Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter
Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
Editor/Publisher: David J. Thomas, Ph.D., Science Division, Lyon
College, Batesville, Arkansas 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@lyon.edu
Marsbugs is published on a weekly to monthly basis as warranted by the number of articles and announcements. Copyright of this compilation exists with
the editor, but individual authors retain the copyright of specific articles. Opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors, and are not
necessarily endorsed by the editor or by Lyon College. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting the editor. Information concerning
the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available at http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs. The editor does not
condone "spamming" of subscribers. Readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing lists. Persons who
have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editor.
Articles and News
Page 1
NEW MEASURES NEEDED TO KEEP NASA
SPACECRAFT FROM CONTAMINATING MARS
National Academies release
Page 8
PROVING THE CASE: IS METHANE THE FIRST
DIRECT SIGN OF EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE?
By David Tenenbaum
Page 9
EVOLUTIONARY ACCIDENT PROBABLY CAUSED
THE WORST SNOWBALL EARTH EPISODE, STUDY
SHOWS
California Institute of Technology release
Page 10
MARS, THE BLUE ECOSYNTHESIS
Based on drawings and image commentary by Thierry
Lombry
Page 2
OXYGEN PARADOX RESEARCH TO BE
PRESENTED AT GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
By Eric Ramirez
Page 2
JAPAN RESEARCHERS TO BE SEALED IN "MINIEARTH" TO PLAN FOR SPACE LIFE
From Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily
Page 2
MYSTERY METHANE MAKER WANTED DEAD OR
ALIVE
By David Tenenbaum
Page 11
NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE COOPERATIVE
AGREEMENT NOTICE (CYCLE-4)
NAI release
LOOKING FOR LIFE ON MARS IN AUSTRALIA'S
OUTBACK
From Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily
Page 11
GRIFFIN RIGHT HAND MAN TO SPEAK AT MARS
SOCIETY CONVENTION
Mars Society release
SCIENTISTS GIVE BOOST TO CLIMATE CHANGE
PREDICTIONS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology release
Mission Reports
Announcements
Page 3
Page 4
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 6
Page 7
Page 11
CASSINI UPDATES
NASA/JPL releases
Page 15
MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATE
NASA/JPL release
Page 15
MARS EXPRESS: WATER ICE IN A CRATER AT
THE MARTIAN NORTH POLE
ESA release
BIG POSSIBILITIES FOR SMALL STARS
By Peter Backus
Page 16
MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
NASA/JPL/MSSS release
NASA SCIENTISTS DISCOVER TENTH PLANET
NASA release 05-209
Page 16
MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES
NASA/JPL/ASU release
Page 16
MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER UPDATES
Multiple agencies' releases
NASA DEVELOPS A NUGGET TO SEARCH FOR
LIFE IN SPACE
NASA feature
SPITZER FINDS LIFE COMPONENTS IN YOUNG
UNIVERSE
NASA/JPL release 2005-123
PIONEER ASTRONAUTICS DEMONSTRATES A
NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR FLYING AROUND MARS
Pioneer Astronautics release
NEW MEASURES NEEDED TO KEEP NASA SPACECRAFT
FROM CONTAMINATING MARS
National Academies release
25 July 2005
Over the coming decade, NASA should develop and implement new
methods and requirements to detect and eliminate microorganisms on
robotic spacecraft sent to Mars to prevent possible contamination of the
planet, says a new report from the National Academies' National
Research Council. If microbes aboard a spacecraft were to survive the
trip to Mars and grow there, they could interfere with scientific
investigations to detect any life that might be native to Mars. Existing
techniques for cleaning spacecraft are outdated and typically eliminate
only a fraction of microorganisms, said the committee that wrote the
report.
Recent scientific findings suggest that liquid water could be present at
many locations on Mars and that some organisms on Earth might survive
in extreme, Mars-like conditions—such as very low temperatures and
high salt concentrations. These discoveries have bolstered the case that
Mars could be—or have been—hospitable to life and have created
urgency to update policies and practices to prevent Mars contamination,
the report says.
"Ongoing Mars missions have shown that the planet may have
environments where some Earth microbes could grow," said Christopher
F. Chyba, committee chair and professor of astrophysics and
international affairs at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. "Although
we don't know for sure if this could happen, we need to understand
whether liquid water exists in Martian near-surface environments, as
well as the nature of microorganisms that are in our clean rooms and
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
2
spacecraft. It will take a while to carry out the needed research and
development, so we need to start in earnest now."
cause cellular breakdown. Which leads to the real question behind all of
this: Which came first?
NASA currently uses screening techniques that detect heat-resistant and
spore-forming bacteria on spacecraft and then reduces their numbers by
cleaning the spacecraft and, in certain circumstances, baking
components with dry heat. But these screening methods are not
designed to give a comprehensive tally of the microbes present on the
spacecraft, and dry heat can be applied only to spacecraft materials that
can withstand high temperatures, the report notes.
"It's a chicken or the egg type problem?" Dr. Thomas said. Thomas
tested two different organisms under an environment and atmosphere
similar to primordial Earth and his results yielded that photosynthesis
might have evolved first.
NASA should sponsor new research efforts aimed at preventing Mars
contamination, the committee said, such as new techniques for detecting
biological molecules that do not require time for growing laboratory
cultures and could speed spacecraft sterilization and assembly in clean
rooms. Also, methods that determine genetic sequences of organisms
and link them to known microbial species could allow NASA to tailor
sterilization techniques toward spacecraft contaminants of greatest
concern. NASA should also investigate alternative cleaning methods—
such as the use of radiation or vapor disinfectants—for their
effectiveness in killing different types of microorganisms and for their
effects on various spacecraft materials.
NASA should develop a certification process to compare detection and
cleaning methods and select the most promising ones, begin testing and
validating improved techniques within the next three years, and fully
implement selected new techniques in time for spacecraft to launch in
2016. Until NASA conducts the research needed to transition to a
modern approach for planetary protection, the agency should apply more
stringent sterilization levels to all Mars landing spacecraft, the
committee said. An independent review panel should be created by
NASA and meet every three years to review new knowledge about the
Martian environment and recommend updates, as needed, to Mars
protection requirements.
The study was sponsored by NASA. The National Research Council is
the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the
National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution
that provide science and technology advice under a congressional
charter.
Copies of Preventing the Forward Contamination of Mars will be
available this fall from the National Academies Press; phone: 202-3343313 or 1-800-624-6242 or order on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu.
Read
the
report
online
at
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11381.html?onpi_newsdoc07252005.
Reporters may obtain a pre-publication copy from the Office of News
and Public Information (contacts listed below).
Contacts:
Patrice Pages, Media Relations Officer
Michelle Strikowsky, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
Phone: 202-334-2138
E-mail: news@nas.edu
OXYGEN PARADOX RESEARCH TO BE PRESENTED AT
GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
By Eric Ramirez
Lyon College release
25 July 2005
Dr. David J. Thomas, associate professor of biology at Lyon College,
has been invited to share research at an upcoming conference for
geoscientists, Earth System Processes 2. The Geological Society of
America and the Geological Association of Canada are organizing the
meeting. Earth System Processes 2 will be held August 11 in Calgary,
Alberta, Canada. Approximately 350 geoscientists are expected to
attend.
Dr. Thomas' research covers a topic known as the "Oxygen Paradox."
The paradox states that photosynthetic organisms would need
antioxidant systems to protect them. So, according to the paradox, it
would be necessary for photosynthesis and antioxidant systems to evolve
together. Antioxidants are important to all oxygen-using life because
some by-products of using oxygen, called free radicals, are harmful and
This all began in 1995 when Dr. Thomas was working with antioxidants
for his dissertation. The Oxygen Paradox had been posed sometime
between the late '70s and early '80s. His current research started over a
year ago when Dr. Thomas received a grant from the NASA/Arkansas
Space Grant Consortium. Lyon students who have helped with the
research include CaSandra Spurlock and Christy Schuchardt, both of
whom graduated from Lyon this year, as well as John Boling and
Tiffany McSpadden, two undergraduate students at Lyon.
"I know that I don't want to do this for a career, but I certainly know
how to grow bacteria," said Tiffany McSpadden, who was busy moving
test tubes into the refrigerator.
Dr. Thomas' research tells a lot about early life on Earth. According to
Thomas, "We take photosynthesis for granted. The first organisms to
photosynthesize were actually poisoning nearby organisms."
And what about other planets? He remembered talking with Dr. Julian
Hiscox from the University of Leeds in England and discussing what
kind of characteristics a martian microbe would need to survive on
Mars. Thomas said that the surface of Mars was highly oxidized, much
like rust, and that in order for anything to live on Mars it would require
"very robust antioxidant systems."
All of Dr. Thomas' research was performed at the laboratories in the new
Derby Center at Lyon College. Thomas pointed out that one of the
greater things about Lyon College is that post-graduate students can do
significant research.
Read
the
original
news
release
at
http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/groups/Public%20Relations/thomas_to_sh
are_researchl.htm.
