A key objective of the Perseverance rover mission is to acquire samples of Martian rocks for future return to Earth. Eventual laboratory analyses of these samples would address key questions about ...the evolution of the Martian climate, interior, and habitability. Many such investigations would benefit greatly from samples of Martian bedrock that are oriented in absolute Martian geographic coordinates. However, the Mars 2020 mission was designed without a requirement for orienting the samples. Here we describe a methodology that we developed for orienting rover drill cores in the Martian geographic frame and its application to Perseverance's first 20 rock samples. To orient the cores, three angles were measured: the azimuth and hade of the core pointing vector (i.e., vector oriented along the core axis) and the core roll (i.e., the solid body angle of rotation around the pointing vector). We estimated the core pointing vector from the attitude of the rover's Coring Drill during drilling. To orient the core roll, we used oriented images of asymmetric markings on the bedrock surface acquired with the rover's Wide Angle Topographic Sensor for Operations and eNgineering (WATSON) camera. For most samples, these markings were in the form of natural features on the outcrop, while for four samples they were artificial ablation pits produced by the rover's SuperCam laser. These cores are the first geographically‐oriented (<2.7° 3σ total uncertainty) bedrock samples from another planetary body. This will enable a diversity of paleomagnetic, sedimentological, igneous, tectonic, and astrobiological studies on the returned samples.
Plain Language Summary
The central goal of the Perseverance rover is to drill rock samples that can be brought back to Earth. Future laboratory studies of these samples could tell us about the history of Mars' climate, its interior structure and whether it was once habitable. These studies would greatly benefit from information about how the rock samples were oriented relative to Martian geographic coordinates. Here we show how we developed a technique to orient cores drilled by the rover and applied it to Perseverance's first 20 rock samples. Like all methods for orienting three‐dimensional objects, this required measuring three angles which are analogous to the pitch, yaw, and roll of a boat. We measured the the first two angles using the known orientation of the rover arm during drilling. We measured the third angle using rover photographs of markings on the rock face prior to drilling. These markings were either natural features on the outcrop or, for rock faces with no clear natural markings, an artificial L‐shaped pattern of pits produced by the rover's laser. These cores are the first geographically‐oriented samples of bedrock from another planet. This will enable a diversity of geological, geophysical, and paleontological studies on the samples in Earth laboratories.
Key Points
The Perseverance rover has acquired drill cores of Martian igneous and sedimentary bedrock for future potential return to Earth
Using rover engineering data, we have oriented all rock cores in Martian geographic coordinates to better than 2.7° uncertainty
Orientation enables future studies of the paleodirections associated with Martian magmatic, sedimentary, tectonic, and magnetic processes
Understanding the dynamics and kinematics of outflowing atmospheres of hot and warm exoplanets is crucial to understanding the origins and evolutionary history of the exoplanets near the evaporation ...desert. Recently, ground-based measurements of the meta-stable helium atom's resonant absorption at 10830 has become a powerful probe of the base environment which is driving the outflow of exoplanet atmospheres. We report evidence for the He i 10830 in absorption (equivalent width ∼0.012 0.002 ) in the exosphere of a warm Neptune orbiting the M-dwarf GJ 3470, during three transits using the Habitable Zone Planet Finder near-infrared spectrograph. This marks the first reported evidence for He i 10830 atmospheric absorption for a planet orbiting an M-dwarf. Our detected absorption is broad and its blueshifted wing extends to −36 km s−1, the largest reported in the literature to date. We modeled the state of helium atoms in the exosphere of GJ3470b based on assumptions on the UV and X-ray flux of GJ 3470, and found our measurement of flux-weighted column density of meta-stable state helium , derived from our transit observations, to be consistent with the model, within its uncertainties. The methodology developed here will be useful to study and constrain the atmospheric outflow models of other exoplanets like GJ 3470b, which are near the edge of the evaporation desert.
