Hackaday Links: December 15, 2024

December 15, 2024 by Dan Maloney 7 Comments

It looks like we won’t have Cruise to kick around in this space anymore with the news that General Motors is pulling the plug on its woe-beset robotaxi project. Cruise, which GM acquired in 2016, fielded autonomous vehicles in various test markets, but the fleet racked up enough high-profile mishaps (first item) for California regulators to shut down test programs in the state last year. The inevitable layoffs ensued, and GM is now killing off its efforts to build robotaxis to concentrate on incorporating the Cruise technology into its “Super Cruise” suite of driver-assistance features for its full line of cars and trucks. We feel like this might be a tacit admission that surmounting the problems of fully autonomous driving is just too hard a nut to crack profitably with current technology, since Super Cruise uses eye-tracking cameras to make sure the driver is paying attention to the road ahead when automation features are engaged. Basically, GM is admitting there still needs to be meat in the seat, at least for now.

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The 1924 Martian Signal: A Cosmic Curiosity

October 3, 2024 by Heidi Ulrich 22 Comments

In an age where our gadgets allow us to explore the cosmos, we stumbled upon sounds from a future past: an article on historical signals from Mars. The piece, written by [Paul Gilster] of Centauri Dreams, cites a Times essay published by [Becky Ferreira] of August 20. [Ferreira]’s essay sheds light on a fascinating, if peculiar, chapter in the history of the search for extraterrestrial life.

She recounts an event from August 1924 when the U.S. Navy imposed a nationwide radio silence for five minutes each hour to allow observatories to listen for signals from Mars. This initiative aimed to capitalize on the planet’s close alignment with Earth, sparking intrigue and excitement among astronomers and enthusiasts alike.

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An Earth-Bound Homage To A Martian Biochemistry Experiment

September 14, 2024 by Dan Maloney 5 Comments

With all the recent attention on Mars and the search for evidence of ancient life there, it’s easy to forget that not only has the Red Planet been under the figurative microscope since the early days of the Space Race, but we went to tremendous effort to send a pair of miniaturized biochemical laboratories there back in 1976. While the results were equivocal, it was still an amazing piece of engineering and spacefaring, one that [Marb] has recreated with this Earth-based version of the famed Viking “Labeled Release” experiment.

The Labeled Release experimental design was based on the fact that many metabolic processes result in the evolution of carbon dioxide gas, which should be detectable by inoculating a soil sample with a nutrient broth laced with radioactive carbon-14. For this homage to the LR experiment, [Marb] eschewed the radioactive tracer, instead looking for a relative increase in the much lower CO₂ concentration here on Earth. The test chamber is an electrical enclosure with a gasketed lid that holds a petri dish and a simple CO₂ sensor module. Glands in the lid allow an analog for Martian regolith — red terrarium sand — and a nutrient broth to be added to the petri dish. Once the chamber was sterilized, or at least sanitized, [Marb] established a baseline CO₂ level with a homebrew data logger and added his sample. Adding the nutrient broth — a solution of trypsinized milk protein, yeast extract, sugar, and salt — gives the bacteria in the “regolith” all the food they need, which increases the CO₂ level in the chamber.

More after the break…

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Possible Discovery Of Liquid Water In Mars’ Mid-Crust By The Insight Lander

August 13, 2024 by Maya Posch 15 Comments

One of the most sought after substances in the Universe is water – especially in its liquid form – as its presence on a planet makes the presence of life (as we know it) significantly more likely. While there are potentially oceans worth of liquid water on e.g. Jupiter’s moon Europa, for now Mars is significantly easier to explore as evidenced by the many probes which we got onto its surface so far. One of these was the InSight probe, which was capable of a unique feat: looking inside the planet’s crust with its seismometer to perform geophysical measurements. These measurements have now led to the fascinating prospect that liquid water may in fact exist on Mars right now, according to a paper published by [Vashan Wright] and colleagues in PNAS (with easy-read BBC coverage). Continue reading “Possible Discovery Of Liquid Water In Mars’ Mid-Crust By The Insight Lander” →

Photo Shows Real Spiders From Mars

April 27, 2024 by Jenny List 15 Comments

A cornerstone of early 1970s rock music culture was the British singer David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust persona, along with his backing band the Spiders from Mars. You can tell that the PR department at the European Space Agency were beside themselves with glee at the opportunity to reference them when their Mars Express spacecraft snapped a picture of some of the planets surface structures which bear a passing resemblance to Earth-bound spiders. We can’t blame them, we’d have done the same.

While these spiders are definitely not arachnid in origin, they are no less interesting. Over the Martian winter there form layers of carbon dioxide ice, which turn to gas under the influence of the Sun. This gas becomes trapped underneath layers of ice, until it forms sufficient pressure to burst through and escape. In doing so it brings up dark dust which settles along fissures in the ice, leading to the spider-like patterns when viewed from orbit.

So no life on Mars then, at least as yet. But it’s an interesting observation, and another little piece in the puzzle of understanding our planetary neighbor, as well as an excuse for a classic rock earworm. Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time we’ve reported on the ESA Mars probes.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Transitions Into Stationary Testbed

April 19, 2024 by Maya Posch 22 Comments

On April 16th NASA announced the formal end to Ingenuity’s days as the first ever Martian helicopter, following its 72nd and final flight mission in January. This flight ended with a rough landing during which the helicopter’s blades got damaged and separated, leaving the plucky flying machine with its wings clipped. During the final meet-up of the Mars Helicopter Team there was cake, but none for Ingenuity as its latest data set was reviewed by the team from 304 million kilometers away. This data confirms the latest software patch allows it to work stand-alone as a data collection platform.

With these latest software changes, Ingenuity will wake up daily, activate its computers and perform a self-check of all its components before collecting sensor data and images. The main goal of this is to collect long-term performance data on the helicopter’s systems, with enough onboard memory to allow for measurements to be stored for around 20 years. This means that although the Perseverance rover will have to trundle on without its flying mission buddy, one day in the future another rover, helicopter or primate will presumably drop by to either communicate with Ingenuity if it’s still alive, or harvest its memory unit for data retrieval.

Thanks to [Mark Stevens] for the tip.

Heating Mars On The Cheap

April 8, 2024 by Lewin Day 78 Comments

Mars is fairly attractive as a potential future home for humanity. It’s solid, with firm land underfoot. It’s able to hang on to a little atmosphere, which is more than you can say about the moon. It’s even got a day/night cycle remarkably close to our own. The only problem is it’s too darn cold, and there’s not a lot of oxygen to breathe, either.

Terraforming is the concept of fixing problems like these on a planet-wide scale. Forget living in domes—let’s just make the whole thing habitable!

That’s a huge task, so much current work involves exploring just what we could achieve with today’s technology. In the case of Mars, [Casey Handmer] doesn’t have a plan to terraform the whole planet. But he does suggest we could potentially achieve significant warming of the Red Planet for $10 billion in just 10 years. Continue reading “Heating Mars On The Cheap” →