Sweet Toolkit of Research Instruments Unveiled for NASA-ESA ExoMars Orbiter

By Clay Dillow Posted 08.04.2010 at 2:37 pm 2 Comments

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter ESA

In 2016, NASA and the European Space Agency will launch the first-ever joint U.S./Euro mission to Mars, and Tuesday they unveiled exactly what kind of toys the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter will have on board. Among the highlights: the Mars Atmospheric Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer (MATMOS) that can detect concentrations of gas down to parts per trillion.

Unlike most of the current missions orbiting and roving Mars, ExoMars's mission is to focus on the atmosphere of the planet with a suite of instruments that can take measurements 1,000 times more sensitive than those by previous orbiters. Among those instruments are an IR-sensitive radiometer that can measure water, dust, and other particulate matter in the atmosphere continuously and a four-color camera that will snap images of space above the planet as the other instruments take measurements. Another camera will simultaneously capture wide-angle images of the entire planet so researchers have visual data to go along with their spectrometer data.

As for spectrometers, there will be two aboard ExoMars (including MATMOS) that can detect molecules at extremely low concentrations. Researchers want to know exactly what Mars's atmosphere is made of to help them determine if there ever was, or ever could be, life there. Of particular interest is methane because it can come from both geological and biological sources. Researchers first recognized it there in 2003, and they would like nothing more than to determine its origin.

Researchers know there's not a lot of it there, but MATMOS and company should be able to find whatever methane is present. They estimate that the amount of methane produced by the microbes in the bellies of just three cows would be observable by MATMOS even distributed through the entire Martian atmosphere.

ExoMars will orbit the planet focused on the horizon, collecting molecular data as light streams straight through the atmosphere during orbital sunrise and sunset. But the 2016 mission isn't purely focused on the space above the Martian surface. While ExoMars is put into orbit, the carrier craft will also send a vehicle to the surface to conduct experiments on the ground.

[Space]

Previous Article: Microsoft's Engkoo Scans the Web to Teach Itself How to Teach You Languages

Next Article: Distributed Humans Smarter Than Distributed Computers In Solving Complex Biology Problem

2 Comments

Link to this comment

Regen

08/05/10 at 4:34 am

So is it possible to determine if methane is from green men or geological? I didn't get if this craft intends to confirm the methane or understand where it's coming from?

Link to this comment

bicrip

08/08/10 at 3:01 am

Yeah, they weren't very specific were they?

Here's the deal:
The spectrometer cannot tell the isotopic composition of the methane and so cannot use heavy/light carbon ratios to try to determine the source of the methane directly.

what this *can* do is pinpoint where the methane is coming from. By detecting methane at partperTrillion levels, it becomes easy to see places in the atmosphere where there is little-to-no methane and places where methane concentrations are constantly high no matter the weather.

If the latter, that must be a place where methane is entering the atmosphere from the mars. (In the sense of "from the earth" synonym for "from the ground".) This is important because water mixing with certain types of rock can generate methane. If there is none of that rock type in the area where methane emerges from the mars, then the source is likely biological. Also, if there is that rock type nearby (which is more likely) but the rate of outgassing requires a large amount of rock and the methane is streaming from a small area, that also indicates likely metabolism (biotic origin).

Conversely, mars-ological (non-biologic) origin would be indicated if there are thin streams of methane outgassing from many, many locations, and all of those locations have the type of rock/mineral required for non-metabolic (geological/marsological) production of methane.

Life has the ability to super-concentrate itself near nutrients, but mars-ological production of methane is steady based on temperature, amount of water, amount & type of mineral, and porosity of that mineral.

So, knowing how much of the gas comes from how many locations on Mars tells us a lot. This is the accomplishment of creating a spectrometer capable of being sent to Mars that has ppT resolution, and this is also how picture taking can contribute to understanding the difference between metabolic methane and mars-ologically produced methane.

--)->

Popular Tags

Technology

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Technology

+ More Photo Galleries

June 2013: American Energy Independence

Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.