Time - USA (2020-08-17)

10 TIME August 17/August 24, 2020

TheBrief News

TRAVELING TO MARS IS USUALLY A LONELY

business—with a single spacecraft taking off

from a single launchpad for the seven-month

trip to the Red Planet. That appeared to be

the case again on July 30, when NASA’s Perse-

verance rover roared off the pad at Cape Ca-

naveral atop an Atlas V rocket. But this time

the ship will have plenty of company.

On July 19, the United Arab Emirates made

its fi rst bid to join the Mars game, launch-

ing the 3,000-lb., 10-ft.-tall Amal, or “Hope,”

spacecraft on a mission to orbit Mars for at

least two years while studying its atmosphere.

Four days later, China launched its Tianwen-1,

or “Questions to Heaven,” spacecraft, a three-

part ship with an orbiter, a lander and a six-

wheel, 529-lb. rover. And a fourth mission, a

joint Russian-European project, ExoMars, car-

rying a rover of its own, was also planned for

this summer, though it has been postponed to

2022 because of engineering problems with its

parachute and avionics.

So why all the interest in Mars—and why

right now? The timing issue has everything

to do with planetary mechanics. As they fl y

their diff ering solar orbits—Earth on the inner

track, Mars on the outer—the distance be-

tween the two worlds is forever changing. At

their greatest remove, when they are on oppo-

site sides of the sun, they are up to 250 million

miles apart. But once every two years, they

WILDLIFE

Invasive

interventions

As of July 28, Florida authorities have removed

5,000 invasive Burmese pythons, which prey on

native species, from the Everglades. Here, other

eradication efforts. —Alejandro de la Garza

HELICOPTER HOGS

Authorities in Arkansas

killed nearly 700 feral hogs

during a 68-hour helicopter

operation, according to a

March press release. Wild

swine cost the state millions

of dollars in crop damage

every year.

FISH FENCE

Kentucky offi cials

commissioned a bioacoustic

“fi sh fence” to control the

spread of invasive Asian carp

in 2019. The system, which is

in a $7 million, three-year fi eld

trial, emits noise within a wall

of strobe-lit bubbles.

BUG BAT TLE

To combat the invasive

emerald ash borer beetle,

the U.S. Department

of Agriculture released

parasitoid wasps that target

the bug, starting in 2007. As

of 2018, the wasps have been

released in 26 states.

NEWS

TICKER

Hong Kong

elections

postponed

Hong Kong’s chief

executive Carrie Lam,

an ally of Beijing, said

legislative elections

scheduled for

September would be

postponed by a year,

citing a recent surge in

coronavirus cases in

the city. Pro-democracy

activists said it was an

attempt to slow their

momentum after the

imposition of a harsh

national-security law.

DHS tracked

protesters,

press

Amid demonstrations

in Portland, Ore.,

the Department of

Homeland Security

created “intelligence

reports” on protesters

and journalists, the

Washington Post

reported July 30.

After the news broke,

Brian Murphy, acting

DHS under secretary

for intelligence

and analysis, was

reassigned.

Former

Spanish king

fl ees country

Spain’s former king

Juan Carlos reportedly

left the country for a

luxury resort in the

Dominican Republic

on Aug. 3, amid a

corruption scandal over

his fi nancial dealings

while monarch. In a

letter published on the

royal website, Juan

Carlos said he had

left Spain because of

“public repercussions.”

line up on the same side of the sun, with just

35 million miles separating them. This sum-

mer just such an alignment is taking place,

dramatically slashing inter planetary travel

time to the current seven-month itinerary. So

that explains the when question.

The why part is because of Mars’ tantaliz-

ing, potentially biological history. The surface

of the planet is etched with dry riverbeds,

stamped with ancient sea basins, marked by

deep depressions that could only indicate

long-vanished water.

Perseverance is landing in one such place:

the Jezero Crater, north of the Martian equa-

tor, which is lined with both infl ow and out-

fl ow channels indicating it was once a vibrant

sea. Previous rover analyses in similar loca-

tions have discovered chemicals and com-

pounds that form only in the presence of

water, proving that Mars was once, like Earth,

exceedingly wet.

Now the mission is to look for actual fos-

silized organisms or even signs of extant mi-

crobial life. To that end, Perseverance is the

most ambitious of the new spacecraft and is

actually just the fi rst part of a multipart mis-

sion. During its explorations, it will collect

Martian soil samples in sterile titanium tubes

and set them neatly on the ground awaiting

another spacecraft that could leave Earth as

early as the 2026 alignment, collect the sam-

ples and fl y them home for analysis.

Finding life on Mars would be an epochal

discovery. The bragging rights that go with

being fi rst to make the fi nd is part of what

makes the planet the hot new destination it’s

become. —JEFFREY KLUGER

GOOD QUESTION

Why are so many

nations going to

Mars this summer?