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Project Boreas
Project Boreas was a study conducted between 2003 and 2006 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a station on the Planum Boreum at the Martian North Pole. The project was international, involving over 25 scientists and engineers, co-ordinated by Charles S. Cockell. Pole Station was designed to operate for three summers and two polar winters. Amongst a diversity of scientific objectives the station occupants were to retrieve a deep core from within the Martian polar ice caps and search for water and habitable conditions deep in the polar ice cap. Expeditions were planned to numerous locations across the Martian north polar caps, including the Chasma Boreale and the polar layered terrains. The study involved wide-ranging investigations of the scientific priorities for a human presence at the Martian polar ice caps through to detailed architectural and design studies for the station. Studies were undertaken on mobility and communications and psycho-social issues for long-term o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Interplanetary Society
The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), founded in Liverpool in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest existing space advocacy organisation in the world. Its aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration. Structure It is a non-profit organisation with headquarters in London and is financed by members' contributions. It is situated on South Lambeth Road ( A203) near Vauxhall station. History The BIS was only preceded in astronautics by the American Interplanetary Society (founded 1930), the German VfR (founded 1927), and Soviet Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel (founded 1924), but unlike those it never became absorbed into a national industry. Thus it is now the world's oldest existing space advocacy body. When originally formed in October 1933, the BIS aimed not only to promote and raise the public profile of astronautics, but also to undertake practical experimentation into rocketry along similar lines to the organisations above ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrobiology
Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investigates the deterministic conditions and contingent events with which life arises, distributes, and evolves in the universe. Astrobiology makes use of molecular biology, biophysics, biochemistry, chemistry, astronomy, physical cosmology, exoplanetology, geology, paleontology, and ichnology to investigate the possibility of life on other worlds and help recognize biospheres that might be different from that on Earth. The origin and early evolution of life is an inseparable part of the discipline of astrobiology. Astrobiology concerns itself with interpretation of existing scientific data, and although speculation is entertained to give context, astrobiology concerns itself primarily with hypotheses that fit firmly into existing scientific ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir Arthur Clarke Award
The Sir Arthur Clarke Award is a British award given annually since 2005 in recognition of notable contributions to space exploration, particularly British achievements. Nominations for the awards are made by members of the public, with shortlists drawn up by a panel of judges, who also choose the winner. Sir Arthur C. Clarke chose a special award independently of the public nominations. History Founded in 2005, the idea for the awards was proposed by Dave Wright to Jerry Stone, who then suggested they be named after Sir Arthur Clarke. Once permission was granted, Jerry Stone decided what the awards should look like, what categories should be included, and how they should be nominated and judged. The awards are presented by the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, although the selection is delegated to the British Interplanetary Society, with the exception of the International award, whose recipient is voted on by the Foundation Having obtained Sir Arthur's permission for the awards ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ice Caps
In glaciology, an ice cap is a mass of ice that covers less than of land area (usually covering a highland area). Larger ice masses covering more than are termed ice sheets. Description Ice caps are not constrained by topographical features (i.e., they will lie over the top of mountains). By contrast, ice masses of similar size that ''are'' constrained by topographical features are known as ice fields. The ''dome'' of an ice cap is usually centred on the highest point of a massif. Ice flows away from this high point (the ice divide) towards the ice cap's periphery. Ice caps have significant effects on the geomorphology of the area that they occupy. Plastic moulding, gouging and other glacial erosional features become present upon the glacier's retreat. Many lakes, such as the Great Lakes in North America, as well as numerous valleys have been formed by glacial action over hundreds of thousands of years. On Earth, there are about of total ice mass. The average temperature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snow
Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout its life cycle, starting when, under suitable conditions, the ice crystals form in the atmosphere, increase to millimeter size, precipitate and accumulate on surfaces, then metamorphose in place, and ultimately melt, slide or sublimate away. Snowstorms organize and develop by feeding on sources of atmospheric moisture and cold air. Snowflakes nucleate around particles in the atmosphere by attracting supercooled water droplets, which freeze in hexagonal-shaped crystals. Snowflakes take on a variety of shapes, basic among these are platelets, needles, columns and rime. As snow accumulates into a snowpack, it may blow into drifts. Over time, accumulated snow metamorphoses, by sintering, sublimation and freeze-thaw. Where the climate is co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon Dioxide
Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light but absorbs infrared radiation, acting as a greenhouse gas. It is a trace gas in Earth's atmosphere at 421 parts per million (ppm), or about 0.04% by volume (as of May 2022), having risen from pre-industrial levels of 280 ppm. Burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of these increased CO2 concentrations and also the primary cause of climate change.IPCC (2022Summary for policy makersiClimate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA Carbon dioxide is soluble in water and is found in groundwater, lakes, ice caps, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ISRU
