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- Written by: Amanda Barnett
After touching down on the Red Planet Feb. 18, 2021, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover will scour Jezero Crater to help us understand its geologic history and search for signs of past microbial life.
But the six-wheeled robot won't be looking just at the surface of Mars: The rover will peer deep below it with a ground-penetrating radar called RIMFAX.
Unlike similar instruments aboard Mars orbiters, which study the planet from space, RIMFAX will be the first ground-penetrating radar set on the surface of Mars. This will give scientists much higher-resolution data than space-borne radars can provide while focusing on the specific areas that Perseverance will explore.
Taking a more focused look at this terrain will help the rover's team understand how features in Jezero Crater formed over time.
Short for Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment, RIMFAX can provide a highly detailed view of subsurface structures down to at least 30 feet underground. In doing so, the instrument will reveal hidden layers of geology and help find clues to past environments on Mars, especially those that may have provided the conditions necessary for supporting life.
"We take an image of the subsurface directly beneath the rover," said Svein-Erik Hamran, the instrument's principal investigator, with the University of Oslo in Norway. "We can do a 3D model of the subsurface – of the different layers – and determine the geological structures underneath."
While Mars is a frigid desert today, scientists suspect that microbes may have lived in Jezero during wetter times billions of years ago and that evidence of such ancient life may be preserved in sediments in the crater.
Information from RIMFAX will help pinpoint areas for deeper study by instruments on the rover that search for chemical, mineral, and textural clues found within rocks that may be signs of past microbial life.
Ultimately, the team will collect dozens of drill-core samples with Perseverance, seal them in tubes that will be deposited on the surface for return to Earth by future missions. That way, these first samples from another planet can be studied in laboratories with equipment too large to take to Mars.
Traveling back in time
Scientists believe the 28-mile-wide Jezero Crater formed when a large object collided with Mars, kicking up rocks from deep in the planet's crust. More than 3.5 billion years ago, river channels spilled into the crater, creating a lake that was home to a fan-shaped river delta.
Hamran hopes RIMFAX will shed light on how the delta formed. "This is not so easy, based on surface images only, because you have this dust covering everything, so you may not necessarily see all the changes in geology."
He and his science team will stack successive radar soundings to create a two-dimensional subsurface image of the crater floor. Eventually, data will be combined with images from a camera on the rover to create a 3D topographical image.
The instrument employs the same type of ground-penetrating radar used here on Earth to find buried utilities, underground caverns, and the like. In fact, Hamran uses it to study glaciers.
Tens of millions of miles away on Mars, however, he and his colleagues will be relying on Perseverance to do the work as it roams through Jezero Crater.
"We do some measurements while we are stationary," he said, "but most measurements will actually be gathered while the rover is driving."
More about the mission
A key objective for Perseverance's mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.
The rover will characterize the planet's ancient climate and geology, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent missions, currently under consideration by NASA in cooperation with ESA (the European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these cached samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 mission is part of a larger program that includes missions to the Moon as a way to prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet. Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028 through NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans.
JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and manages operations of the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers.
For more about Perseverance visit www.mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ and www.nasa.gov/perseverance.
Amanda Barnett works for NASA.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The shutoff, which began on Wednesday evening in response to red flag weather conditions, impacted 41,000 customers – about 12,000 customers less than originally forecast – in 24 counties: Alameda, Butte, Contra Costa, Humboldt, Lake, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Plumas, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba.
In Lake County, 82 Lake County customers, five of them in the medical baseline program, were impacted in the Cobb, Lower Lake and Middletown areas.
PG&E said the severe weather subsided enough during the day on Thursday in some locations for its meteorology team to issue a number of “weather all clears,” which allowed electric crews to begin patrols of power lines to look for damage as the first step toward restoration. As a result, 10,000 customers had their power restored on Thursday.
On Friday morning, PG&E issued the all clear for the remaining areas in the PSPS footprint, deploying 1,200 employees on the ground or in 47 helicopters inspecting about 3,200 miles of lines for damage or hazards.
The majority of the remaining 31,000 customers affected by this PSPS event were restored by early Friday evening, the company said.
PG&E said wind gusts of more than 50 miles per hour were recorded in multiple high fire danger areas including Napa, San Mateo and Yolo counties. Peak wind gusts were recorded in Contra Costa County, 61 miles per hour; Butte County, 64 miles per hour; and Sonoma County, 73 miles per hour.
