January 9, 2025: Two options for getting Mars rocks back to Earth, how to prevent the next pandemic, and why fast-moving fires are so damaging. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Strong winds blow embers as the Palisades Fire burns homes on the Pacific Coast Highway amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Apu Gomes/Getty Images | | | NASA's Perseverance Mars rover appears in this selfie it snapped in January 2023 alongside several sample tubes scattered about the landscape of Jezero Crater. The space agency is developing a new plan to retrieve most of Perseverance's samples for study on Earth in the 2030s. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS | | | For the past four years, NASA's Perseverance rover has been filling dozens of titanium tubes with samples from Mars's surface. But how do you get rocks from Mars back to Earth, where direct studies by scientists in labs can deliver better, faster results than any remote work performed by robots on the Red Planet? After analyzing an array of alternatives (and considering the ballooning projected costs and technical challenges), this week, NASA announced that it will choose between two retrieval options. But it won't make the choice until mid-2026.
How it will work: NASA proposed using a new lander to meet Perseverance on Mars, transfer the samples, and blast back to space where it would rendezvous with a European spacecraft for delivery to Earth. But the sheer cost of such a feat has grown to $11 billion by latest estimates. Now, NASA will consider between two cheaper plans: Delivering a sample-tube-snagging lander either via a newly-adapted sky crane platform like that which landed the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, or by using a commercial heavy-lift vehicle (like a rocket developed by SpaceX or Blue Origin).
What the experts say: Billions of dollars and untold potential for epochal discoveries are on the line, and the choice could even shape how and when humans first visit Mars. "I'm happy to see MSR not cancelled, but we need to make a decision and move forward sooner rather than later," says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society. --Lee Billings, senior space and physics editor | | | The grey-headed flying fox also carries the Hendra virus, which threatens people and other animals. Doug Gimesy | | | In the past decades a series of viruses (some deadly) have been found in or traced back to bats: Marburg, Ebola, Hendra, Nipah, SARS-CoV-1, MERS-CoV and, most recently, SARS-CoV-2. It is not a stretch to assume that the next global pandemic might originate in bats.
Why this is happening: The causes are human driven. Bats' unique immune system allows them to coexist with an array of harmful viruses. But as people destroy their habitats and food sources, and trigger changes in climate—all of which is happening now—bats' immune systems are strained. The mammals shed viral microbes into urine and droppings, which can infect other animals and eventually people.
What the experts say: Any public-health intervention to prevent future pandemics will need to tackle the whole environmental tapestry, not just pull on a single thread, says Raina Plowright, an infectious disease ecologist at Cornell University. "Halting deforestation and climate change will help address the root cause." | | | • The December furor over a spate of supposed drones spotted in New Jersey bears an eerie resemblance to the UFO hysteria of a couple years ago, which led to much attention in Congress, writes Sean Kirkpatrick, former first director of the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office at the U.S. Department of Defense. "Congressional officials and that unfortunate source of information, social media, continue to make unfounded claims of drone technologies far ahead of U.S. capabilities," he says. | 5 min read | | | • Habitat loss is driving down wild hedgehog populations in the U.K. Gardeners in urban areas are creating hedgehog highways so the animals can reach vital habitat. | Reasons to Be Cheerful | | | • A group of technologists in India hacked Apple AirPods to make hearing aids for their grandmas. | Wired | | | As most ecologists will tell you: we're in a global biodiversity crisis. At least 1.2 million plant and animal species are under threat of extinction, and species are disappearing 100 to 10,000 times faster than normally expected. The main cause? Habitat destruction by humans. Encroachment by humans into wild habitats for food, fuel, farmland and more drastically eliminates ecosystems, and leaves the creatures that live there (like bats) without space or resources. And now, it's clear that the more we push into wild places, the higher the risk of triggering widespread human disease outbreaks. Intact wilderness literally protects human health. | Thank you for being on this journey of discovery! Send any feedback or suggestions to: newsletters@sciam.com. Until tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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