APPENDIX 3C
ILLUSTRATIVE HYPOTHESIS FORMATION SCENARIO
The scenario presented in table 3.6 suggests the great complexity of data processing and hypothesis generation involved in solving problems in a planetary investigation conducted by a fully-autonomous spacecraft. Table 3.6 shows a simulated report based on studies of the Martian oases following the Viking mission to the Red Planet in 1976 (Huguenin, 1978). Without delineating all logical
functions required to arrive at the final suggested hypothesis, the series gives the reader a feel for the many steps involved in full-fledged scientific analysis of a new situation. It is presented in the format of a condensed message sent to Earth via statements which indicate what measurements were made and confirmed, and what reasoning was used to draw specific conclusions.
TABLE 3.6.—HYPOTHESIS FORMATION: AN ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO
| "Condensates appear suddenly at dawn in two different locations: (-25?, 85?) and (-30?, 315?)."
"Condensates act to flatten the reflectance spectra and appear as highly reflecting at blue wavelengths." "Blue cloud activity occurs during southern fall and winter, and mixed blue and yellow cloud activity occurs during spring and summer. Yellow clouds are indicative of dust. (This information will turn out not to be included in final hypothesis.)" "In these two locations, condensates are brightest at dawn, indicating low-level hazes or frosts. If the brightening of the condensates occurred in the afternoon, convective cloud activity would be indicated." "Both areas are also major centers of dust storms, the clouds typically appearing suddenly at dawn and fading from white to yellow by noon." "Local winds are not sufficient to make airborne particles of the size observed at these sites." "There appears to be a correlation between the time and the location of appearance of both the condensate hazes and the dust storms." "Since winds cannot produce the dust storms, the hypothesis is that rapid evaporation just after sunrise of any water present in the soil is explosively ejecting dust particles into the surface atmosphere. The explosive action is the result of low ambient surface pressures and atmospheric densities." |
3C.1 References
Huguenin, R. L.; et al.: Mars: Infrared Spectral Reflectance and Compositional Implications. J. Geophysical Research, vol. 83, no. B11, Nov. 1978, pp. 5433-5441.
