Ice work from the Space Science Division

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Cool Science from the Space Science Division

There are many subjects of research being investigated at the Space Science Division, but one that can be easily understood by all, and covers most of the Solar System is ice. Most of the objects in the Solar System have ice one them. Mostly H2O ice, but in the outer Solar System the ice can be made of solid nitrogen (N2), basically frozen air. Below you will find links to different groups and/or individuals in the division who in one way or another work with ice, either on Earth or in space.

 

Each year Nathalie Cabrol takes her team to Licancabur where the Mars Underwater project studies an analog ancient Martian environment to better understand the effects of UV, hypersalinity and cold temperatures on habitats and life. The lake is often buried in snow. She wrote during her last trip "The summit lake of Licancabur is under 70 cm of ice ... during our training on Juriques two days ago, we were greeted at the second summit (5,200 m) by a sustained wind (not gusts) of over 100 km/hÉthe temperature currently at the summit is -40 C, and this is without the wind-chill factor...El Nino is very present...Despite the harsh conditions, the work at the level of the lower lakes has been going flawlessly and we already have been making great progress in our sampling program as well as instruments positioning. Our biologists should arrive November 5th and move [to] a second volcano, Poquentica, waiting for us 700 km north. We do not know this one yet and everything is to be discovered there. Poquentica and its summit lake are our other objectives for this year. This volcano is located to the north, closer to the equator and has not been hit by the storms related to El Nino. We should be fine there. On behalf of the entire team, I send our thoughts to our friends back home. We are doing well and preparing well. We are staying safe and thinking of you."

Follow this link to see a few images from Licancabur.

While on her way to the top the Licancabur Team went to the assistance of a wounded paraglider who had fallen on the rocks on Licancabur volcano and provided much needed medical attention to the injured man. Here is it is the the words of Dr. Cabrol "a sudden call came over the radio: a member of a three-person paragliding team, which had summited Licancabur today, had fallen off a cliff when trying to take off and had bashed his head into the rocks below!"

See http://www.eventscope.org/highlakes/field/journal/ for more information and images.

 

Professor Monika Kress of San Jose State University spends part of her time doing research in the Space Science Division. She went to Antarctica 2003-04 ANSMET Recon field season to find meteorites on the ice.

Follow this link to see a few images that Professor Kress took in Antarctica.

 

 

 

The Astrochemistry Lab is composed of a group of scientists all of whom are interested in the chemistry that occurs on other planets, around other stars, and in the interstellar medium. Much of the chemistry they study is that of ices, such as those found on comets, satellites and other small bodies in the outer Solar System, and on microscopic grains in the dense interstellar medium where the temperature can be less than -300 degrees F. They are especially interested in what happens in the ice when its hit by radiation, such as UV photons, or cosmic rays, this can cause changes in the phase of the ice, and can make new molecules. In the lab they measure spectra of ices for comparison to icy outer Solar System bodies and interstellar clouds. For more information see www.astrochem.org.

 

 

Click on the image at left to be taken to the Interstellar Ice Research in the Blake Laboratory.

 

As a member of the imaging team for the Galileo Mission Dr. Jeff Moore has looked at impact craters and other surface features of the icy surface of Europa for indications of a sub-surface ocean there. He has studied surface volatile migration on the icy Galilean Satellites, and also the Martian south polar cap. He has recently been appointed Imaging Node Leader for NASA's New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt Mission.

 

 

 

 

Dr. Ted Roush has spent his life trying to identify the materials on the surface of planets and moons in the Solar System. As a result he spends a lot of time looking at spectra of ice, and minerals too, of course. He has been involved in interpreting spectra of icy surfaces of many objects in the outer Solar System including satellites of Saturn and Jupiter, and Kuiper Belt Objects. He is currently a science team member on MIMA, the infrared spectrometer currently selected for the Pasteur rover on the European Space AgencyÕs ExoMars mission.

 

 

Few people have spent more time studying ice than Dale Cruikshank. With colleagues, he discovered the five ices known on Triton, the three ices known on Pluto, and water ice on four large satellites of Uranus, two satellites of Saturn, Neptune's satellite Nereid, and Pluto's satellite. With colleagues, he was first to find H2O ice in the Kuiper Belt, and methanol ice on a Centaur that links these bodies to comets. Incidentally, Dr. Cruikshank is also President of the IAU's commission for the physical study of the planets and satellites in the Solar System.

 

 

Dr. Anthony Colaprete is going to be dredging up some Moon ice pretty soon with his LCROSS mission that was selected as the Secondary Payload for the LRO mission. LCROSS will deliver a 2000 kg impactor that will create nearly a 1000 metric ton plume of lunar ejecta- more than 200 times the energy of Lunar prospector- which will be visible from a number of Lunar-orbital and Earth-based assets. This will reveal new information about the composition of ice in the permanently shadowed region of the south pole that will be the target. You can read more about the LCROSS mission at ABC news, Popular Mechanics, Space.com, Astronomy Today, and astrobio.net just to name a few.

 

 

Scott Sandford has both lived with ice and observed it. He spend three seasons in Antarctica collecting meteorites, and he studies ices in comets and the interstellar medium. Scott is also a member of the Stardust comet sample return mission team, so he will be learning a lot more about comets very soon!

 

 

Dr. Brad Dalton is a scientist working at NASA Ames through a cooperative agreement with the SETI institute. Dr. Dalton has published papers about ice on Europa. Recently, Brad Dalton was a featured guest (along with two other scientists) on the radio program "Alaska Voices Live" syndicated by radio stations KBRW (Barrow, AK), KDLG (Dillingham, AK), KYUK (Bethel, AK) and KOTZ (Kotzebue, AK). Brad discussed his involvement with the Europa Focus Group, his research on Arctic sea ice microorganisms (collected from sea ice 40 miles north of the Alaskan coast at Barrow) as analogues for extraterrestrial life, and his work with the New Horizons mission to Pluto, which will be encountering the Jupiter system in a few months. Brad also fielded questions from elementary school students and teachers about extreme limits of life, sea ice thickness and implications for Europa, and climate change in the Arctic. He discussed ways that locals (including Alaskan Inupiat natives) could get involved in Astrobiology research and help to further NASA's goals of space exploration.

Dr. Diane Wooden received her Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics from UC Santa Cruz in 1979, and has been an as- trophysicist at the NASA Ames Research Center since 1983. She is a comet expert and has been pointing telescopes like NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea in Hawaii at those floating 'dirty snowballs' for years. Among other things she was watching comet Tempel 1 during the deep impact mission.

 

 

 

Up to the Space Science Division main page at NASA Ames.

Contact information for members of the Space Science Division.

Go to: Astrophysics (SSA), Planetary Systems (SST), or Exobiology (SSX).