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The objective of this work is to present the first analytical and experimental results obtained with a 3D heat flux sensor for planetary regolith. The proposed structure, a sphere divided in four sectors, is sensible to heat flow magnitude and angle. Each sector includes a platinum resistor that is used both to sense its temperature and provide heating power. By operating the sectors at constant temperature, the sensor gives a response that is proportional to the heat flux vector in the regolith. The response of the sensor is therefore independent of the thermal conductivity of the regolith. A complete analytical solution of the response of the sensor is presented. The sensor may be used to provide information on the instantaneous local thermal environment surrounding a lander in planetary exploration or in small bodies like asteroids. To the best knowledge of the authors, this is the first sensor capable of measuring local 3D heat flux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) is a suite of environmental sensors onboard NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. The Thermal InfraRed Sensor (TIRS), developed at Centro de Astrobiología of Spain, is one of the six sensors comprising MEDA, and it will measure the net thermal infrared radiation and reflected solar radiation at the surface, as well as the atmospheric and surface skin temperatures using five different channels. In combination with MEDA's other sensors, TIRS will allow the quantification of the surface energy budget and the determination of key geophysical properties of the terrain such as the albedo and thermal inertia. Here we present a general description of the TIRS, its channels scientific requirements, and the mechanical and thermal design. Then, a detailed sensor mathematical model and a sensitivity analysis to model uncertainties are described. Some characterization test results to model parameters identification are included. Finally, accuracy and resolution calculus for each channel versus operational temperature is presented. The calculus is performed based on sensitivity equations, the practical tests results and the estimated values for different uncertainty sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To determine the prevalence, treatment and control of diabetes mellitus (DM) and impaired fasting glucose (IFG) as well as associated factors in the adult population of four cities of the Southern Cone of Latin America (SCLA). Methods: This is a cross-sectional population-based study that included 7407 adults between 35 and 74 years old in four cities of the SCLA: Temuco (Chile), Marcos Paz and Bariloche (Argentina), and Pando-Barros Blancos (Uruguay). DM was defined as fasting plasma glucose ≥126 mg/dL or self-reported history of diabetes. Awareness, treatment, and control of DM were defined as subjects self-reporting a DM previous diagnosis, the use of a prescription medication or nonpharmacological intervention for DM, and fasting plasma glucose <126 mg/dl, respectively. Results: Prevalence of DM varied among cities, between 8.4% in Bariloche and 14.3% in Temuco. Prevalence of IFG varied at different sites, from 3.5% in Barros Blancos to 6.8% in Marcos Paz. Of the total number of people with diabetes, 20% were newly diagnosed at the time of the study. Overall, 79.8% of patients with diabetes were aware of their condition. The treatment and control rate were 58.8% and 46.2%, respectively. Older age, family history of diabetes, lower educational attainment, overweight, obesity, central obesity, low physical activity, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia were all significantly associated with an increased risk of diabetes. Conclusions: The prevalence of DM and IFG in the adult population of the SCLA is high and varies among cities. These conditions represent a public health challenge since the rates of awareness, treatment, and control are still low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Obesity is a major determinant of cardiovascular disease in South America. However, population-based data are limited. Methods: A total of 7,524 women and men, aged 35 to 74 years old, were randomly selected from 4 cities in the Southern Cone of Latin America between February 2010 and December 2011. Obesity clinical measurements and cardiovascular risk factors were measured using standard methodology. Results: The prevalence of obesity and central obesity were 35.7% and 52.9%, respectively. The prevalence of obesity and central obesity were higher in women, and even higher in women with lower education compared with women with higher education. In men and women obesity was associated with a higher prevalence of diabetes, odds ratio (OR) 2.38 (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.86 to 3.05) and 3.01 (95%CI 2.42 to 3.74) respectively, hypertension (OR 2.79 (95%CI 2.32 to 3.36) and 2.40 (95%CI 2.05 to 2.80) respectively, dyslipidemia (OR 1.83 (95%CI 1.50 to 2.24) and 1.69 (95%CI 1.45 to 1.98), respectively, low physical activity (OR 1.38(95%CI 1.14 to 1.68) and 1.38 (95%CI 1.18 to 1.62) respectively and a lower prevalence of smoking (OR, 0.65 (95%CI 0.53 to 0.80) and 0.58(95%CI 0.48 to 0.70) respectively. Conclusions: