Tag: sulphur

Chandrayaan-3’s Pragyan Rover Confirms Presence of Sulphur on Moon, Search for Hydrogen Underway: ISRO

The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope instrument onboard ‘Pragyan‘ rover of Chandrayaan-3 has unambiguously confirmed the presence of sulphur on the lunar surface near south pole, through first-ever in-situ measurements, ISRO said on Tuesday. 

It also said the instrument also detected aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, manganese, silicon and oxygen, as expected.

“The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) instrument onboard Chandrayaan-3 Rover has made the first-ever in-situ measurements on the elemental composition of the lunar surface near the south pole. These in-situ measurements confirm the presence of Sulphur (S) in the region unambiguously, something that was not feasible by the instruments onboard the orbiters,” the space agency said in a statement.

According to ISRO, LIBS is a scientific technique that analyses the composition of materials by exposing them to intense laser pulses.

“A high-energy laser pulse is focused onto the surface of a material, such as a rock or soil. The laser pulse generates an extremely hot and localised plasma. The collected plasma light is spectrally resolved and detected by detectors such as Charge Coupled Devices. Since each element emits a characteristic set of wavelengths of light when it’s in a plasma state, the elemental composition of the material is determined,” it said.

Preliminary analyses have unveiled the presence of Aluminum (Al), Sulphur (S), Calcium (Ca), Iron (Fe), Chromium (Cr), and Titanium (Ti) on the lunar surface. Further measurements have revealed the presence of manganese (Mn), silicon (Si), and oxygen (O), it said.

“Thorough investigation regarding the presence of Hydrogen is underway,” ISRO said.

LIBS instrument is developed at the Laboratory for Electro-Optics Systems at Peenya Industrial Estate, Bengaluru where the first India satellite was fabricated in 1975.

India on August 23 scripted history as ISRO’s ambitious third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3’s Lander Module (LM) touched down on the lunar surface, making it only the fourth country to accomplish the feat, and first to reach the uncharted south pole of Earth‘s only natural satellite.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced the decision to name the spot where Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander made soft landing as ‘Shiv Shakti Point’ and the site where the Chandrayaan-2 lander crash-landed on the Moon’s surface in 2019 would be known as “Tiranga Point”.

Also, August 23, the day the Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down on the lunar surface, would be celebrated as ‘National Space Day’, Modi had said.

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Possibility of Finding Living Organisms on Venus Slim, New Analysis Suggests

Astronomers and researchers have been in constant search for finding life on other celestial bodies. A team of scientists earlier pointed at the possibility of the existence of life in the clouds of Venus. In 2020, scientists revealed that they had found phosphine gas in the cloud of Venus, sparking speculation about the possibility of life on the planet. Other scientists also explored the chemistry of the evening star and suggested that life on Venus may have developed a sulphur-based metabolism. However, the claims have been rejected in a new analysis, which suggests it has failed to find any sign of life on Earth’s neighbour.

“Life is pretty good at weird chemistry, so we’ve been studying whether there’s a way to make life a potential explanation for what we see,” saidastronomer and chemist Paul Rimmer.

According to experts, the chemistry of Venus is pretty different from that of the Earth. Its atmosphere is rich in sulphur whose concentration can reach 1,00,000 times that of the concentration on our planet. In the latest study, published in Nature Communications, the research team led by astronomer Sean Jordan from the University of Cambridge have investigated the chemical reactions on the planet to demystify the idea of life on Venus.

According to Jordon, they looked for sulphur-based food in the Venusian atmosphere as it is the main available energy source. “If that food is being consumed by life, we should see evidence of that through specific chemicals being lost and gained in the atmosphere,” Jordan added.

While sulfur is produced on Earth through volcanoes, it is likely to be produced the same way on Venus.

In the new study, researchers tried to model the chemical reactions and concluded that such sulphur-metabolising life was capable of causing depletion in sulphur dioxide, as observed on the planet. However, the reaction would also yield other compounds that were not found.

“If life was responsible for the SO2 levels we see on Venus, it would also break everything we know about Venus’s atmospheric chemistry,” Jordan said.

Jordan added that even if life is not responsible for the lack of sulphur dioxide in the upper atmosphere of Venus, it is still something to be examined. “There are lots of strange chemistry to follow up on,” he said.

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