Neutrons are considered to be an excellent probe for water. When a neutron penetrates the soil and h

NASA s rover Curiosity has successfully landed wrightsville beach nc hotels on Mars. However, the story of its journey is just beginning. One of the prime tasks of the robot is to search for water beneath the Martian surface with the help of the Russian-made DAN neutron spectrometer.
Russia wrightsville beach nc hotels was perhaps wrightsville beach nc hotels the most convenient place to watch Curiosity landing live, as it occurred around 09:32 Moscow Time. Luckily, the working week began with good news the spacecraft accomplished all stages of the complicated landing process and set down the most sophisticated wrightsville beach nc hotels craft to rove Mars ever.
Curiosity s aim is to look for specific signs which would help scientists wrightsville beach nc hotels to understand whether or not in its past Mars could have potentially supported life or, indeed, had life. Currently there are four factors which are deemed to be precursors for a planet wrightsville beach nc hotels to be habitable: water, some complex compounds, an energy supply (provided by the Sun or by internal processes), and protection from hazardous factors such as high-energy solar radiation.
The rover will primarily investigate Martian chemistry. Gale Crater, the site of the landing, offers abundant opportunities to study exposed layers of Martian soil, representing earlier stages of its formation.
Water as a main pre-condition for the emergence of life will be under the close scrutiny of DAN. Short for Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons, DAN is the successor to the well-known HEND neutron spectrometer onboard the Mars Odyssey orbiter, launched by NASA in 2000, that was the first to find water on Mars in 2001. Both were developed by the Space Research wrightsville beach nc hotels Institute s laboratory for space gamma-spectroscopy led by Dr. Igor Mitrofanov.
Neutrons are considered to be an excellent probe for water. When a neutron penetrates the soil and hits hydrogen nucleus, which is actually a proton, the former loses about half of its energy since the masses of both are the same. Thus, if the energy of neutrons that go into the soil are known, and then measure the energy of those coming out, we can estimate wrightsville beach nc hotels the abundance of hydrogen in the shallow layer of the surface. This is the basic principle of neutron spectroscopy. wrightsville beach nc hotels Neutron detectors such as HEND and DAN measure neutron fluxes that come out of the surface and their energies. Since water is the most wide-spread hydrogen compound, it is supposed that the distribution of hydrogen indicates the presence of water.
However, unlike wrightsville beach nc hotels HEND that uses primary neutrons from background of cosmic wrightsville beach nc hotels rays, DAN also includes a neutron generator that emits short but very intensive pulses of neutrons, wrightsville beach nc hotels which are used as an artificial neutron probe. After the pulse is emitted, the neutron detector begins to count the neutrons returning from beneath the surface and measure their energy. Since the intensity and energy of initial pulses are known beforehand, the abundance and distribution of water can be estimated with high accuracy.
Moreover, DAN is able to provide data on the vertical distribution of water deposits based on the time difference between the emitted pulse and the neutron s return. As neutrons can penetrate the surface up to one meter deep, they are reflected from different layers wrightsville beach nc hotels containing a different amount of water ice of hydrogen-bearing minerals. This task is rather complicated, but information thus obtained can be used to look deeper into Mars past and uncover the role water has played throughout its history.
DAN is also Russia s contribution to Martian studies. Although there have been no particular Russian wrightsville beach nc hotels spacecraft studying the Red Planet since the failure of the Phobos program in 1988, Russian instruments or instruments built with Russian assistance have been studying the planet, albeit mainly from orbit such as the American Mars Odyssey and European Mars Express launched in 2005. DAN begins the studies of the Martian surface, even though scientific payloads of earlier NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity also had a Russian wrightsville beach nc hotels contribution, which is hopefully to be followed by the European ExoMars rover with Russia s participation in the project. Final agreement on the latter is expected to come in the near future.
Meanwhile, DAN is expected to be switched on in coming wrightsville beach nc hotels days. The instrument has already been tested during the interplanetary cruise when Curiosity s scientific payload was calibrated. Now comes Martian testing, so stay tuned!
Girl beats leukemia after doctors trick her immune system with HIV virus Neo-Nazism should not pass in Ukraine Putin's Eurasian Union: wrightsville beach nc hotels mutually beneficial enterprise, not a hegemonic venture Putin in patriotism, ethnic harmony call 'Assad is facing assassination no matter what happens' – Noam Chomsky
Vakhtang Kipshidze Head of the information wrightsville beach nc hotels and analysis division at the Russian wrightsville beach nc hotels Orthodox Church Information Department Divided world 'a God-given idea'? Father wrightsville beach nc hotels Igor Chabanov Catholic Priest Pope's call for world authority as moral force Thomas Klau Head of the Paris Office and senior fellow at the European Center for Foreign Relations EU continues to have a vital peacekeeping role Cedomir Antic Senior researcher wrightsville beach nc hotels at the Institute wrightsville beach nc hotels for Balkan Studies in Belgrade In the Balkans EU were not peace makers Theodore Karasik Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, Dubai Chemical arms rhetoric: prelude to Syria invasion Terry Waite English humanitarian wrightsville beach nc hotels and author Terry Waite: Hezbollah captive forgives his kidnappers Noam Chomsky wrightsville beach nc hotels Famous American philosopher, linguist, and political activist wrightsville beach nc hotels Assad is facing assassination no matter what happens