Posted in chemistry, climatology, space
At Jezero, Mars 2020’s goal will be “to explore the history of water and chemistry in an ancient crater lake basin and associated river-delta environments to probe early Martian climates and search for life.”
NASA announced this morning the selection of Jezero crater for the landing site of the Mars 2020 mission. Jezero is a 45-kilometer-wide crater that once held a lake, and now holds a spectacular ancient river delta.
Today’s optical systems—from smartphone cameras to cutting-edge microscopes—use technology that hasn’t changed much since the mid-1700s. Compound lenses, invented around 1730, correct the chromatic aberrations that cause lenses to focus different wavelengths of light in different spots. While effective, these multi-material lenses are bulky, expensive, and require precision polishing or molding and very careful optical alignment. Now, a group of researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is asking: Isn’t it time for an upgrade?
A team of researchers from the Earthquake Research Institute, Department of Civil Engineering and Information Technology Center at the University of Tokyo, and the RIKEN Center for Computational Science and RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan were finalists for the coveted Gordon Bell Prize for outstanding achievements in high-performance computing. Tsuyoshi Ichimura together with Kohei Fujita, Takuma Yamaguchi, Kengo Nakajima, Muneo Hori and Lalith Maddegedara were praised for their simulation of earthquake physics in complex urban environments.
Unexplained patterns in the colors of certain space rocks suggest scientists still have much to learn about the solar system’s origins and early evolution.