JAPAN RESEARCHERS TO BE SEALED IN "MINI-EARTH"
TO PLAN FOR SPACE LIFE
From Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily
26 July 2005
Japanese researchers said Tuesday they would seal themselves in a
"mini-Earth" in an experiment in self-sufficiency to plan for future life
in space. Two researchers will spend one week in the controlled
ecosystem at Rokkasho in the northern prefecture of Aomori, growing
plants such as rice, breeding goats and recycling their water, oxygen and
excreta. Apart from the goats, the researchers will be completely on
their own, save for outside energy and the Internet. The facility to be set
up by the Institute for Environmental Sciences will be 500 square meters
(5,380 square feet) with separate spaces for the humans, animals and
plants.
Read the full article at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel05zzzf.html.
MYSTERY METHANE MAKER WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE
By David Tenenbaum
From Astrobiology Magazine
27 July 2005
The detections of methane in the martian atmosphere have challenged
scientists to find a source for the gas, which is usually associated with
life on Earth. One source that can be ruled out is ancient history:
methane can survive only 600 years in the martian atmosphere before
sunlight will destroy it. If the global concentration of methane on Mars
is 10 ppb, then an average of 4 grams of methane is being destroyed
every second by sunlight. That means about 126 metric tons of methane
must be produced each year to ensure a steady concentration of 10 ppb.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
There is an outside chance that the methane is being delivered to Mars
by comets, asteroids, or other debris from space. Calculations show that
micrometeorites are likely to deliver only 1 kilogram of methane a
year—far short of the 126-ton replacement level. Comets could deliver
a huge slug of methane, but the interval between major comet impacts
averages 62 million years, so it's unlikely that any comet delivered
methane within the past 600 years.
3
a pressure-temperature condition where it would get trapped in ice
crystals, forming methane hydrate.
"If there were a subsurface biosphere, methane hydrate would be an
inevitable consequence, if things behave as they do on Earth," says
Stephen Clifford of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.
If we can rule out methane delivery, then the methane must be
manufactured on Mars. But is the source biology, or processes
unassociated with life?
In hot water?
A small percentage of Earth's methane is made through non-biological
("abiogenic") interactions between carbon dioxide, hot water and certain
rocks. Could this be occurring on Mars? Perhaps, says James Lyons of
the Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics at UCLA.
These reactions require only rock, water, carbon and heat, but on Mars,
where would the heat come from? The planet's surface is stone cold,
averaging minus 63 degrees C. Volcanoes could be a source of heat.
Geologists think the most recent eruption on Mars was at least 1 million
years ago—recent enough to suggest that Mars is still active, and
therefore hot deep below the surface.
A trickle of methane averaging 4 grams per second could come from
such a geological hot spot. But any martian hot spot must be deep and
well-insulated from the surface, since the Thermal Emission Imaging
System on Mars Odyssey found no locations that are at least 15 degrees
C warmer than the surroundings. However, Lyons thinks it's still
possible that a deep body of magma could be supplying the heat.
In one computer model of simplified martian geology, a cooling body of
magma 10 kilometers deep, 1 kilometer wide, and 10 kilometers long
created the 375 to 450 degrees C temperature that drives abiogenic
methane generation at mid-ocean ridges on Earth. Such a body of hot
rock, Lyons says, "is perfectly sensible, there's nothing strange about it,"
because Mars probably retains some heat from planetary formation,
much like Earth.
"It encourages us to think that this is a plausible scenario for explaining
methane on Mars, and we would not see the signature of that dike (body
of hot rock) on the surface," says Lyons. "That's the angle we are
pursuing; it's the simplest, most direct explanation for the methane
detected."
Past the looking glass
Although no one can rule out abiogenic sources for the methane on
Mars, when you find methane on Earth, you are usually seeing the work
of methanogens, ancient anaerobic microbes that process carbon and
hydrogen into methane. Could methanogens live on Mars?
To find out, Timothy Kral, associate professor of biological sciences at
the University of Arkansas, began growing five types of methanogens 12
years ago in volcanic soil chosen to simulate martian soil. He's now
shown that methanogens can survive for years on the granular, lownutrient soil, although when grown in Mars-like conditions, at just 2
percent of Earth's atmospheric pressure, they become desiccated and go
dormant after a couple of weeks.
"The soil tends to dry out, and we have been able to find viable cells;
they are still alive, but they don't produce methane anymore," Kral says.
Methanogens need a steady source of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
While carbon dioxide is abundant on Mars, "hydrogen is a question
mark," Kral says.
Vladimir Krasnopolsky, a research professor at Catholic University of
America in Washington DC, detected 15 parts per million of molecular
hydrogen in the atmosphere of Mars. It is possible that this hydrogen is
escaping from a deep source in the martian interior which methanogens
could use. If methanogens are deep inside Mars, the methane gas they
produce would slowly rise toward the surface. Eventually it could reach
Frost dusts the red plains of southern Mars in early spring. Mars'
mean annual temperature is -55 °C. Image credit: MSSS/JPL/
NASA.
And there's a fringe benefit, Clifford adds. Methane hydrates, "would be
an insulating blanket that would substantially reduce the thickness of
frozen ground on Mars, from several kilometers at the equator, to maybe
less than a kilometer." In other words, methane hydrate would both
store evidence of life and insulate any life that remained from the ultracold surface temperatures.
Although data on conditions a kilometer or so below the martian surface
are non-existent, the growing picture of the complexity, size and
adaptability of Earth's underground biosphere certainly improves the
chance that life exists in comparable conditions inside Mars. Earth's
underground biosphere is composed largely of microbes, some of which
live at depths, pressures and chemical conditions once thought
inhospitable to life.
Deep inside Mars may be a hardscrabble place to make a living, but
methanogens are no wimps, Kral says. "They are tough, durable. The
fact that they have been around probably since the beginning of life on
Earth, and continue to be the predominant life form below the surface
and deep in the oceans, means they are survivors, they are doing
extremely well."
Read the original article at
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1660.html.
LOOKING FOR LIFE ON MARS IN AUSTRALIA'S OUTBACK
From Agence France-Presse and SpaceDaily
28 July 2005
Australian scientists are planning to build a "space station" in the remote
outback to simulate the conditions future human explorers could face on
Mars. Mars Society Australia says the station will be the final step in a
worldwide experiment which has seen similar projects set up in the
Canadian Arctic, the Utah desert and Iceland.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
4
"The idea is that if you have these places around the world, each place
has its own unique Mars-like qualities or characteristics," spokeswoman
Jennifer Laing told AFP Thursday.
Climate Modeling Iniatiative, led development of the software at MIT.
The ESMF research team plans to release the software to the scientific
community via the Internet later this month.
The station, designed to simulate living quarters which could be landed
on Mars, will be 36 meters (118 feet) long and include cabins,
generators, airlocks and docking hatches plus a garage to house a
"rover" to explore the surrounding area.
Contact:
Denise Brehm, MIT News Office
Phone: 617-253-2704
E-mail: brehm@mit.edu
SCIENTISTS GIVE BOOST TO CLIMATE CHANGE
PREDICTIONS
Massachusetts Institute of Technology release
28 July 2005
Read the original news release at
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2005/climate-software.html.
Researchers from MIT, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and
several other government and academic institutions have created four
new supercomputer simulations that for the first time combine
mathematical computer models of the atmosphere, ocean, land surface
and sea ice. These simulations are the first field tests of the new Earth
System Modeling Framework (ESMF), an innovative software system
that promises to improve predictive capability in diverse areas such as
short-term weather forecasts and century-long climate-change
projections.
An additional article on this subject is available at
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/mit_goddard_scientists_clim
ate_change_predictions.html.
NASA DEVELOPS A NUGGET TO SEARCH FOR LIFE IN
SPACE
NASA feature
27 July 2005
Astrobiologists, who search for evidence of life on other planets, may
find a proposed Neutron/Gamma ray Geologic Tomography (NUGGET)
instrument to be one of the most useful tools in their toolbelt. As
conceived by scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in
Greenbelt, MD, NUGGET would be able to generate three-dimensional
images of fossils embedded in an outcrop of rock or beneath the soil of
Mars or another planet. Tomography uses radiation or sound waves to
look inside objects. NUGGET could help determine if primitive forms
of life took root on Mars when the planet was awash in water eons ago.
Using the new Earth System Modeling Framework, researchers
coupled an atmosphere model and an ocean model that had not
interacted before.
This image depicts the sea surface
temperature after five iterations of the simulation.
The
collaborators on this field test are MIT and the Geophysical Fluid
Dynamics Laboratory. Image credits: Shep Smithline, GFDL;
Chris Hill, MIT.
Although still under development, groups from NASA, the National
Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the Department of Energy, the Department of
Defense and research universities are using ESMF as the standard for
coupling their weather and climate models to achieve a realistic
representation of the Earth as a system of interacting parts. ESMF
makes it easier to share and compare alternative scientific approaches
from multiple sources; it uses remote sensing data more efficiently and
eliminates the need for individual agencies to develop their own
coupling software.
