA’s spacecraft, Maven,
arrived and started it orbit around Mars on Sunday September 14th
2014. Managers told the NY Times that it was looking good and “is healthy and
currently doing a big looping 35 hour orbit around Mars. Maven, short for
Martian Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution, was going to be orbiting for six
weeks and then starting its scientific measurements in November. But first it
would be observing a comet that would closely pass Mars on October 19th.
It spent five days observing how the Comets dust affected Mar’s atmosphere and
the levels of hydrogen. This study is to compare the rate of the atmosphere from what
scientists think it was long ago to now. They will not have results until the
spring.
Scientists believe that almost four billion years ago Mars had a thick layer of air
containing carbon dioxide which heated up the planet and made it warmer than it
is today. Sometime since than the atmosphere has cooled which could be due to
air molecules escaping space or they could’ve been converted to rock through
chemical reactions. It is important that Maven is studying how an atmosphere
could change so drastically because it could be dangerous if that happened on
earth. It is interesting to know if the comet had an affect on the atmosphere
changing. It is scary to think about overtime the earth cooling or heating. We
do have this issue of global warming on earth. If there was life on mars they
would have an issue of this severe cooling and it is interesting to see how a
spacecraft can study the statistics.
I found
this article interesting because it is current studies on something that has
changed so dramatically. I was unaware that the atmosphere was vanishing and it
makes the possibility of life on mars more unlikely because without an
atmosphere there is no chance for survival. It was interesting because the
article really only talked about the five days that it would be monitoring the
comet orbiting Mars and it did not talk about the other five weeks the
spacecraft would be observing the actual planet of Mars.
I learned a few things from this article. Firstly I didn't know NASA had launched a new probe to Mars for new research about the atmosphere. I also find it interesting that comets can help scientist figure out the rate at which the atmosphere is shrinking so that they can estimate what its atmosphere use to be. I am also surprised to think Mars use to have a thick atmosphere of Co2.
ReplyDeleteIn this review, you did a good job giving me a general back-round information of what NASA plans do with the new probe orbiting mars. You also make good connections with how the atmosphere could effect life on mars.
My question I have is what kinds of scientific measurements are going to be performed on mars? Maven is going to study the atmosphere and why it is vanishing, plus what happened to all the water on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAVEN
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/success-nasas-maven-probe-goes-orbit-around-mars-n208371
You presented your article really well. One fact that I found really interesting is that it spent time researching how the comets affected Mars atmosphere and their hydrogen levels. I also had no idea that NASA even had a space craft on Mars so that is cool to know about.
ReplyDeleteYou presented all three of your paragraphs extremely well. I like how you said right away that the space craft could be misleading.Your summary paragraph was really well written. I found it interesting that you said that they really only focused on five days instead of the whole time it has been in orbit.
One way you could of made your review better is by making a connection from the outside world to you article.
Lucy's article was well analyzed and well written. I found it interesting how a probe can figure out so many characteristics about a planet, and the scientists rely on that for all of the information. I did not know that there was something called the rate of atmosphere. I found it shocking how the chances of life on mars is becoming unlikely, because of the lack of atmosphere. Overall, it was a good article.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that Lucy did well in her article was that she provided a lot of background information about what the probes were, and what they were going to do, or what was their mission. This helped me understand the article better. She also gave a good paragraph about what she thought about this article, which helps the reader understand a bit more about the article.
One question I have is what are all of the scientists going to do with all of this data that they have collected?