Tori+M

=The Search for Life on Mars= //by Tori M//

From Big Bang to Galaxies
In the beginning, the universe was extremely hot and it is thought that in a succinct flash, the universe went from being the size of an atom to the size of the earth. After this, the universe began to gradually grow and it's temperature fell at a steady rate. In 3 minutes, a quarter of protons and neutrons had combined to make helium nuclei. For the next 300, 000 years, not much happened. At the point when the temperature got to 3000 degrees Kelvin, electrons started to orbit protons and hydrogen nuclei to create atoms without being torn apart by the heat. About 2,000,000,000 years after the "Big Bang", the formation of galaxies began. However, our galaxy formed when the universe was about 3,000,000,000 years old and it started as a huge sphere of gas. Galaxies are classified by their shape and they can be either elliptical, spiral or irregular.

The Milky Way Galaxy
The light of the Milky Way comes from huge patches of individual stars and the dark spots are giant clouds of opaque dust. The Milky Way consists of a flat disk of stars that are about 100,000 light years across and 1-2,000 light years thick. There is also an even thinner layer of gas and dust that cuts across the middle of the disk. In the center there is a big, flattened bulge that is about 20,000 light years across and there are four spiral arms that come from the bulge. The sun rests in this disk about halfway out from the galactic center and on the other side, a dwarf galaxy is merging with the milky way. Surrounding the galaxy, there is a cluster and sprinkling of stars in a 'halo' that stretch out about 130,000 light years from the center of the galaxy. In addition, the way our galaxy rotates tells us that it is surrounded by a huge invisible corona with 10 times as much material as we can actually see. This material can be stars, gas and dust.

History of the Solar System
The sun formed when gravity pulled together a cloud of interstellar gas and dust. The rotating ball collapsed to a thin disk with a proto sun at the center about 4.5 billion years ago. Material then started to group together into bigger and bigger particles that led to clumps called planetessimal. Away from the sun, where it was coldest, icy planetessimals survived whereas in the warmer area near the sun they were made only of rock and metal. At first, planetessimals were very tightly packed but then some collided to become larger objects. However, some collided so fast that they got broken up again. In the outer solar system, 4 large masses formed which became the giant planets; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. These planets grew their own spirals where moons condensed. In the inner solar system, there were too many collisions for large planets to form. However, eventually, the four terrestrial planets emerged which were Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. On these planets, constant bombardment and radioactivity on the inside created heat. The moon, however, is believed to have been created in a catastrophic collision between Earth and a planet the size of mars. The rings of large planets, however, are most likely the result of stray planetessimals and comets being torn apart by gravity.

Rocket History
Rockets are the outcome of thousands of years of experimentation and research. A rocket-like device called an aeolipile was one of the first inventions to successfully apply the essential principles of rocket flight that is known. Although it is unknown for sure when the first true rockets were created, there are many stories of early rocketry inventions from various countries. In China, in the first century A.D., a type of gunpowder was accidentally made and was put in a bamboo stick during religious festivals to explode. The bamboo sticks were then put in a fire, but some of those tubes may have not exploded and rather shot out of the fires while being propelled by the gases and sparks from the gunpowder. Way back in 100 B.C. a Greek inventor named Hero of Alexandria used steam as a propulsive gas. In order to do this, he placed a sphere on top of a water kettle and created a fire under the kettle to turn the water into steam. Once the water was steam, it went through two pipes to the sphere and came out of two L-shaped tubes. When the steam escaped the sphere through the L-tubes, it gave the sphere a thrust which made it rotate. However, the Chinese were the ones to come up with the idea of creating gunpowder-filled bamboo tubes that later were attached to bows. At first, they launched them with an arrow, but they later discovered that the rockets were able to launch themselves using the thrust of the exiting gas. This was one of the first, if not the first, true rockets.



During the time when the Chinese and the Mongols were at war with each other in 1232, the first use of true rockets was reported. The Chinese used a tube filled with gunpowder, capped at one end, and attached to a long stick and then ignited the powder which caused gas and therefore a thrust which sent this weapon off to the enemies. These contraptions were known as “arrows of flying fire” and must’ve had a huge psychological effect on the Mongols as they were constantly being bombarded with them. After this torment, the Mongols created their own rockets and may have been the reason that rockets spread to Europe. Many people including Roger Bacon of England, Jean Froissart of France and Joanes de Fontana of Italy helped revolutionize the rocket by making innovative changes such as improved gunpowder and different and more effective ways of launching the rocket. However, all throughout the 13th to 15th centuries, much experimentation with rockets was reported.

A Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky suggested the thought of exploring space by rocket. This Russian school teacher conducted much research about rockets and was therefore known as the father of modern astronautics. Later on, in the early 20th century, an American man named Robert H. Goddard experimented with rocketry. He researched and attempted various methods of using liquid fuel to propel rockets and on March 16th, 1926 he achieved his first successful flight with his liquid fuel rocket. His rocket flew for 2.5 seconds, propelled up 12.5 meters and landed 56 meters away. He continued his research and created many new innovative additions to rockets and was therefore named the father of modern rocketry.

The V-2 Rocket that was used against London in WWII was created by a German society called the Verein fur Raumschiffahrt in the early 20th century. This rocket was small, but it had a tremendous thrust that was created by burning liquid oxygen and alcohol at a rate of about one ton every seven seconds. This rocket was so powerful it could destroy whole city blocks. However, the V-2 was too late to make a difference in London and therefore the German scientists and engineers were already scheming plans for further advanced missiles that could span the Atlantic Ocean and land in the US. When the fall of Germany occurred, many rocket scientists went to the US and some to the Soviet Union. Along with this, unused V-2 rockets were taken by allies. Later on, the US and the Soviet Union began various experimental programs with rocketry after noticing the potential of rockets for military weapons. The start of the US space program was actually due to the intercontinental missiles that were created and missiles like the Redstone, Atlas and Titan were eventually used to take astronauts to space.

The Soviet Union launched an Earth-orbiting artificial satellite named Sputnik on October 4th, 1957.Less than a month later, yet another satellite was launched, but this time with a dog named Laikia as a passenger. In competition with the Soviets, the US launched their own satellite named Explorer I on January 31st, 1958. Later on in October, NASA was created with the goal of peaceful exploration that was beneficial to all humankind. Soon after this, many people and machines alike were being launched into space to explore. People orbited earth and set foot on the moon while robot spacecrafts landed on various planets. Throughout the years, rockets have gone from tubes of ignited power to inventions that have allowed us to explore and research our universe.

Rocket Stages
media type="custom" key="13888202"

Exploration of Mars
Throughout the past 40 years, there have been numerous achievements and successes in the exploration of Mars as well as failures. The U.S. NASA Mars exploration program has had success with 13 out of 20 missions launched and success in six out of seven lander missions. However, as of November 2011, the success rate of missions worldwide is 50% and of the 38 launches from Earth with the goal of reaching Mars, only 19 have actually reached the planet. The high failure rate of missions from Earth to Mars was formerly known as the "Mars Curse" or the "Martian Curse". Furthermore, we currently have one rover called Opportunity roaming the masses of Mars. There have been too many expeditions and missions to Mars to name them all, but some of them include the Mars Global Surveyor (first successful US mission and first successful mission overall in two decades), Mars Climate Orbiter (famous for failure due to engineers confusing English units with metric units) and the Mars 1 (first probe of the Soviet Mars program). However, a probe called Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to have ever entered the orbit of Mars and this probe was the first to have returned pictures that offered detailed evidence that, at one point in time, water may have flowed on the surface of Mars. The Mars 2 and 3 orbiters allowed the creation of surface relief maps and provided information regarding the Martian gravity and magnetic fields. The Mars 4, however, flew by the planet and returned photos and radio occultation data which helped develop the first detection of the night side ionosphere on Mars. In addition, probes and orbiters are not the only way that facts have been discovered regarding Mars; telescopic observations have been highly valuable as well. Through telescope observations alone we have discovered color changes on the surface (originally accredited to seasonal vegetation and apparent linear features), Mars' two moons, Phobos and Deimos, polar ice caps and the astounding Olympus Mons. The Olympus Mons is the solar system's tallest known mountain. Overall, our success in exploration of Mars in the past 40 years has been, for the most part, a great advancement in our knowledge.

Rocket Experiment
The purpose of our rocket experiment was to see if the mass of a rocket affected its altitude. To conduct this experiment, we had to construct our own rockets in class. We used a kit in which we put together all the pieces such as gluing on the fins, putting the recovery wadding in and attaching our parachute. We also put together the "motor" of the rocket which was a tube with solid propellant in it. After our rockets were created, we launched them out in a field. In the end, it was discovered that the heavier a rocket is, the higher altitude it will reach. For example, the rocket that weighed 50.6g went 86.9m whereas the rocket that weighed 46.2g only went 43.5m.