Obesity and central obesity are highly prevalent in the general population in the Southern Cone of Latin America and are strongly associated with cardiovascular risk factor prevalence. These data suggest that efforts toward prevention, treatment, and control of obesity should be a public health priority in the Southern Cone of Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Cardiovascular disease is a major cause of death, and its mortality is increasing in Latin America. However, population-based data on cardiovascular disease risk factors are sparse in these countries. Methods A total of 7524 men and women, aged 35 to 74 years old, were recruited between February 2010 and December 2011 from randomly selected samples in 4 cities (Bariloche and Marcos Paz, Argentina; Temuco, Chile; and Pando-Barros Blancos, Uruguay) in the Southern Cone of Latin America. Cardiovascular risk factors were measured using standard methods by trained and certified observers. Results Approximately 85.5% of adults ate less than five servings of fruit or vegetables per day, 35.2% engaged in low physical activity, and 29.7% currently smoked cigarettes. The prevalences of obesity, central obesity, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, dyslipidemia, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome were 35.7%, 52.9%, 40.8%, 2.0%, 58.4%, 12.4%, and 37.4%, respectively. The proportion of individuals with ⩾3 cardiovascular risk factors, including low intake of fruit and vegetables, low physical activity, current cigarette smoking, obesity or central obesity, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, dyslipidemia, and diabetes, was 68.3%, and the proportion of individuals with ⩾3 cardiometabolic risk factors, including obesity or central obesity, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, dyslipidemia, and diabetes, was 22.9%. Conclusions Cardiovascular disease risk factors are highly prevalent in the general population in the Southern Cone of Latin America. These data suggest that national efforts on the prevention, treatment, and control of cardiovascular risk factors should be a public health priority in the Southern Cone of Latin America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Planned future exploration missions to the Jovian satellite Europa have a strong astrobiological motivation. Characterization of the potential habitability of the liquid water environments, and searching for life signals are the main astrobiological objectives of these missions. To meet these objectives specific strategies and instrumentation are required. Here we discuss some scenarios for the development of Europa potential biospheres. These scenarios are based on assumptions of the life similarity concept and knowledge about terrestrial life in extreme environments. Since the potential habitable environments on Europa are in the interior of the satellite it is not possibly to directly detect life. However, there are processes that link aqueous sub-surface environments with the near-surface environment, such as tectonism or magmatism. Therefore, by analysing endogenous materials that arise from the interior it is possible to make predictions about what is in the sub-surface. We propose some measurements and instrumentation for future missions to detect biosignatures on the upper layers of Europa, including the simple physico-chemical traces of metabolism to complex biomolecules or biostructures. Raman spectroscopy or biosensor technologies are the future for in situ exploration of the Solar System. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

After a flawless launch and a quiet half-year cruise to Mars, the InSight spacecraft landedsafely in Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018 carrying a scientific payload focused on theexploration of the deep interior of the planet. The three core experiments are SEIS (SeismicExperiment for Interior Structure), a six-sensor, broad-band seismic instrument to detectglobal seismic/impact activity and use it to probe planetary structure; HP3 (Heat flow andPhysical Properties Package) for measuring the ground temperature/gradient, thermalconductivity and mechanical penetrability from the surface to 5 m depth; and RISE (Rotationand Interior Structure Experiment), a geodetic planetary rotation investigation usingsub-decimeter-scale precision tracking. These are augmented by APSS (Auxiliary PayloadSensor Suite), an environmental sensor suite comprising a pair of wind and air temperaturesensors (TWINS, Temperature and Winds for INSight), a pressure sensor (PS) and amagnetometer (IFG, InSight FluxGate); and an Instrument Deployment System(IDS), including a robotic arm, a mid-resolution color camera (IDC, InstrumentDeployment Camera) and a wide-angle color camera (ICC, Instrument ContextCamera), all of which additionally support geological investigations of the lander&#x2019;ssurroundings. The landing site turns out to be remarkably well-suited for the deployment ofSEIS and HP3, and at the time of this writing (January 2019) SEIS is on the groundwith all sensors operating as designed and HP3 deployment is expected withinweeks. All of the other instruments have been successfully commissioned and arereturning science