In space exploration, in situ resource utilization (ISRU) is the practice of collection, processing, storing and use of materials found or manufactured on other astronomical objects (the Moon, Mars, asteroids, etc.) that replace materials that would otherwise be brought from Earth. ISRU could provide materials for life support, propellants, construction materials, and energy to a spacecraft payloads or space exploration crews. It is now very common for spacecraft and robotic planetary surface mission to harness the solar radiation found ''in situ'' in the form of solar panels. The use of ISRU for material production has not yet been implemented in a space mission, though several field tests in the late 2000s demonstrated various lunar ISRU techniques in a relevant environment. ISRU has long been considered as a possible avenue for reducing the mass and cost of space exploration architectures, in that it may be a way to drastically reduce the amount of payload that must be laun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life Support System
A life-support system is the combination of equipment that allows survival in an environment or situation that would not support that life in its absence. It is generally applied to systems supporting human life in situations where the outside environment is hostile, such as outer space or underwater, or medical situations where the health of the person is compromised to the extent that the risk of death would be high without the function of the equipment. In human spaceflight, a life-support system is a group of devices that allow a human being to survive in outer space. US government space agency NASA, and private spaceflight companies use the term environmental control and life-support system or the acronym ECLSS when describing these systems. The life-support system may supply air, water and food. It must also maintain the correct body temperature, an acceptable pressure on the body and deal with the body's waste products. Shielding against harmful external influences suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timekeeping On Mars
Though no standard exists, numerous calendars and other timekeeping approaches have been proposed for the planet Mars. The most commonly seen in the scientific literature denotes the time of year as the number of degrees from the northern vernal equinox, and increasingly there is use of numbering the Martian years beginning at the equinox that occurred April 11, 1955.). Mars has an axial tilt and a rotation period similar to those of Earth. Thus, it experiences seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter much like Earth. A sol, or Martian day, is less than an hour longer than an Earth day. A Mars year is almost twice as long as Earth's, though its orbital eccentricity is considerably larger, which causes those seasons to vary significantly in length. Sols The average length of a Martian sidereal day is (88,642.663 seconds based on SI units), and the length of its solar day is (88,775.244 seconds). The corresponding values for Earth are currently and , respectively, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martian Dust Storms
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. It became the most popular celestial object in fiction in the late 1800s as the Moon was evidently lifeless. At the time, the predominant genre depicting Mars was utopian fiction. Contemporaneously, the mistaken belief that there are canals on Mars emerged and made its way into fiction. ''The War of the Worlds'', H. G. Wells' story of an alien invasion of Earth by sinister Martians, was published in 1897 and went on to have a large influence on the science fiction genre. Life on Mars appeared frequently in fiction throughout the first half of the 1900s. Apart from enlightened as in the utopian works from the turn of the century, or evil as in the works inspired by Wells, intelligent and human-like Martians also began to be depicted as decadent, a portrayal that was popularized by Edgar Rice Burroughs in the ''Barsoom'' series and adopted by Leigh Brackett among other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climatology
Climatology (from Greek , ''klima'', "place, zone"; and , '' -logia'') or climate science is the scientific study of Earth's climate, typically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of at least 30 years. This modern field of study is regarded as a branch of the atmospheric sciences and a subfield of physical geography, which is one of the Earth sciences. Climatology now includes aspects of oceanography and biogeochemistry. The main methods employed by climatologists are the analysis of observations and modelling of the physical processes that determine the climate. The main topics of research are the study of climate variability, mechanisms of climate changes and modern climate change. Basic knowledge of climate can be used within shorter term weather forecasting, for instance about climatic cycles such as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO), the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO), the Arctic oscillation (AO), the Pac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Planum Boreum
Planum Boreum (Latin: "the northern plain") is the northern polar plain on Mars. It extends northward from roughly 80°N and is centered at . Surrounding the high polar plain is a flat and featureless lowland plain called Vastitas Borealis which extends for approximately 1500 kilometres southwards, dominating the northern hemisphere. Features The main feature of the Planum Boreum is a large fissure or canyon in the polar ice cap called Chasma Boreale. It is up to wide and features scarps up to high. By comparison, the Grand Canyon is approximately deep in some places and long but only up to wide. Chasma Boreale cuts through polar deposits and ice, such as those present at Greenland. Planum Boreum interfaces with Vastitas Borealis west of Chasma Boreale at an irregular scarp named Rupes Tenuis. This scarp reaches heights of up to 1 km. At other places, the interface is a collection of mesas and troughs. Planum Boreum is surrounded by large fields of sand dunes spanning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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