"The development of large Earth system applications often spans
initiatives, institutions and agencies, and involves the geoscience,
physics, mathematics and computer science communities. With ESMF,
these diverse groups can leverage common software to simplify model
development," said NASA's Arlindo da Silva, a scientist in Goddard's
Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.
The newly completed field tests, known as interoperability experiments,
show that the new approach can be successful. Although most of the
experiments would require exhaustive tuning and validation to be
scientifically sound, they already show that ESMF can be used to
assemble coupled applications quickly, easily and with technical
accuracy. The MIT experiment combines an atmosphere-land-ice model
from NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory with an MIT
ocean-sea ice model known as MITgcm (http://mitgcm.org/). This may
ultimately bring new insights into ocean uptake of carbon dioxide and
other atmospheric gases and information on how this process affects
climate.
Christopher Hill, principal research scientist in the MIT Department of
Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and a member of the MIT
Principal Investigator Sam Floyd holds the device that will be
used this summer when he and his team test the NUGGET
concept at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in
Gaithersburg, MD. Image credit: NASA.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
Similar to seismic tomography used by the oil industry to locate oil
reserves beneath Earth's surface, NUGGET would look instead for
evidence of primitive algae and bacteria that fossilized along the edges
of extinct rivers or oceans. As on Earth, these remains could lie just a
few centimeters beneath the surface, compressed between layers of silt.
If a mechanical rover that explores planet surfaces were equipped with
an instrument like NUGGET—capable of peering beneath the surface—
then it might be able to reveal evidence of life beyond Earth.
5
Goddard the lead role in developing a new class of instruments to
support missions for NASA's search of life in the future.
"This is a brand new idea," said Sam Floyd, the principal investigator on
the project, funded this year by Goddard's Director's Discretionary Fund.
If developed, NUGGET would be able to investigate important
biological indicators of life, and quickly and precisely identify areas
where scientists might want to take samples of soil or conduct more
intensive studies. "It would allow us to do a much faster survey of an
area," Floyd said.
Jason Dworkin, an astrobiologist at the Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, MD, holds a stromatolite, a layered
sedimentary rock formed by bacteria eons ago. If such a rock
were discovered on Mars, it could indicate that primitive life had
once taken root on the red planet. Image credit: NASA.
Read the original article at
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/nuggets.html.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1662.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-05zzzj.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/nasa_develops_nugget_to_se
arch_life.html
This sealed tube contains a bacterial ecosystem which can form
layered structures such as by the rock shown in the image below.
Image credit: NASA.
The proposed instrument, which could be carried on a rover or a robot
lander, is made up of three fundamentally distinct technologies—a
neutron generator, a neutron lens, and a gamma-ray detector. At the
heart of NUGGET is a three-dimensional scanning instrument that
beams neutrons into a rock or other object under study. When the
nucleus of an atom inside the rock captures the neutrons, it produces a
characteristic gamma-ray signal for that element, which the gamma-ray
detector then analyzes. It's also possible to plot the location of the
elements. After this process, information can then be turned into an
image of the elements within the rock. By seeing images of certain
existing elements, scientists could tell whether a certain type of bacteria
had become fossilized inside the rock.
SPITZER FINDS LIFE COMPONENTS IN YOUNG UNIVERSE
NASA/JPL release 2005-123
28 July 2005
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found the ingredients for life all
the way back to a time when the universe was a mere youngster. Using
Spitzer, scientists have detected organic molecules in galaxies when our
universe was one-fourth of its current age of about 14 billion years.
These large molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are
comprised of carbon and hydrogen. The molecules are considered to be
among the building blocks of life.
Although the concept of focusing neutrons is not new, the ability to
focus them is. Thanks to a Russian scientist who devised the method in
the 1980s, scientists today can direct a beam of neutrons through a
neutron lens made up of the thousands of long, slender, hair-size glass
tubes. The bundle of tubes is shaped so that the neutrons flowing down
them can converge at a central point. Since the method's invention in
the 1980s, manufacturing practices have made this type of optical
system feasible for space exploration.
The advantage of this technology is that it can create a higher intensity
of neutrons at a central point on the object. This increased intensity
allows a higher-resolution image to be produced. Floyd and his coinvestigators, Jason Dworkin, John Keller, and Scott Owens, all from
NASA GSFC, plan to conduct experiments this summer at the National
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) using one of NIST's
neutron-beam lines. By focusing neutrons into various samples (one of
which is a meteorite), they hope to make a three-dimensional image of
the meteorite's internal structure.
"If we're successful, we'll be in position to say whether a space flight
instrument is feasible," Floyd said, adding that his research should give
This artist's conception symbolically represents complex organic
molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, seen in
the early universe. These large molecules, comprised of carbon
and hydrogen, are considered among the building blocks of life.
Image credit: NASA/JPL.
These complex molecules are very common on Earth. They form any
time carbon-based materials are not burned completely. They can be
found in sooty exhaust from cars and airplanes, and in charcoal broiled
hamburgers and burnt toast. The molecules, pervasive in galaxies like
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
our own Milky Way, play a significant role in star and planet formation.
Spitzer is the first telescope to see these molecules so far back in time.
"This is 10 billion years further back in time than we've seen them
before," said Dr. Lin Yan of the Spitzer Science Center at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA. Yan is lead author of a study
to be published in the August 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Previous missions—the Infrared Astronomical Satellite and the Infrared
Space Observatory—detected these types of galaxies and molecules
much closer to our own Milky Way galaxy. Spitzer's sensitivity is 100
times greater than these previous infrared telescope missions, enabling
direct detection of organics so far away.
Since Earth is approximately four-and-a-half billion years old, these
organic materials existed in the universe well before our planet and solar
system were formed and may have even been the seeds of our solar
system. Spitzer found the organic compounds in galaxies where intense
star formation had taken place over a short period of time. These "flash
in the pan" starburst galaxies are nearly invisible in optical images
because they are very far away and contain large quantities of lightabsorbing dust. But the same dust glows brightly in infrared light and is
easily spotted by Spitzer.
Spitzer's infrared spectrometer split the galaxies' infrared light into
distinct features that revealed the presence of organic components.
These organic features gave scientists a milepost to gauge the distance of
these galaxies. This is the first time scientists have been able to measure
a distance as great as 10-billion light years away using the spectral
fingerprints of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
"These complex compounds tell us that by the time we see these
galaxies, several generations of stars have already been formed," said
Dr. George Helou of the Spitzer Science Center, a co-author of the
study. "Planets and life had very early opportunities to emerge in the
universe."
Other co-authors include Ranga-Ram Chary, Lee Armus, Harry Tepliz,
David Frayer, Dario Fadda, Jason Surace, and Philip Choi, all of the
Spitzer Science Center. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the
Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the
Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
Spitzer's infrared spectrograph was built by Cornell University, Ithaca,
NY. Its development was led by Dr. Jim Houck of Cornell.
6
BIG POSSIBILITIES FOR SMALL STARS
By Peter Backus
From Space.com
28 July 2005
Our galaxy is well-placed for viewing in mid-summer and mid-winter.
In July, the star clouds of the Milky Way feature the bright blue-white
stars of the Summer Triangle: Deneb, Vega, and Altair, and the red giant
Antares in the heart of the scorpion. Six months later, from the other
side of the Earth's orbit, we see the blue-white stars of Orion and the
Dog Stars, Sirius and Procyon. The bright red giants Betelgeuse and
Aldebaran are rubies in the January night. The splendor of these jewels
of the night, when viewed far from city lights, inspires a sense of awe
and wonder. It's a beautiful but misleading view of the stars in our
galaxy; we're literally missing most of the picture.
Most of the stars in our galaxy, and presumably all galaxies, are small
red stars called M dwarfs. If you haven't looked through a telescope, I
can guarantee that you've never seen an M dwarf star. They are
intrinsically very faint. The largest and brightest have about half the
mass of the Sun but emit only a few percent as much energy as the Sun.
The smallest are more than four thousand times fainter. They are
difficult to study and few astronomers devote themselves to the task.
Yet, these small stars may turn out to be the most important stars for
astrobiology.
Read the full article at
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_small_stars_050728.html.
NASA SCIENTISTS DISCOVER TENTH PLANET
NASA release 05-209
29 July 2005
A planet larger than Pluto has been discovered in the outlying regions of
the solar system. The planet was discovered using the Samuel Oschin
Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, CA. The discovery
was announced today by planetary scientist Dr. Mike Brown of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, whose research is
partly funded by NASA. The planet is a typical member of the Kuiper
belt, but its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it
can only be classified as a planet, Brown said. Currently about 97 times
further from the sun than the Earth, the planet is the farthest-known
object in the solar system, and the third brightest of the Kuiper belt
objects.
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite was a joint scientific project
sponsored by the United States, the Netherlands, and the United
Kingdom. The Infrared Space Observatory was a European Space
Agency mission with Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical
Science and NASA.
