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NASA's Perseverance rover is well into its second science campaign, collecting rock-core samples from features within an area long considered by scientists to be a top prospect for finding signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The rover has collected four samples from an ancient river delta in the Red Planet's Jezero Crater since July 7, bringing the total count of scientifically compelling rock samples to 12. Twenty-eight miles (45 kilometers) wide, Jezero Crater hosts a delta – an ancient fan-shaped feature that formed about 3.5 billion years ago at the convergence of a Martian river and a lake. Perseverance is currently investigating the delta's sedimentary rocks, formed when particles of various sizes settled in the once-watery environment. During its first science campaign, the rover explored the crater's floor, finding igneous rock, which forms deep underground from magma or during volcanic activity at the surface. "Wildcat Ridge" is the name given to a rock about 3 feet (1 meter) wide that likely formed billions of years ago as mud and fine sand settled in an evaporating saltwater lake. On July 20, the rover abraded some of the surface of Wildcat Ridge so it could analyze the area with the instrument called Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics & Chemicals, or SHERLOC. SHERLOC's analysis indicates the samples feature a class of organic molecules that are spatially correlated with those of sulfate minerals. Sulfate minerals found in layers of sedimentary rock can yield significant information about the aqueous environments in which they formed.
This weekend, some will walk and others run to help Scottsbluff’s local Christian radio station update its broadcast equipment and provide aid to refugees of the war in Ukraine.
Onsite registration for KCMI-FM’s Missions 5K Walk/Run starts at 7 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 at the Wildcat Hills Nature Center, with entrants starting the course there a half-hour later. Preregistration is available through the station’s website or by dropping by KCMI’s office at 209 E. 15th St., Scottsbluff. The station is hoping for 30-40 people to be walking or running the course.
Russ Garrett, KCMI-FM general manager, said he started listening to the station in its first couple years on the air.
Registration is $15 for adults, $5 for children (12 and under) or $40 for a family. Half the registration fee goes to the radio station, the other half to Mission to Russia, a U.S.-based nonprofit that mainly sends missionaries to the former Soviet Union.
KCMI’s transmitter was installed in 1990, according to General Manager Russ Garrett. It still has tubes, like consumer radios and television sets did before digital technology. The station’s antenna also is over 20 years old. Both are well past usual age for replacement.
The transmitter and antenna are key to bringing the Christian broadcasting company’s signal to its over-the-air coverage area, which, thanks to KCMI’s 100,000 watts of power, includes 79,000 people. The region stretches from Glendo, Wyoming, to Oshkosh and just south of Chadron to the Colorado border beyond Kimball.
KCMI Radio’s current transmitter is over 30 years old and has tubes, like old radios and TV sets. The station is raising funds for replacing it with a digital model.
“I would certainly expect that we would have maybe, quite possibly, a few thousand people that tune in on somewhat of a regular basis,” Garrett told the Star-Herald.
KCMI’s board of directors has made a top priority of getting funds to replace both pieces of equipment. The digital transmitter would cost $110,000 and its antenna $40,000. Garrett said the station has $68,000 in the bank, or 45% of the total needed.
Station leadership hopes to have the fundraising complete by the end of 2023. The equipment would be installed about a year later.
KCMI has hosted a missions walk for several years, but changed 2022’s edition after hearing of a listener and longtime event participant’s dedication to Missions to Russia.
“When she shared that with us, we thought, ‘Hey, that’s something I think other people might want to be involved in too,’ so we just kind of built the event this year around that,” Garrett said.
That listener, Denise Manuel, has used the missions walk to raise money for several Christian ministries, such as Joni and Friends, which provides assistive devices to those with disabilities.
Manuel has been giving to MTR since its founder visited Westway Christian Church in Scottsbluff in 2009. She said she’s close to raising her goal for the 5K of $3,869, which would bring her total to $20,000 brought in for nonprofits over the last 13 years.
“It’s a humanitarian crisis,” Manuel said of her decision to aid MTR’s effort in Ukraine this year. “I’m a human, and I want to help other humans. I want to help other people. They are really struggling over there.”
KCMI, which signed on the air in 1981, broadcasts Christian contemporary music, religious teaching and talk shows. Close to half of its programming originates locally, unusually high for a religious-format station in a small city.
Some listeners do like older music, however. Manuel said “Today’s Hymn Time” on Sunday mornings is her favorite program.
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Russ Garrett, KCMI-FM general manager, said he started listening to the station in its first couple years on the air.
KCMI Radio’s current transmitter is over 30 years old and has tubes, like old radios and TV sets. The station is raising funds for replacing it with a digital model.
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