220-JournalistsReport

Journalist Report

02/20/2014

Quentin Cappart

Day 6 on Mars, and crew 136 still alive !

As usual we began this new day with a gymnastic (Ok, maybe it's not “as usual” like I said, but this

morning we really made one !) and a breakfast that was particularly good. I don't know if we have

improved our cooking skills or if we begin to be accustomed to the food. In any case, we ate well !

And already at the waking up hour we had a surprise ! During the night, Corentin heard an unusual

noise near his room... a rodent's noise. Knowing that the previous crews had already saw mice in the

station, this hypothesis is the most likely. We have now the proof of the life on Mars ! Proof ? Not

yet actually... We need to find the mouse to be sure of its existence ! At this purpose, we placed

traps at some strategic points of the station.

About the projects, let's begin with a bad new (So that we can finish with the good ones :). The

observation of the previous night was aborted like the last EVA. Indeed, the wind continued to

breath during the night, so that it was impossible to use the telescope. Only one photo was taken

for only 30 minutes of observation. It's a great pity because this night was particularly good to

observe the sky. As you can see, until now, the weather on Mars is not with us !

Fortunately, the bad weather of yesterday didn't prevent us to work for the geology project. For

this one, we began the analysis of the minerals found previously. We placed the samples under an UV

lamp to observe the emitted colour. The majority of the samples emitted a flash-green light, some

stayed opaque and a few emit a red colour. So now, with the UV-colour we have more information for

identifying the minerals.

Given that the EVA of the day before was aborted, we had to repeat it today. The goal was the same :

Measuring data of the streambed and collecting minerals. And this time, no bad surprise with the

weather ! We succeed to do what we planned. It's our revenge against Martian weather !