For information on the Spitzer Space Telescope visit
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media. For more information on NASA
missions and programs visit http://www.nasa.gov.
Journal reference:
Lin Yan et al., 2005. Spitzer detection of polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbon and silicate dust features in the mid-infrared spectra of z~2
ultraluminous infrared galaxies. Astrophysical Journal, 628:604-610,
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJ/v628n2/62095
/brief/62095.abstract.html.
Contact:
Gay Yee Hill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Phone: 818-354-0344
Read the original news release at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2005-123.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050728_organic_stuff.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/spitzer_finds_polycyclic_aro
matic_hydrocarbons.html
Discovery images of the new planet. The three images were
taken 1½ hours apart on the night of October 21st, 2003. The
planet can be seen very slowly moving across the sky over the
course of 3 hours. Image credit: M. Brown.
"It will be visible with a telescope over the next six months and is
currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in
the constellation Cetus," said Brown, who made the discovery with
colleagues Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea,
Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, New Haven, CT, on
January 8.
Brown, Trujillo and Rabinowitz first photographed the new planet with
the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003. However,
the object was so far away that its motion was not detected until they
reanalyzed the data in January of this year. In the last seven months, the
scientists have been studying the planet to better estimate its size and its
motions.
"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," said Brown, who is a professor of
planetary astronomy.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
7
Contacts:
Dolores Beasley
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Phone: 202-358-1753
Jane Platt
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Phone: 818-354-0880
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1664.html
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn7751
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/29jul_planetx.htm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_large_object.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_new_planet.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/outerplanets-05k.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/10th_planet_discovered.html
Artist's concept of the view from the planet, looking back towards
the distant sun. Image credit: Robert Hurt (IPAC).
Scientists can infer the size of a solar system object by its brightness,
just as one can infer the size of a faraway light bulb if one knows its
wattage. The reflectance of the planet is not yet known. Scientists can
not yet tell how much light from the sun is reflected away, but the
amount of light the planet reflects puts a lower limit on its size.
"Even if it reflected 100 percent of the light reaching it, it would still be
as big as Pluto," says Brown. "I'd say it's probably one and a half times
the size of Pluto, but we're not sure yet of the final size.
PIONEER ASTRONAUTICS DEMONSTRATES A NEW
TECHNOLOGY FOR FLYING AROUND MARS
Pioneer Astronautics release
29 July 2005
The new flight system is called a gashopper. The vehicle system works
by acquiring CO2 from the Martian atmosphere with a pump (Mars
atmosphere is 95% CO2), storing it in liquid form, then sending it
through a preheated pellet bed to turn it into hot rocket exhaust to
produce thrust for a flight vehicle. The flight vehicle could either be a
ballistic vehicle similar to the DCX vertical takeoff rocket, or a winged
airplane that would take off and land like a Harrier, then transition to
horizontal flight.
"We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than
Pluto ever found in the outer solar system," Brown added.
Mars Ship One takes off.
A view of the solar system from the north down. The four circles
show the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The
yellow dot in the center is the Sun. The Earth, if it were shown,
would be inside the yellow dot representing the Sun. The orbits of
the two outermost planets, along with their current positions, are
also shown. Image credit: M. Brown.
The size of the planet is limited by observations using NASA's Spitzer
Space Telescope, which has already proved its mettle in studying the
heat of dim, faint, faraway objects such as the Kuiper-belt bodies.
Because Spitzer is unable to detect the new planet, the overall diameter
must be less than 2,000 miles, said Brown.
A name for the new planet has been proposed by the discoverers to the
International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of
this body before announcing the name.
For more information see http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown. For
information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.
On Mars, a ballistic gashopper would be capable of flights of tens of
kilometers per hop. A winged aircraft would be capable of hundreds of
kilometers per flight. After each landing, a small rover could be
deployed for local exploration. While it is doing this, the gashopper
would refuel from the atmosphere, using power from the solar panels on
its wings to drive its CO2 acquisition pump. This procedure would take
about a month, then the rover would be recalled, the pellet bed reheated,
and the gashopper flown to a distant landing site to explore again.
The net result is a system that can fly repeatedly on Mars, conducting
numerous aerial surveys and surface exploration at many diverse sites
with a single spacecraft. Furthermore, unlike surface rovers, the
gashopper would not be blocked by terrain obstacles. Also, since its
exhaust is CO2, it would not contaminate landing sites with organics
from a conventional rocket exhaust (which might confuse sensors
looking for indigenous organics).
In a series of tests conducted during the final weeks of July 2005,
Pioneer Astronautics demonstrated the gashopper concept in flight at the
Platte Valley airport near Brighton, Colorado. The test vehicle, named
"Mars Ship One," was run through fast taxi tests, then flown at speeds
between 60 and 100 mph. Mars Ship One has a wingspan of 14 ft and a
dry mass of 118 lb, making it a full scale representative in mass and size
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
of a gashopper airplane that might be used on a robotic mars exploration.
During the late July tests, flight ranges of about 1660 ft were obtained,
with the pellet bed preheated to 800 C and 13 lbs of propellant in the
tank. On Mars, with a hotter pellet bed, high rocket nozzle expansion
ratios, 1/3 Earth gravity, lighter aerospace grade materials, larger
propellant loads, and higher flight speeds, such a system could be
expected to travel about 100 kilometers per flight.
8
PROVING THE CASE: IS METHANE THE FIRST DIRECT
SIGN OF EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL LIFE?
By David Tenenbaum
From Astrobiology Magazine
1 August 2005
Are microbes making the methane that's been found on Mars, or does
the hydrocarbon gas come from geological processes? It's the question
that everybody wants to answer, but nobody can. What will it take to
convince the jury?
Mars Ship One in flight.
The Gashopper airplane program was funded by NASA Langley
Research Center with an SBIR Phase 1 contract to Pioneer Astronautics.
Robert Zubrin was the Principal Investigator at Pioneer Astronautics,
while Chris Kuhl was the program Technical Monitor at NASA Langley.
Other members of the Pioneer Astronautics team included: Gary Snyder,
Electronics Lead; Dan Harber, Aerodynamics Lead; Nick Jameson,
Mechanisms design; Mike Hurley, Pilot; Kyle Johnson, Intern, and
James Kilgore, Machinist.
This high-resolution color photo of the
surface of Mars was taken by Viking Lander 2
at its Utopia Planitia landing site on May 18,
1979, and relayed to Earth by Orbiter 1 on
June 7. It shows a thin coating of water ice
on the rocks and soil. Image credit: NASA/
JPL.
Many experts told Astrobiology Magazine that the best way to judge
whether methane has a biological origin is to look at the ratio of carbon12 (12C) to carbon-13 (13C) in the molecules. Living organisms
preferentially take up the lighter 12C isotopes as they assemble methane,
and that chemical signature remains until the molecule is destroyed.
"There may be a way of distinguishing the origin of methane, whether
biogenic or not, by using stable isotope measurements," says Barbara
Sherwood Lollar, an isotope chemist at the University of Toronto.
But isotope signals are subtle, best performed by accurate spectrometers
placed on the martian surface rather than on an orbiting spacecraft orbit.
And there are complications. For one thing, an average martian methane
level of 10 parts per billion (ppb) may be too faint for accurate isotope
measurement, even for a spectroscope placed on Mars. Also, the 12C to
13
C ratio of methane alone is not always proof of life. For example, the
"Lost City" hydrothermal vent field in the Atlantic Ocean did not show a
clear isotope signature, says James Kasting, professor of earth and
mineral science at Penn State University.
The Pioneer Astronautics Mars Gashopper Airplane Team, from
left: Gary Snyder, Dan Harber, Nick Jameson, James Kilgore,
Robert Zubrin, and pilot Mike Hurley.
"We call her 'Mars Ship One,'" Dr. Zubrin said, "because the desert skies
of Mars are its oceans, and she is the first craft designed to navigate
them. A 1600 ft flight is a humble beginning for Martian aviation, but
then so was the 700 ft achieved at Kitty Hawk. All great things start out
small. Someday vehicles descended from her with give us the freedom
to travel at will across the Red Planet."
Mars Ship one will be on display for public viewing at the 8th
International Mars Society Convention, university of Colorado, Boulder,
August 11-14, 2005. Information about and Registration for the
Convention is now open at www.marssociety.org.
Read the original news release at http://www.pioneerastro.com/gha.html.
"The methane is not that strongly fractionated, but they still think it
might be biological," says Kasting. "At Lost City, you can't figure out if
it's biological or not by the isotopes. How are we going to figure that
out on Mars?"
By expanding the search, responds Sherwood Lollar. Instead of
measuring only carbon, she suggests measuring hydrogen isotopes,
because biological systems also prefer hydrogen (H) to the heavier
deuterium (2H).