Based on preliminary data from the company’s damage inspections, there were 30 instances of weather-related damage and hazards – such as downed power lines and vegetation on power lines – in the PSPS-affected areas. PG&E said that type of damage could have resulted in wildland fires had the lines not been deenergized.
PG&E said it will submit a report detailing damages from the severe weather conditions to the California Public Utilities Commission within 10 days of the completion of the PSPS.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The CHP’s Clear Lake Area office said Carl Curtis Knight, 59, of Clearlake died as a result of the crash.
Knight was crossing Highway 29, south of Orchard Street in Lower Lake, at 6:30 a.m. Thursday, when conditions were reported to be dark, the CHP said.
The CHP said Knight was walking from the west side of the roadway at the Power Mart towards the east side of the roadway when a vehicle hit him while he was in the No. 2 northbound lane of Highway 53.
The driver of the vehicle that hit Knight then fled the scene, according to the CHP’s Friday evening report.
Knight was transported to Adventist Health Clear Lake Hospital where he succumbed to injuries resulting from the collision, the CHP said.
If anyone has any information as to who the driver of the involved vehicle is or the location of the involved vehicle, please contact the Clear Lake CHP office at 707-279-0103.
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The discussion about renaming Westside Park Road for Charlie Jolin was the main item on the agenda for the commission’s brief Wednesday night meeting.
In July, at the request of the Westside Community Park Committee, the Lakeport City Council approved beginning the process to rename the street in honor of Jolin, who died in June at age 96, as Lake County News has reported.
The process’ next stop was the planning commission, which first considered the proposal at its Sept. 8 meeting.
Originally, the proposal had been to name the road “Charlie’s Way.”
At the commission’s September meeting, City Manager Kevin Ingram pointed out that the city’s city’s street naming conventions discouraged the use of apostrophes.
Commissioner Mark Mitchell, later in the same meeting, suggested going with “Charlie Jolin Way,” as it would offer more information about the man behind the street name.
That option would come out as the top choice, but before making a decision the commission voted to hold off until this month’s meeting so they could hear directly from the Westside Community Park Committee, which had its own meeting at the same time and so didn’t have a representative on hand Sept. 8 to answer questions.
In his update to the commission on Wednesday, Ingram said the next step would be a public notice process that city staff would initiate immediately. While there are no residences on the road, he said it leads to homes in the Parkside Subdivision. It’s the city’s intention to give individual notifications to subdivision residents.
Because the city’s street naming rules don’t allow apostrophes, Ingram said staff recommended the new street name be “Charlie Jolin Way.”
Westside Community Park Committee Chair Dennis Rollins was on hand to answer questions from the commission.
He said the committee doesn’t believe there would be a Westside Park without Jolin.
Rollins explained that in the late 1990s, Jolin and then-Lakeport Community Development Director Richard Knoll got together and had a brainstorm about the park idea, and Jolin ran with it.
He said the first phase of the park involved help from the National Guard, which Jolin had arranged.
“He was the mover and the shaker,” Rollins said.
One of the park committee members had suggested the whole park be renamed for Jolin, but Rollins said Jolin didn’t want anything named after him. He was low-key about things unless it was about promoting the park.
Rollins said he thought renaming the road in Jolin’s memory is fitting.
Mitchell asked him his preference for the name.
Rollins said he liked “Charlie’s Way” because the committee had done everything Jolin’s way. However, he said he understood the punctuation issues with the city’s street naming rules. The committee has discussed it and is fine with the proposed name of “Charlie Jolin Way.”
“Ordinarily, this isn’t something I’d be in favor of,” said Commission Chair Michael Froio, who also had raised his concerns at the last meeting about renaming established streets.
However, Froio said Wednesday that in talking with people this week about the proposal, it seemed fitting and that his question had been answered when Mitchell questioned Rollins about his name preference.
Commissioner Ken Wicks moved to recommend the city council change Westside Park Road to “Charlie Jolin Way,” with the finding that the name change is in conformance with the general plan and existing street name network. Commissioner Jeff Warrenburg seconded and the commission approved the motion 4-0, with Commissioner Michael Green absent.
Ingram told Lake County News after the meeting that the Lakeport Municipal Code has a 10-day notice requirement for street renaming but it requires the notice to be placed in two public spaces.
He said he also intends to send a direct mailing to the Parkside Subdivision, as he had indicated during the meeting.
Ingram said the plan is to get sign notices by the end of the month, which would put the matter on track to go before the Lakeport City Council at its Nov. 17 meeting.
Email Elizabeth Larson at