We have performed a wide-area ultraviolet (UV) imaging survey using the GALaxy Evolution eXplorer to search for bright, point-like UV sources behind M31's extended halo. Our survey consisted of 46 ...pointings covering an effective area of ≈50 deg2, in both the far-UV and near-UV channels. We combined these data with optical R-band observations acquired with the WIYN Mosaic-1 imager on the Kitt Peak National Observatory 0.9-m WIYN telescope. An analysis of the brightness and colours of sources matched between our photometric catalogues yielded ≈100 UV-bright quasar candidates. We have obtained discovery spectra for 76 of these targets with the Kast spectrometer on the Lick 3-m telescope and confirmed 30 active galactic nuclei and quasars, 29 galaxies at z > 0.02 including several early-type systems, 16 Galactic stars (hot main-sequence stars) and one featureless source previously identified as a BL Lac object. Future UV spectroscopy of the brightest targets with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope will enable a systematic search for diffuse gas in the extended halo of M31.
We validate the discovery of a 2-Earth-radii sub-Neptune-sized planet around the nearby high-proper-motion M2.5 dwarf G 9-40 (EPIC 212048748), using high-precision, near-infrared (NIR) radial ...velocity (RV) observations with the Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF), precision diffuser-assisted ground-based photometry with a custom narrowband photometric filter, and adaptive optics imaging. At a distance of d = 27.9 , G 9-40b is the second-closest transiting planet discovered by K2 to date. The planet's large transit depth (∼3500 ppm), combined with the proximity and brightness of the host star at NIR wavelengths (J = 10, K = 9.2), makes G 9-40b one of the most favorable sub-Neptune-sized planets orbiting an M dwarf for transmission spectroscopy with James Webb Space Telescope, ARIEL, and the upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes. The star is relatively inactive with a rotation period of ∼29 days determined from the K2 photometry. To estimate spectroscopic stellar parameters, we describe our implementation of an empirical spectral-matching algorithm using the high-resolution NIR HPF spectra. Using this algorithm, we obtain an effective temperature of and metallicity of . Our RVs, when coupled with the orbital parameters derived from the transit photometry, exclude planet masses above 11.7M⊕ with 99.7% confidence assuming a circular orbit. From its radius, we predict a mass of and an RV semiamplitude of , making its mass measurable with current RV facilities. We urge further RV follow-up observations to precisely measure its mass, to enable precise transmission spectroscopic measurements in the future.
To assess for possible missed hypothyroidism in infants of very low birth weight (VLBW) whose initial newborn screening (NBS) was within normal reference range.
We analyzed serum thyroid-stimulating ...hormone (TSH) obtained at 36 weeks of corrected gestational age or at hospital discharge if earlier (retest TSH) in infants with VLBW in the neonatal intensive care unit to determine the prevalence and factors associated with retest TSH ≥5 mU/L, a concentration requiring close follow-up for hypothyroidism. Utility of alternative cut-offs for NBS TSH also was assessed.
A total of 398 infants, median gestational age 29 (range 22-36) weeks, birth weight 1138 (470-1498) g, were included in this study. Retest TSH was obtained at 49.5 (12-137) days after birth. Median retest TSH was 3.1 (0.5-27.9) mU/L. Seventy-three (18.3%) of the cohort had retest TSH ≥5 mU/L. Adjusting NBS cut-off to ≥15 or ≥10 mU/L identified <50% of infants with TSH ≥5 mU/L, resulting in 6% false positives and >70% false negatives. Multiple regression modeling indicated that 35% of variance in retest TSH value was explained by NBS TSH concentration, birth weight, and gestational age, all P < .01.
Retesting for hypothyroidism at 36 weeks of corrected gestational age in infants with VLBL and normal NBS could identify infants who require ongoing surveillance until thyroid function has been definitively ascertained. Adjusting NBS TSH cutoffs is not a valid option for identifying potential hypothyroidism in infants with VLBW because of lack of sensitivity and unacceptable false-positive and false-negative rates.
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