A second approach would look at the longer, heavier hydrocarbons—
ethane, propane and butane—that are related to methane, and that
sometimes appear with biogenic or abiogenic methane. Sherwood
Lollar detected these hydrocarbons while investigating abiogenic
methane trapped in pores in ancient rocks in the Canadian Shield, a large
deposit of Precambrian igneous rock. "When the water gets trapped
over very, very long time periods," she says, an abiogenic reaction
between water and rock makes methane, ethane, propane and butane.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
If the longer-chain abiogenic hydrocarbons are ever detected in the
martian atmosphere, how could we distinguish them from similar
hydrocarbons that are the breakdown products of kerogen, a remnant of
decomposing living matter? The answer, Sherwood Lollar repeats,
could be found in the isotopes. Abiogenic hydrocarbon chains would
contain a higher proportion of heavier isotopes than the hydrocarbon
chains derived from the breakdown of kerogen.
"Future missions to Mars plan to look for the presence of higher
hydrocarbons as well as methane," Sherwood Lollar says. "If this
isotopic pattern can be identified in martian methane and ethane for
instance, then this type of information could help resolve abiogenic
versus biogenic origin."
9
EVOLUTIONARY ACCIDENT PROBABLY CAUSED THE
WORST SNOWBALL EARTH EPISODE, STUDY SHOWS
California Institute of Technology release
1 August 2005
For several years geologists have been gathering evidence indicating that
Earth has gone into a deep freeze on several occasions, with ice covering
even the equator and with potentially devastating consequences for life.
The theory, known as "Snowball Earth," has been lacking a good
explanation for what triggered the global glaciations. Now, the
California Institute of Technology research group that originated the
Snowball Earth theory has proposed that the culprit for the earliest and
most severe episode may have been lowly bacteria that, by releasing
oxygen, destroyed a key gas keeping the planet warm.
Gathering more evidence
Isotopes figure prominently in several upcoming space missions that
could slake the growing thirst for evidence on the methane mystery:

The Phoenix lander, scheduled for launch in August 2007, will go
to an ice-rich region near the North Pole, and "dig up dirt and
analyze the dirt, along with the ice," says William Boynton of the
University of Arizona, who will direct the mission. The lander's
mass spectrometer will measure isotopes in any methane trapped in
the soil, if the concentration is sufficient. "We won't be able to
measure the isotope ratio [in the atmosphere], because it won't be a
high enough concentration," Boynton says.

Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled for launch sometime between
2009 and 2011, is a 3,000-kilogram, six-wheel rover packed with
scientific instruments. The tunable laser spectrometer and mass
spectrometer-gas chromatograph may both be able to ferret out
isotope ratios of carbon and other elements.

Beagle 3, a successor to Britain's lost-in-space Beagle 2, may carry
an improved mass spectrometer capable of measuring carbon
isotope ratios, but the project has yet to be approved. The craft
would not launch until at least 2009.
From these launch dates, it's clear the jury on this who-dun-it must
remain sequestered for years, until hard data on the source of methane
on Mars can be aired in the scientific courtroom. At this point, it's fair
to say that many expert witnesses take the possibility of a biogenic
source rather seriously. For example, Vladimir Krasnopolsky, who led
one of the teams that found methane on the planet, says, "Bacteria, I
think, are plausible sources of methane on Mars, the most likely source."
But he expects the microbes to be found in oases, "because the martian
conditions are very hostile to life. I think these bacteria may exist in
some locations where conditions are warm and wet."
Tell it to the judge
That observation points to a possible win-win situation for those who
want to find life on Mars, says Timothy Kral of the University of
Arkansas, who grows methanogens for a living. If, as calculations
suggest, asteroids and comets are not a likely to be delivering methane to
Mars, then either methane-making organisms must be living in the
subsurface, or there is a place where it's warm enough for abiogenic
generation.
"Even though it is not an indication of life directly, it's an indication that
there is warming," says Kral. In those conditions, "there is heat, energy
for organisms to grow."
A lot has changed in the past year. Kral, who has spent a dozen years
growing methanogens in a simulated martian environment, says, "Prior
to last year, when people asked if I thought there was life on Mars, I
would giggle. I would not be in this business if I did not think it was
possible, but there was no real evidence for any life. Then, all of a
sudden, last year, they found methane in the atmosphere, and we
suddenly have a piece of real scientific evidence saying that it's
possible" that Mars is the second living planet.
Read the original article at
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1665.html.
In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (PNAS), Caltech graduate student Robert Kopp and his
supervising professor, Joe Kirschvink, along with alumnus Isaac Hilburn
(now a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
and graduate student Cody Nash, argue that cyanobacteria (or blue-green
algae) suddenly evolved the ability to break water and release oxygen
about 2.3 billion years ago. Oxygen destroyed the greenhouse gas
methane that was then abundant in the atmosphere, throwing the global
climate completely out of kilter.
Though the younger sun was only about 85 percent as bright as it is now,
average temperatures were comparable to those of today. This state of
affairs, many researchers believe, was due to the abundance of methane,
known commercially as natural gas. Just as they do in kitchen ranges,
methane and oxygen in the atmosphere make an unstable combination;
in nature they react in a matter of years to produce carbon dioxide and
water. Though carbon dioxide is also a greenhouse gas, methane is
dozens of times more so.
The problem began when cyanobacteria evolved into the first organisms
able to use water in photosynthesis, releasing oxygen into the
environment as a waste product. More primitive bacteria depend upon
soluble iron or sulfides for use in photosynthesis; the switch to water
allowed them to grow almost everywhere that had light and nutrients.
Many experts think this happened early in Earth history, between 3.8
and 2.7 billion years ago, in which case some process must have kept the
cyanobacteria from destroying the methane greenhouse for hundreds of
millions of years. The Caltech researchers, however, find no hard
evidence in the rocks to show that the switch to water for photosynthesis
occurred prior to 2.3 billion years ago, which is about when the
Paleoproterozoic Snowball Earth was triggered.
For cyanobacteria to trigger the rapid onset of a Snowball Earth, they
must have had an ample supply of key nutrients like phosphorous and
iron. Nutrient availability is why cyanobacterial blooms occur today in
regions with heavy agricultural runoff. Fortunately for the bacteria,
Earth 2.3 billion years ago had already entered a moderately cold period,
reflected in glacially formed rocks in Canada. Measurements of the
magnetization of these Canadian rocks, which the Caltech group
published earlier this year, indicate that the glaciers that formed them
may have been at middle latitudes, just like the glaciers of the last ice
age. The action of the glaciers, grinding continental material into
powder and carrying it into the oceans, would have made the oceans rich
in nutrients. Once cyanobacteria evolved this new oxygen-releasing
ability, they could feast on this cornucopia, turning an ordinary
glaciation into a global one.
"Their greater range should have allowed the cyanobacteria to come to
dominate life on Earth quickly and start releasing large amounts of
oxygen," Kopp says.
This was bad for the climate because the oxygen destabilized the
methane greenhouse. Kopp and Kirschvink's model shows that the
greenhouse may have been destroyed in as little as 100,000 years, but
almost certainly was eliminated within several million years of the
cyanobacteria's evolution into an oxygen-generating organism. Without
the methane greenhouse, global temperatures plummeted to -50 degrees
Celsius. The planet went into a glacial period so cold that even
equatorial oceans were covered with a mile-thick layer of ice. The vast
majority of living organisms died, and those that survived, either
underground or at hydrothermal vents and springs, were probably forced
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
into bare subsistence. If correct, the authors note, then an evolutionary
accident triggered the world's worst climate disaster. However, in
evolving to cope with the new influx of oxygen, many survivors gained
the ability to breathe it. This metabolic process was capable of releasing
much energy and eventually allowing the evolution of all higher forms
of life.
10
MARS, THE BLUE ECOSYNTHESIS
Based on drawings and image commentary by Thierry Lombry
From Astrobiology Magazine
3 August 2005
[All images by Thierry Lombry.]
Terraforming was once solely the province of science fiction. In the
1930s, Olaf Stapledon wrote of electrolyzing a global sea on Venus in
order to prepare it for human habitation in Last and First Men. Jack
Williamson coined the term "terraforming" in the 1940s in a series of
short stories. And in 1951, Arthur C. Clarke gave the concept wide
exposure with his novel, The Sands of Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson
picked up the terraforming torch in the 1990s with his epic trilogy: Red
Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.
Did cyanobacteria, like these Chroococcidiopsis, cause global
cooling by producing oxygen? Image credit: D. J. Thomas.
Kirschvink and his lab have earlier shown a mechanism by which Earth
could have gotten out of Snowball Earth. After some tens of millions of
years, carbon dioxide would build up to the point that another
greenhouse took place. In fact, the global temperature probably bounced
back to +50 degrees Celsius, and the deep-sea vents that provided a
refuge for living organisms also had steadily released various trace
metals and nutrients. So not only did life return after the ice layers
melted, but it did so with a magnificent bloom.
"It was a close call to a planetary destruction," says Kirschvink. "If
Earth had been a bit further from the sun, the temperature at the poles
could have dropped enough to freeze the carbon dioxide into dry ice,
robbing us of this greenhouse escape from Snowball Earth."