data. In this presentation we will discuss current mission status alongwith key scientific results from the first few months of Mars surface operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NASA's InSight mission landed in Elysium Planitia (~4.5ºN, 136ºE) on November 2018 at Ls ~298°. It carries, among other instruments, the APSS (Auxiliary Payload Sensor Suite) that includes the TWINS (Temperature and Winds Sensor) package [1, 2], heritage from the previous sensors sent to Mars as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). This will allow surface wind patterns to be measured at InSight's landing site, and - given its proximity to MSL's location in Gale Crater - will complement the diurnal and seasonal wind characterization already performed using data from MSL's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) wind sensor [3, 4]. The latter is of particular interest given the damage the REMS wind sensor suffered during MSL's landing, resulting in little reliable wind data available for the northern winter season, which prevents a full understanding of the seasonal wind patterns in Gale Crater, and especially of the interaction between local, regional and large-scale circulations.A large set of wind data have already been obtained from the InSight wind sensor, enabling the diurnal cycle of wind speed and direction in local winter to be determined for the landing site in Elysium Planitia. The wind patterns are expected to show significant sol-to-sol variability and a complex diurnal cycle, although not as complex as seen in Gale Crater [3,4]. The observed wind patterns are dominated by the large-scale Hadley circulation in this season, but also affected by the regional upslope and downslope winds, which shape the diurnal behavior [1]. Comparisons of InSight data with data acquired at the MSL site aid in interpreting how the large-scale, regional and local circulations interact to lead to the diurnal cycle of winds observed at each site, also improving circulation model predictions for both regions. A complementary work related to a detailed description of how using data from different sources, such as MSL and Insight, help to constrain models of the more general region, will be presented in [5].[1] Spiga, A. et al. (2018) SSR, 214:109. [2] Banfield, D. et al. (2019) SSR, 215:4. [3] Viúdez-Moreiras, et al. (2019), G. Icarus, 319, 909-925. [4] Viúdez-Moreiras, D. (2019). Icarus, 319, 645-656. [5] Newman, C.E. et al. (2019), EGU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the Mars Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (hereafter MRAMS [Rafkin et al. 2001]) has been applied to the landing site (~4.5°N, 136°E in Elysium Planitia) of the InSight mission, that carries onboard the APSS (Auxiliary Payload Sensor Suite) including the TWINS (a pair of Wind and Air temperature sensors) package [Spiga et al. 2018; Banfield et al. 2019]. A full diurnal cycle of air temperature, pressure and wind (speed and direction) obtained from InSight APSS Lander during northern winter, at Ls 295 (landing date) and Ls 315, are compared to data from MRAMS using eight nested grids centered over the landing site. The horizontal grid spacing at the center of the eight grids is 240, 80, 26.7, 8.9, 2.96, 0.98, 0.33 and 0.11 km. We extend our simulations over solstices and equinoxes (Ls 0, 90, 180 and 270).For northern winter, previous works [Pla-Garcia et al. 2016] suggest strong northerly winds with afternoon heating of the dichotomy producing an upslope flow that reinforce the northerly large-scale (Hadley Cell) surface daytime winds. Furthermore, the source of air during northern winter is found to be from very deep within the cold northern high latitudes [Pla-Garcia et al. 2018]. First modeling results for Ls 315 (InSight mission sol ~30) at ~2000-2200 LMST show a decrease in cooling rate (a sudden and unexpected increase in air temperature) that could be produced by enhanced turbulence driven by dynamically-induced downslope windstorms related to gravity wave activity, distinctly different than downslope katabatic winds. This gravity wave amplification activity is produced by strong winds interacting with a sharp topography feature, like Elysium Mons. These dynamic phenomena can oppose buoyancy forces and provide a mechanism for warm air to descend or cold air to rise. These scenarios are fairly common near mountainous terrain on Earth, and are responsible for downslope windstorms (e.g., Chinook winds in the lee of the Rocky Mountains and Foehn winds in the lee of the Alps). Northern clouds captured by MSL Navcam during aphelion cloud belt (ACB) could be putative gravity clouds sculpted by those same gravity waves generated by Elysium Mons and highly related with nighttime turbulence at InSight landing site. Those same gravity waves could be produced tosol, but without a visible counterpart. To study next ACB could be an interesting opportunity to validate this hypothesis.At ~21:45-23:45 LMST, the modeling results for Ls 315 show an important increase in both wind velocity (from ~5 to 10 m/s) and turbulent kinetic energy, that could be produced by enhanced turbulence driven by an increasingly strong shear. As the nocturnal inversion develops, the winds above become