My rocket was called the Banal Banana. It was painted yellow with some brown on it and it had 3 fins and weighed 46.4g and ended up going 46.6m. It was fairly well constructed and had a decent launch, but it did not travel very quickly nor did it reach a very high altitude before slowing down. Our rocket had other problems in it's descent as well such as the parachute getting stuck and not ejecting as well as burning a little and the recovery wadding burning. We can improve our rocket by using more recovery wadding, increasing it's mass and replacing the parachute as well as allowing it to come out more easily.

Rocket Fin Experiment
The purpose of this experiment was to see if the number and design of the fins on a rocket affected it's flight and maximum altitude. However, after we adjusted the fins it affected the mass of the rocket, but we found that this didn't end up affecting the flight of the rocket. Therefore, the data of the mass versus altitude had no relationship. The number of fins versus altitude, however, did have a relationship in the data called an inverse relationship. The data showed that the less fins a rocket has the higher it will go. For example, the rocket that had 4 fins went almost 90 meters whereas the rocket that had 10 fins went less than 10 meters.

Our rocket had 6.2 fins because we doubled the fins on the bottom and added two points of fins below the nose cone. Our rocket weighed 58.8g and went 38.4m. The rocket launched pretty well, but spiraled a little on the way up and the parachute came out but did not expand. Also, when our rocket landed one of the fins broke off. Overall, our rocket flew fairly well, but our fin design did not improve the flight.



Robot History
As peculiar as it may seem, modern robotics was derived from ancient myths and legends from all around the world. Greek myths, for example, include the idea of 'artificial people' such as the mechanical servants that were created by the Greek god Hephaestus. Also somewhat fictional was the Iliad illustrating the concept of robotics through showing that the god Hephaestus created speaking mechanical handmaidens out of gold. As well as the legends of Greece, a Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum was believed to have built a supposedly steam powered mechanical pigeon that could fly sometime around 400BC. However, a physicist and inventor named Ctesibius of Alexandria from Ptolemaic Egypt made the clepsydra in 250BC. Also "of Alexandria" was Heron of Alexandria who created a mechanical device, somewhere in the time frame of 10-70AD, that could supposedly speak. Over in China, the history of robotics goes back to the 10th century BC when a person named Yan Shi created an automaton that resembled a human in an account from the Lie Zi text.

After it's roots in ancient myths and legends, robotics began to modernize after the Industrial Revolution which allowed the use of more complex mechanics. As well as this, the introduction of electricity made it possible to use compact motors in order to power machines. Although it was anticipated millennia before, after the 1920's the creation of a humanoid machine was developed to the point that it was possible to conceptualize a human sized robot with the capacity for near human thoughts and actions. However, modern robots were first used as industrial robots that worked in factories. These robots were simple machines that were able to work productively without the help of a human. These robots that have been making use of artificial intelligence and working as industrial robots have been built since the 1960's. Overall, robotics history dates back farther than anyone can remember and will continue as long as humans keep their desire for discovery.

Robot Programming
Robot programming is a complicated procedure and can be very tedious. To program the robot and make it go in the pathway you want it to, you have to make adjustments and keep trying and using your failures to help you succeed. Some of the challenges that my partner and I encountered was that our robot did not move smoothly and jerked around a bit. After we had that problem taken care of, we simply needed to make it move farther and also make sure that it didn't run into the cones on the sides. The hardest part of programming the robot was probably trying to get it to turn the right amount of degrees. The robot can turn many different ways and degrees and trying to get the correct angle was quite difficult. As well as getting the right angle, getting the right distance was also challenging and took awhile. At one point we had the robot go in the perfect path and get through the course and it ended up less than an inch away from being inside the box. Overall, robot programming can be complex, but once you understand it it's much less complex. media type="file" key="tlm_our_robot.AVI" width="300" height="300"

Geology on Mars
A mineral can be identified in many ways such as color, luster, streak, taste, magnetism, hardness and acid tests. However, the color of a mineral can be somewhat misleading because some minerals have the same color, or, appearance (pyrite and gold). A streak test is an accurate way to identify a mineral because every mineral has its own unique streak, so that makes minerals easily distinguishable. As well as a streak test, a more rare way to identify minerals is to taste them, but this only applies for certain minerals and if the wrong mineral is tasted it can be dangerous. For example, halite and calcite can be used in a taste test and are easily distinguishable from each other because halite is a very plain and earthy mineral whereas calcite is very salty. Another way to test a mineral's identity is magnetism. Magnetism is a good way to test minerals because very few minerals are magnetic, but this test may not fully identify a mineral. Hardness can be tested to identify a mineral by using the Moh Scale which ranges from 1-10 with different minerals representing a number. Lastly, acid tests can be used to identify a mineral because if a mineral is a carbonate compound it will fizz when hydrochloric acid is added. Calcite, for example, fizzes when acid is added. This will identify the mineral because it will tell you if the mineral's structure includes a carbonate compound or not.