Of course, 2.3 billion years is a very long time ago. But the episode
points to a grim reality for the human race if conditions ever resulted in
another Snowball Earth. We who are living today will never see it, but
Kirschvink says that an even worse Snowball Earth could occur if the
conditions were again right.
Scientists began to think seriously about terraforming in the 1960s, when
Carl Sagan published several articles dealing with the possibility of
terraforming Venus. NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay prefers the
term "ecosynthesis" to terraforming, since the chance to recreate Earthlike conditions will be technologically challenging.
"I don't think we can terraform Mars, if terraforming is, as it was
originally defined, making Mars suitable for human beings," says
McKay. "But what we could do is make Mars suitable for life. Human
beings are a particular subset of life that require particular conditions.
And it turns out oxygen in particular is very hard to make on Mars. That
is, I think, beyond our technological horizons—it's a long time in the
future. But warming Mars up, and restoring its thick carbon dioxide
atmosphere, restoring its habitable state, is possible. It's sort of a stretch
of the word terraforming, but if you want to call that terraforming, that's
possible. Bob McElroy coined the phrase "ecosynthesis" for that, and I
think that's a better word."
Illustrator Thierry Lombry has produced some of the most fascinating
and detailed visualizations showing how the martian landscape might be
modified over hundreds or thousands of years.
Mars, the red
"We could still go into Snowball if we goof up the environment badly
enough," he says. "We haven't had a Snowball in the past 630 million
years, and because the sun is warmer now it may be harder to get into
the right condition. But if it ever happens, all life on Earth would likely
be destroyed. We could probably get out only by becoming a runaway
greenhouse planet like Venus."
Today Mars is a cold world, dry and arid. Its dust could be toxic,
carcinogenic, and allergenic. It is an inhospitable world.
Journal reference:
Robert E. Kopp, et al, 2005. The Paleoproterozoic snowball Earth: a
climate disaster triggered by the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis.
Proceedings
of
the
National
Academy
of
Sciences,
10.1073/pnas.0504878102,
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0504878102v1.
Contact:
Robert Tindol
Phone: 626-395-3631
E-mail: tindol@caltech.edu
An additional article on this subject is available at
http://www.terradaily.com/news/iceage-05n.html.
Mars, the red.
The mean temperature is below freezing, but it varies from -125°C in
winter to +20°C at the equator in summer. Due to the low pressure of
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
the atmosphere and the cold, the soil is compact, and at night carbonic
frost covers the red rocks. Fallen rocks, fractures, partly buried craters
and extinct volcanoes are the sole traces of surface activity. Winds and
tempests pull dust into the atmosphere, giving it a pink-orange color.
11
The air is breathable, so explorers do not need oxygen masks. Mars the
blue can begin to sustain the first human settlements.
Read the original article at
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1667.html.
Mars, the brown—the next millennium
Five hundred years after terraforming, billions of tons of photosynthetic
bacteria and greenhouse gases have been injected in the atmosphere.
Mirrors angled to intensify sunlight, along with the engineered
explosions of several volcanoes, have re-warmed the surface.
NASA ASTROBIOLOGY INSTITUTE COOPERATIVE
AGREEMENT NOTICE (CYCLE-4)
NAI release
25 July 2005
The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) announces, through the release
of this Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN), an opportunity for the
submission of team-based proposals for membership in the Institute.
Proposals should clearly articulate an innovative, interdisciplinary,
astrobiology research program, together with plans to advance the full
scope of NAI objectives as defined in the Institutes's Mission Statement.
It is expected that $5-6M will be available for this selection in the first
award year, leading to the award of approximately three to five
Cooperative Agreements.
The Cooperative Agreement
http://nspires.nasaprs.com.
Notice
can
be
accessed
at
CAN Release Date: July 25, 2005
Notices of Intent Due: August 26, 2005
Proposals Due: October 28, 2005
Mars, the brown.
The temperature rises, melting any subsurface water. This water turns
craters into lakes and ponds, and rivers snake across the surface.
Atmospheric dust slowly falls back to the ground, giving the sky a more
bluish color. The air is not breathable yet. The first settlers explore the
planet.
Mars, the blue—the next epoch
Hundreds to thousands of years pass, depending on the intensity of
terraforming efforts. The only frozen subsurface water is in the polar
regions. The mean temperature is 10°C, and reaches 35°C in summer at
the equator. In the top tens of centimeters underground, the temperature
remains above freezing, even in winter.
GRIFFIN RIGHT HAND MAN TO SPEAK AT MARS SOCIETY
CONVENTION
Mars Society release
1 August 2005
Chris Shank, Special Assistant to NASA Administrator Mike Griffin
will speak at the 8th International Mars Society Convention, August 1114, 2005 at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Prior to his work as
Administrator Griffin's Special Assistant, Chris Shank served as a staff
member of the House Space subcommittee and as a Lt. Colonel in the
US Air Force. Since joining NASA, he has had a key role in
coordinating the development of NASA plans to implement President
Bush's Vision for Space Exploration, which aims to send human
explorers back to the Moon and on to Mars, as well as dealing with
many other issues the space agency is currently facing.
Chris Shank's talk is entitled "NASA's New Plan." It will be given in a
plenary session on the morning of August 13. For the past two months,
Griffin's team has been working out the plan to reach for the Moon and
Mars. The results of their efforts have been closely held. Shank's talk
may be their first public revelation.
Registration for the conference is now open at www.marssociety.org.
CASSINI UPDATES
NASA/JPL releases
Cassini Reveals Saturn's Eerie-Sounding Radio Emissions
NASA/JPL release 2005-119, 25 July 2005
Saturn's radio emissions could be mistaken for a Halloween sound track.
That's how two researchers describe their recent findings, published in
the July 23 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters. Their paper is
based on data from the Cassini spacecraft radio and plasma wave science
instrument. The study investigates sounds that are not just eerie, but
also descriptive of a phenomenon similar to Earth's northern lights.
Mars, the blue.
The sky is blue, rivers and lakes have invaded the planet as in ancient
martian times past. The ground is verdant, covered with thick moss and
lichens, and even some grasses adapted to temperate conditions. Life
has acclimatized. Now shrubs, flowers and even insects or fishes could
survive. However, terraforming efforts have to be maintained because
Mars is too small to retain its atmosphere.
"All of the structures we observe in Saturn's radio spectrum are giving us
clues about what might be going on in the source of the radio emissions
above Saturn's auroras," said Dr. Bill Kurth, deputy principal
investigator for the instrument. He is with the University of Iowa, Iowa
City. Kurth made the discovery along with Principal Investigator Don
Gurnett, a professor at the University. "We believe that the changing
frequencies are related to tiny radio sources moving up and down along
Saturn's magnetic field lines."
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
12
Samples of the resulting sounds can be heard at www.nasa.gov/cassini,
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/cassini/.
The radio emissions, called Saturn kilometric radiation, are generated
along with Saturn's auroras, or northern and southern lights. Because
the Cassini instrument has higher resolution compared to a similar
instrument on NASA's Voyager spacecraft, it has provided more detailed
information on the spectrum and the variability of radio emissions. The
high-resolution measurements allow scientists to convert the radio
waves into audio recordings by shifting the frequencies down into the
audio frequency range.
The terrestrial cousins of Saturn's radio emissions were first reported in
1979 by Gurnett, who used an instrument on the International Sun-Earth
Explorer spacecraft in Earth orbit. Kurth said that despite their best
efforts, scientists still haven't agreed on a theory to fully explain the
phenomenon.
They will get another chance to solve the radio emission puzzle
beginning in mid-2008 when Cassini will fly close to, or possibly even
through, the source region at Saturn. Gurnett said, "It is amazing that
the radio emissions from Earth and Saturn sound so similar."
Other contributors to the paper include University of Iowa scientists
George Hospodarsky and Baptiste Cecconi; Mike Kaiser (currently at
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.); French scientists
Philippe Louarn, Philippe Zarka and Alain Lecacheux; and Austrian
scientists Helmut Rucker and Mohammed Boudjada.
Cassini Finds Recent and Unusual Geology on Enceladus
NASA/JPL release 2005-121, 26 July 2005
The tortured southern polar terrain of Saturn's moon Enceladus
appears strewn with great boulders of ice in these two fantastic
views—the highest resolution images obtained so far by Cassini
of any world. Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
As white as fresh snow, Enceladus has the most reflective surface in the
solar system. Previous Cassini flybys revealed Enceladus, in contrast to
Saturn's other icy moons, has lightly cratered regions, fractured plains
and wrinkled terrain. The new findings add to the story of a body that
has undergone multiple episodes of geologic activity spanning a
considerable portion of its lifetime. The moon's southernmost latitudes
have likely seen the most recent activity.
These same latitudes may also bear the scars of a shift in the moon's spin
rate. If true, this speculation may help scientists understand why
Enceladus has a tortured-looking surface, with pervasive crisscrossing
faults, folds and ridges. The most remarkable images show ice blocks
about 10 to 100 meters (33 to 328 feet) across in a region that is unusual
in its lack of the very fine-grained frost that seems to cover the rest of
Enceladus.