decoupled from the surface and the decrease in friction produces a net acceleration. Once the critical Richardson Number is reached (Ri ~< 0.25), shear instabilities can mix warmer air aloft down to the surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mars atmospheric pressure variations induce ground deformations that are the main source of environmental noise on the InSight SEIS instrument. Phenomena generating pressure variations, such as meteorological wavefronts, gravity waves, convective vortices and small-scale turbulence are covering the whole frequency range of SEIS broadband seismometers. These signals impact the capability of SEIS sensors to detect seismic waves propagating in Mars interior. However, the relation between pressure variations measured by the InSight pressure sensor and ground movements measured by SEIS being essentially linear, it is possible to invert both signals to find the transfer function between pressure and ground motion. Then, pressure generated ground movements can be substracted from SEIS records in order to improve their sensitivity to seismic waves. The transfer function, usually called compliance, depends on the ground properties. Thus, the decorrelation of SEIS records from pressure effects will also allow us to constrain the subsurface properties at the InSight landing site.Our study compares two different pressure decorrelation methods applied to Mars synthetic data, and records by both short period and very broadband SEIS sensors. The pressure-decorrelation methods are presented and their differences in terms of underlying assumptions and implementations are explained. Their performances and drawbacks, analyzed on realistic synthetic datasets, are discussed. We plan to apply these methods to real Mars data and use them to retrieve the ground compliance at the InSight landing site over a broad frequency range. Accordingly, we expect to extract elastic properties of the subsurface through the compliance measurements. Wind measurements by the TWINS wind sensor will be integrated in order to separate the effects of various atmospheric phenomena. This sensor is almost identical to the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station sent to Mars as part of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), which operated even after the damage suffered during the MSL landing for more than two Martian years. Thus, wind measured by TWINS will provide valuable inputs to the decorrelation on the InSight SEIS instrument. Finally, the variations of decorrelation performances and compliance measurements with the diurnal Mars cycle will be analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In November 2018, for the first time a dedicated geophysical station, the InSight lander, will be deployed on the surface of Mars. Along with the two main geophysical packages, the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) and the Heat-Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3), the InSight lander holds a highly sensitive pressure sensor (PS) and the Temperature and Winds for InSight (TWINS) instrument, both of which (along with the InSight FluxGate (IFG) Magnetometer) form the Auxiliary Sensor Payload Suite (APSS). Associated with the RADiometer (RAD) instrument which will measure the surface brightness temperature, and the Instrument Deployment Camera (IDC) which will be used to quantify atmospheric opacity, this will make InSight capable to act as a meteorological station at the surface of Mars. While probing the internal structure of Mars is the primary scientific goal of the mission, atmospheric science remains a key science objective for InSight. InSight has the potential to provide a more continuous and higher-frequency record of pressure, air temperature and winds at the surface of Mars than previous in situ missions. In the paper, key results from multiscale meteorological modeling, from Global Climate Models to Large-Eddy Simulations, are described as a reference for future studies based on the InSight measurements during operations. We summarize the capabilities of InSight for atmospheric observations, from profiling during Entry, Descent and Landing to surface measurements (pressure, temperature, winds, angular momentum), and the plans for how InSight’s sensors will be used during operations, as well as possible synergies with orbital observations. In a dedicated section, we describe the seismic impact of atmospheric phenomena (from the point of view of both “noise” to be decorrelated from the seismic signal and “signal” to provide information on atmospheric processes). We discuss in this framework Planetary Boundary Layer turbulence, with a focus on convective vortices and dust devils, gravity waves (with idealized modeling), and large-scale circulations. Our paper also presents possible new, exploratory, studies with the InSight instrumentation: surface layer scaling and exploration of the Monin-Obukhov model, aeolian surface changes and saltation / lifing studies, and monitoring of secular pressure changes. The InSight mission will be instrumental in broadening the knowledge of the Martian atmosphere, with a unique set of measurements from the surface of Mars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]