Welcome to Cosmic Diary

Third day of the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting tomorrow, Wednesday December 5, and I anticipate another busy day. Julie Castillo from Jet Propulsion Laboratory and myself organized a session on the internal structure and composition of small solar system bodies (SSSBs). This session will give us an opportunity to discuss recent results on the compositions and physical properties of asteroids and comets.  The discussion and results should be new since our view on the internal structure of SSSBs has changed drastically over the past decade thanks to the exploration with spacecrafts and the discovery of satellites around several asteroids.

Possible asteroid internal structures by Walkers et al. (Advances in Space Research Volume 37, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 142–152)

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Tomorrow is the first day of the AGU Fall Meeting, in San Francisco, CA. I love this conference, not only because it is 30 min door-to-door from my house, but also because it is BIG… Last year there were ~27,000 registered geoscientists, and there is no reason there should be less of them this year. With more than 29 parallel sessions in diverse  topics such as Atmospheric Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Hazards, Biosphere, Volcanology, Cryosphere, Education and of course Planetary Sciences, plus several social events, and press conferences, it will be a feast for scientists, science reporters and the public.

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On November 26 2012, I gave a lecture at a UC-Berkeley for the course “Ethics for Astronomers” led by Paul Kalas, Professor in this university and colleague of mine for several years. I think this kind of courses is extremely important for graduate students who will face ethical issues in their career and need to learn early how to address them.

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A piece of Mars: Small dunes (or possibly ripples) are likely no longer moving in today’s winds. Or are they? Dark splotches on their upper (northern) sides suggest some kind of wind scour has recently occurred. Winds blow, create dunes, then stop blowing, only to later strengthen and reactivate, destroy, bury, or overwrite older dunes. This seems to be a theme in many of my images. But that’s probably because it seems to be a theme for Mars. (HiRISE ESP_028288_1720)

A piece of Mars: Some places on Mars highlight just how effective the wind is at sculpting the surface. This is a good example. Dark and light stripes on the right show not one but two successive influxes of sand: the light dunes formed first, then were eroded, and finally dark sand invaded the area. Some of it got stuck in the troughs between the older dunes. Bright streaks behind craters show that the dark sand blew in from the west-southwest. (HiRISE ESP_028603_1765)

A Piece of Mars: A large dune (on the right, bluish) rests on a surface covered in much smaller dunes or ripples (on the left, cream). This is part of my favorite dune field on Mars. Can you spot the little boulders at the foot of the large dune? (ESP_028893_1320)

A piece of Mars: When the wind blows sand up against obstacles like this bright little hill, the sand is swept around to the sides. This leaves a wind shadow in the wake of the hill. It’s one of the easiest ways to determine the main wind direction on Mars. (ESP_028235_1785)

NASA made a request for input to name the new NASA Science and Exploration Institute.  You can propose your own name on this web site. I just submitted a proposed name for this virtual institute, which will include other destinations beyond the Moon, stemming from NASA’s flexible path strategy for human exploration. I propose to name this new NASA center the “NASA-Armstrong Space Exploration Institute” (or NASEI). Here why…

Two photos of Neil Armstrong on the Moon taken on July 21, 1969

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, was also a hero for several generations of American and people around the world. Neil was also an explorer, he advocated on various occasions the idea that exploration is indeed dangerous, but that it is a necessary step in the evolution of humanity.

The future NASA center will include science and exploration research efforts focusing on solar system destinations for human exploration. Putting together the name of the first man who walked on the moon and the concept of space exploration will reflect the scope of the center. As mentioned in the draft Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) this “new center is an innovative, virtual research organization that leverages knowledge and expertise from the science and human exploration communities. It will support NASA’s goals in lunar and planetary science and human exploration of the solar system.”

This name will give to the institute a strong supporter base, reviving space exploration in the US and elsewhere, and hopefully providing the necessary stable funding for the great and successful NASA programs in research, education & public Outreach.

I personally think that it is more appropriate to give the name of Neil Armstrong to an institute, instead of giving this name to a spacecraft or a space station. A spacecraft is often decommissioned after several years, so the name of Armstrong will not remain in space for long. In comparison, the idea and the goals of this institute, that “exploration and science are fundamentally intertwined: exploration enables science, and science enables exploration” will never cease to exist, so the name of Neil Armstrong will be always linked to space exploration and science, something he surely deserves.

Of course several varieties of names can be considered such as “NASA-Armstrong Solar System Exploration Institute” (NASSEI), NASA-Armstrong Institute for Space Exploration (NAISE) or “NASA-Armstrong Beyond Earth Institute” (NABEI), but ultimately Neil’s name should be considered as being part of this NASA center name if his family agrees.

We will always be exploring space, as Neil said: “I think we’re going to the moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul… we’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream“. Neil left us on August 25, 2012 but let’s make sure that his spirit remains among us.

Clear skies

Franck Marchis

PS: If you have ideas for the name of this NASA institute and/or your support this idea., take the time to write a short proposal in the form available on the NLSI web page.

[Edit on Tue Oct 23 14:40:07 PDT 2012, NASA-Armstrong Institute for Space Exploration (NAISE) was added]

Portrait of Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, commander of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing mission in his space suit, with his helmet on the table in front of him. Behind him is a large photograph of the lunar surface.

A brief post to report on the successful (so far) mission of the first commercial resupply mission (CSR-1) led by SpaceX to the International Space Station.

You can't have a mission without a patch. SpaceX CRS-1 Mission Patch. Credit: SpaceX

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A piece of Mars: I just adore that the wind can do this to a landscape. Over a long period of time, two different winds have scratched deep grooves in a rocky surface. Wind-carved rocks like this are called “yardangs”. We have them in some deserts on Earth, too, but I’ve never seen two overlapping directions like this on Earth. Why are they more prominent on Mars? Mars has no oceans, no rivers, no beaches, no snowfall and no rain to change the surface, so the wind plays a stronger role in shaping the landscape. (HiRISE ESP_028200_1810)