"A landscape littered with building-sized blocks was not expected," said
Dr. Peter Thomas, an imaging-team member from Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY. "The minimal cover of finer material and the preservation
of small, crossing fracture patterns in the surrounding areas indicate that
this region is young compared to the rest of Enceladus."
As Cassini approached the intriguing ice world of Enceladus for
its extremely close flyby on July 14, 2005, the spacecraft obtained
images in several wavelengths that were used to create this falsecolor composite view. Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science
Institute.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has obtained new, detailed images of the
south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The data reveal
distinctive geological features and the most youthful terrain seen on the
moon. These findings point to a very complex evolutionary history for
Saturn's brightest, whitest satellite. Cassini's July 14 flyby brought it
within 175 kilometers (109 miles) of the surface of the icy moon. The
close encounter revealed a landscape near the south pole almost entirely
free of impact craters. The area is also littered with house-sized ice
boulders carved by unique tectonic patterns found only in this region of
the moon.
False color composites of this region, created from the most recent
images, show the largest exposures of coarse-grained ice fractures seen
anywhere on the moon, which also supports the notion of a young
surface at southern latitudes. Some of the latest images may hint at the
answer. The images revealed additional examples of a distinctive "Yshaped" tectonic feature on Enceladus. In this unusual element, parallel
ridges and valleys appear to systematically fold and deform around the
south polar terrains.
"These tectonic features define a boundary that isolates the young, south
polar terrains from older terrains on Enceladus," noted Dr. Paul
Helfenstein, an associate of the imaging team also at Cornell University.
"Their placement and orientation may tell us a very interesting story
about the way the rotation of Enceladus has evolved over time and what
might have provided the energy to power the geologic activity that has
wracked this moon."
The apparent absence of sizable impact craters also suggests the south
pole is younger than other terrain on Enceladus. All these indications of
youth are of great interest to scientists, who have long suspected
Enceladus as one possible source of material for Saturn's extensive and
diffuse E ring, which coincides with the moon's orbit. Young terrain
requires a means to generate the heat needed to modify the surface.
Other Cassini instrument teams are working to understand data about the
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
temperature, composition, particles and magnetic field. Together with
image interpretation, these data can create a more complete picture.
As it swooped past the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus on
July 14, 2005, Cassini acquired high resolution views of this
puzzling ice world. From afar, Enceladus exhibits a bizarre
mixture of softened craters and complex, fractured terrains.
Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
These Cassini images are
http://www.nasa.gov/cassini,
http://ciclops.org.
available on the Web at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
and
Cassini Significant Events for 21-27 July 2005
NASA/JPL release, 29 July 2005
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired Wednesday, July 27,
from the Goldstonetracking stations. The Cassini spacecraft is in an
excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the
present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the
"Present
Position"
web
page
located
at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.
13
The live IVP update kick-off meeting for DOY 212 was held today.
Targets listed in the kick-off package are Mimas, Dione, Rhea, Saturn,
and Tethys. Additional rocks being observed during the update period
are Pallene, Atlas, Janus, Epimetheus, Pan, Pandora, Telesto, and
Prometheus.
Turbulent swirls churn in Saturn's atmosphere while the planet's
rings form a dazzling backdrop. The rings' complex structure is
clearly evident in this view. Image credits: NASA/JPL/Space
Science Institute.
A special meeting was held today to present the results of a study
comparing the actual data volume used by the science instruments,
against the data volume allocated to the instrument in the data policing
tables. This study is the result of work done by Science Planning and
looks specifically at the S08 and S10 sequences. It is anticipated that the
Target Working Teams and Orbiter Science Teams will work with the
instrument teams to better optimize the bit allocations.
The Solar Conjunction separation angle reached two degrees today.
With the Sun between the spacecraft and Earth, Cassini has entered a
period of communications degradation lasting approximately seven
days. Science this week was limited to Magnetospheric and Plasma
Science instruments, as they took measurements of both the bow shock
and magnetopause to study their structure in detail.
Cassini Outreach presented a Saturn Observation Campaign workshop,
which included "how to plan a school star party". Twenty five new Los
Angeles area NASA Explorer School teachers attended, then held their
own star party and observed the night sky.
Friday, July 22 (DOY 203):
A really nice shot of Tethys with Saturn is Astronomy Picture of the Day
today. The Encounter Strategy Meeting for Enceladus 2 through Titan 6
and OTMs 26 through 28 occurred today.
Saturday, July 23 (DOY 204):
Minimum Sun-Cassini separation angle of 0.3 degrees occurred today.
Apoapsis occurred marking the start of Cassini's 12th orbit around
Saturn.
Sunday, July 24 (DOY 205):
Thursday, July 21 (DOY 202):
Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) observed a strong solar Type
II burst at ~15 hr UT on July 24 (DOY 205). This Type II is probably
from solar active region AR0786 that is on the backside of the Sun as
seen from Earth but front side for Cassini. This region has been
extremely active over the past several weeks. SOHO reports a full
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
14
backside halo CME at the appropriate light time corrected to account for
the RPWS observation. Estimated launch speed is 3000 km/sec.
The shock, if it propagates to 9 AU, is predicted to arrive at Saturn
August 2-4, with an arrival date of August 4 for minimum deceleration
conditions. The big uncertainty on this one is the launch speed since its
backside and only a flank is visible in the image. The WIND/WAVES
team measured the same radio burst from 1 AU and got a slower shock
speed of 1750 km/sec instead of 3000 km/sec, which means that the
shock would not reach Saturn until about 6 August.
Monday, July 25 (DOY 206):
An end-to-end test was run in the Integrated Test Laboratory this week
using the 050505 reference trajectory to test flight software patches for
CDS and AACS, the Titan 7 flyby, a representative orbit trim maneuver,
and other changes. In mid-August we will test the Titan 7 portion again
with the new 050720 reference trajectory released on July 18. The
Spacecraft Operations Office plans to uplink both patches in the early
September timeframe. The final sequence approval meeting for S13 was
held. Uplinks of the Instrument Expanded Block files and the
background sequence will begin on July 27.
JPL has put out a news release regarding Cassini's observations of the
radio emissions of Saturn. Apparently the emissions are quite eerie,
could be mistaken for a Halloween sound track, and are descriptive of a
phenomenon similar to Earth's northern lights according to findings
published in the July 23 issue of the Geophysical Research Letters. The
full news release along with samples of the sounds can be viewed/heard
at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.
Tuesday, July 26 (DOY 207):
No new waiver requests have been submitted for the S14 preliminary
sequence phase 1, so the waiver disposition meeting scheduled for today
was cancelled. Reaction Wheel status at launch + 7.8 years, a status
report on Langley atmospheric drag simulations for Titan flybys, and a
summary of Radio Science requests for DSN tracking submitted for
2006 were discussed at a Mission Planning Forum held today. The S15
Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP) Kickoff Meeting was
held this morning. Following the meeting the stripped subsequence
files were published to the program file repository for team review.
JPL put out an additional press release this week regarding unusual
geology observed on Enceladus during the flyby last week. Detailed
images of the South Polar Region reveal distinctive geological features
and the most youthful terrain seen on that moon. These findings point to
a very complex evolutionary history. To review the images and the text
of this press release go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
An image of spongy looking Hyperion was Astronomy Picture of the
day today. Cassini Outreach was interviewed for a new local Public
Broadcast radio show called "After Sunset" which aired July 26.
Cassini exited the period of solar conjunction today. Separation angle
reached 4 degrees and the final non-operational commands were sent for
purposes of link characterization. Instrument real-time commanding and
science acquisition—put on hold for the last seven days—will now
recommence at pre-conjunction levels.
Wednesday, July 27 (DOY 208):
A Delivery Coordination Meeting was held for Telecom Forecaster
Predictor Version 4.0. Although there were a number of changes, the
most significant ones were updated DSN station models to include the
new X/X/Ka feed. Science Planning hosted a Cassini internal Tour
Science Talk covering Iapetus and Enceladus data, and Iapetus
formation. Uplink Operations sent five instrument expanded block files
to the spacecraft in preparation for the start of S13 execution. Based on
SSR memory read-outs, it was verified that the spacecraft properly
received all the loads.
This image shows the surprise that startled Cassini scientists on
the composite infrared spectrometer team when they got their first
look at the infrared (heat) radiation from the south pole of Saturn's
moon Enceladus. There is a dramatic warm spot centered on the
pole that is probably a sign of internal heat leaking out of the icy
moon. The data were taken during the spacecraft's third flyby of
this intriguing moon on July 14, 2005. Image credits: NASA/
JPL/Space Science Institute.