The NASA Curiosity Rover is a rover that landed on Mars in summer 2010. This rover is very intelligent and it finds answers by copying what humans do. To find clues to life on Mars, the rover drills a hole in a rock with a drill that is about a centimeter in diameter. Then, the powder from that rock goes back into the rover and is split so it can then be analyzed. The analysis is divided into mineralogy and organic molecules. The rover can do this because it carries an entire laboratory with it and the rover is the size of a car. Another amazing feature of Curiosity is that it has a laser incorporated into it so the scientists controlling the rover can shine a laser on rocks they can't reach and then identify them from the light reflected back.

Life on Mars
There are over two million different types of animals and plants that are all considered to be living. In order for something to be living, it must posses multiple characteristics. However, if something posses one or two of these characteristics, but not all of them, that means it is not actually living. The characteristics in order for something to be considered living are: made of cells, need materials, homeostatic, respond to stimuli, reproduce, grow, adapted and respiration. There are different types of cells such as animal cells, plant cells and bacteria cells. However, a cell is classified as a fundamental unit of living things. A cell has many parts that are called organelles and cells in general can be organized (tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms). On another note, living things need materials which can be water, minerals and air. This also means that they take what they need from the environment. Humans, for example need calcium for their bones and iron for their blood whereas plants need CO2 and water for photosynthesis. Plants also get minerals through their roots. Homeostatic means internally living things stay about the same despite environmental changes. Anything that is living expends a great amount of energy to maintain homeostasis. Humans are homeostasis because of our body's temperature, excretion and repair. For a living thing to respond to stimuli means there is stimulus involved. Stimulus is anything that causes living things to react. A response is the reaction to a stimulus and there are two types of responses. The first is a positive response which causes the living thing to move toward the stimulus and the second is a negative stimulus which causes the living thing to move away from the stimulus. Every living thing reproduces and there are a variety of ways in which this can happen. The definition of reproduce is the process by which organisms produce offspring of their own kind. The first way something can reproduce is sexual reproduction which requires two parents. The second is Asexual reproduction which is the cellular division in only one parent. In addition to reproduction, every living thing must then grow. All things develop from a lower or simpler form to a higher or more complex form. For example, a human grows from an embryo to a newborn to a child to an adolescent to an adult. However, not all things grow at the same rate or reach the same size. In humans, the proportion of body parts to the total size of a person changes from embryo to adult and there are several factors that can affect the health and growth of organisms. In addition, another form of growth is regeneration which is the growth of new body parts to replace lost or damaged ones. Along with growth, adapted means the modifications that make an organism suited to its way of life. For example, birds have hollow bones so they can fly and fish have fins so they can swim effectively. All organisms share the same characteristics of life because their ancestry can be traced back to the first cell or cells, but organisms are diverse because they are adapted to different ways of life. The last characteristic of life, respiration, means releasing energy stored in the chemical bonds of sugars (food). Consumers are organisms that must take in food to sustain life and producers create their own food. Some examples of consumers are animals, some bacteria, fungi and some protists. Producers are plants and some bacteria and protists. Overall, if anything exhibits all eight of these characteristics, then it is considered living.

Over the course of many years, scientists have been trying to find proof of life on planets such as Mars. One of the experiments that they have used to try and find life on Mars is the Labeled Release (LR) apparatus. This experiment was performed by scooping up some Martian soil and then mixing it with a drop of water that contained nutrients and radioactive carbon atoms. Scientists envisioned that if the soil contained microbes, the life-forms would metabolize the nutrients and then release either radioactive carbon dioxide or methane gas. This experiment turned out to be positive, meaning there were signs of life on Mars, but this was dismissed because of the negative results of two other experiments. Another type of experiment that was performed was the cluster analysis which was something that grouped together similar-looking data sets. In doing this, the scientists found two clusters; the first constituted the two active experiments on Viking (a space probe) and the second was the five control experiments. However, it was concluded that this information wasn’t enough to prove that there's life on Mars. In addition to these two specific experiments, there were a number of control experiments that were performed, such as heating Martian soil samples to different temperatures and isolating other samples in the dark for months which were conditions that would kill microbes that are photosynthetic or that rely on photosynthetic organisms for survival. Overall, scientists have performed various experiments throughout the years with the goal of proving there is life on Mars; some experiments successful, and some not.