Cassini Finds an Active, Watery World at Saturn's Enceladus
NASA/JPL release 2005-124, 29 July 2005
Saturn's tiny icy moon Enceladus, which ought to be cold and dead,
instead displays evidence for active ice volcanism. NASA's Cassini
spacecraft has found a huge cloud of water vapor over the moon's south
pole, and warm fractures where evaporating ice probably supplies the
vapor cloud. Cassini has also confirmed Enceladus is the major source
of Saturn's largest ring, the E-ring.
"Enceladus is the smallest body so far found that seems to have active
volcanism," said Dr. Torrence Johnson, Cassini imaging-team member
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "Enceladus'
localized water vapor atmosphere is reminiscent of comets. 'Warm
spots' in its icy and cracked surface are probably the result of heat from
tidal energy like the volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io. And its
geologically young surface of water ice, softened by heat from below,
resembles areas on Jupiter's moons, Europa and Ganymede."
Cassini flew within 175 kilometers (109 miles) of Enceladus on July 14.
Data collected during that flyby confirm an extended and dynamic
atmosphere. This atmosphere was first detected by the magnetometer
during a distant flyby earlier this year.
The ion and neutral mass spectrometer and the ultraviolet imaging
spectrograph found the atmosphere contains water vapor. The mass
spectrometer found the water vapor comprises about 65 percent of the
atmosphere, with molecular hydrogen at about 20 percent. The rest is
mostly carbon dioxide and some combination of molecular nitrogen and
carbon monoxide. The variation of water vapor density with altitude
suggests the water vapor may come from a localized source comparable
to a geothermal hot spot. The ultraviolet results strongly suggest a local
vapor cloud. The fact that the atmosphere persists on this low-gravity
world, instead of instantly escaping into space, suggests the moon is
geologically active enough to replenish the water vapor at a slow,
continuous rate.
"For the first time we have a major clue not only to the role of water at
the icy moons themselves, but also to its role in the evolution and
dynamics of the Saturn system as a whole," said Dr. Ralph L. McNutt,
ion and neutral mass spectrometer-team member, Johns Hopkins
University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD.
Images show the south pole has an even younger and more fractured
appearance than the rest of Enceladus, complete with icy boulders the
size of large houses and long, bluish cracks or faults dubbed "tiger
stripes."
Another Cassini instrument, the composite infrared spectrometer, shows
the south pole is warmer than anticipated. Temperatures near the
equator were found to reach a frigid 80 degrees Kelvin (minus 316
Fahrenheit), as expected. The poles should be even colder because the
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
Sun shines so obliquely there.
However, south polar average
temperatures reached 85 Kelvin (minus 307 Fahrenheit), much warmer
than expected. Small areas of the pole, concentrated near the "tiger
stripe" fractures, are even warmer: well over 110 Kelvin (minus 261
Fahrenheit) in some places.
"This is as astonishing as if we'd flown past Earth and found that
Antarctica was warmer than the Sahara," said Dr. John Spencer, team
member of the composite infrared spectrometer, Southwest Research
Institute, Boulder, CO.
15
Erica Hupp or Dolores Beasley
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Phone: 202-358-1237 or -1753
Preston Dyches
Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations
Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO
Phone: 720-974-5859
Gary Galluzzo
University of Iowa, Iowa City
Phone: 319-384-0009
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1661.html
http://cl.exct.net/?ffcd16-fe5b16777362027c7d14fe28167073670175701c72
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzm.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzo.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/dim_on_the_darkside_cassin
i.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/wind_world_tethys_mimas.h
tml
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/active_watery_world_at_enc
eladus.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/atmospheric_illusion_saturn_
clouds.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rhea_bright_blemish.html
MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATE
NASA/JPL release
2 August 2005
This image shows the warmest places in the south polar region of
Saturn's moon Enceladus. The unexpected temperatures were
discovered by Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer during a
close flyby on July 14, 2005. The image shows how these
temperatures correspond to the prominent, bluish fractures
dubbed "tiger stripes," first imaged by Cassini's imaging science
subsystem cameras. Working together the two teams were able
to pinpoint the exact location of the warmest regions on
Enceladus. Image credits: NASA/ JPL/Space Science Institute.
Scientists find the temperatures difficult to explain if sunlight is the only
heat source. More likely, a portion of the polar region, including the
"tiger stripe" fractures, is warmed by heat escaping from the interior.
Evaporation of this warm ice at several locations within the region could
explain the density of the water vapor cloud detected by other
instruments. How a 500-kilometer (310-mile) diameter moon can
generate this much internal heat and why it is concentrated at the south
pole is still a mystery.
Cassini's cosmic dust analyzer detected a large increase in the number of
particles near Enceladus. This observation confirms Enceladus is a
source of Saturn's E-ring. Scientists think micrometeoroids blast the
particles off, forming a steady, icy, dust cloud around Enceladus. Other
particles escape, forming the bulk of the E ring.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the
European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science
Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two
onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The
imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in
Boulder, CO. The radio and plasma wave science team is based at the
University of Iowa, Iowa City. For information on the Cassini mission
visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini.
Contacts:
Carolina Martinez
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Phone: 818-354-9382
Spirit has reached a target-rich area of the Columbia Hills. In the week
of July 21 to 28, 2005, Spirit performed extensive investigations on two
rocks, "Descartes" and "Bourgeoisie." Spirit has also acquired
coordinated panoramic camera and miniature thermal emission
spectrometer observations of several nearby rock targets.
Opportunity continued its trek south toward "Erebus Crater," making 61
meters (200 feet) of progress over two sols of driving. The rover is
approaching greater quantities of outcrop as it heads south, and the team
is excited at the possibility of using the robotic arm before reaching
Erebus. This week, restricted sols allowed the team to drive only every
other sol. Next week, however, there will be a shift back to an early
planning cycle that will allow driving every sol if desired.
Current MER updates are available at
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzze.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzf.html
MARS EXPRESS: WATER ICE IN A CRATER AT THE
MARTIAN NORTH POLE
ESA release
28 July 2005
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on
board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show a patch of water ice sitting
on the floor of an unnamed crater near the Martian north pole. The
HRSC obtained these images during orbit 1343 with a ground resolution
of approximately 15 meters per pixel. The unnamed impact crater is
located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars's
far northern latitudes, at approximately 70.5° North and 103° East. The
crater is 35 kilometers wide and has a maximum depth of approximately
2 kilometers beneath the crater rim. The circular patch of bright material
located at the center of the crater is residual water ice.
This white patch is present all year round, as the temperature and
pressure are not high enough to allow sublimation of water ice.
It cannot be frozen carbon dioxide since carbon dioxide ice had already
disappeared from the north polar cap at the time the image was taken
(late summer in the Martian northern hemisphere).
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
16
Collapse Pits (Released 27 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/27
All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html.
archived
at
Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in
Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission
on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a longterm program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program
that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science,
Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the
California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware
from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its
facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars
Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor
spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics,
from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO.
Perspective view of crater with water ice—looking east. Image
credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).
There is a height difference of 200 metres between the crater floor and
the surface of this bright material, which cannot be attributed solely to
water ice. It is probably mostly due to a large dune field lying beneath
this ice layer. Indeed, some of these dunes are exposed at the
easternmost edge of the ice.
Faint traces of water ice are also visible along the rim of the crater and
on the crater walls. The absence of ice along the north-west rim and
walls may occur because this area receives more sunlight due to the
Sun's orientation, as highlighted in the perspective view.
The color images were processed using the HRSC nadir (vertical view)
and three color channels. The perspective views were calculated from
the digital terrain model derived from the stereo channels.
The 3D anaglyph images were created from the nadir channel and one of
the stereo channels. Stereoscopic glasses are needed to view the 3D
images Image resolution has been decreased for use on the internet.
Read the original news release at
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMGKA808BE_0.html.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1663.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/marsexpress-05y.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/water_ice_in_cater_at_north
_pole.html
MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
NASA/JPL/MSSS release
21-27 July 2005
The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on
the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available.
Polygon-Cracked Plain (Released 21 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/21
Bouldery Trough (Released 22 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/22
Carbon Dioxide Landscape (Released 23 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/23
Triple Impact (Released 24 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/24
Martian Gullies (Released 25 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/25
Mars at Ls 249 Degrees (Released 26 July 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/26
MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES
NASA/JPL/ASU release
25-29 July 2005
Refilled Crater (Released 25 July 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050725A.html
Crater Ejecta (Released 26 July 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050726a.html
Eroded Ejecta (Released 27 July 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050727a.html
Radial Erosion (Released 28 July 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050729a.html
Craters Filling Fraters (Released 29 July 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050729a.html
All
of
the
THEMIS
images
http://themis.la.asu.edu/latest.html.
are
archived
at
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey
mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The
Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by
Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa
Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr.
Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin
Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project,
and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted
jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER UPDATES
Multiple agencies' releases
NASA Expendable Launch Vehicle Status Report E05-008
NASA/KSC release, 1 August 2005
Mission: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)
Launch Vehicle: Lockheed Martin Atlas V 401
Launch Pad: Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41), Cape Canaveral Air
Force Station Launch
Date: August 10, 2005
Launch Window: 7:54 - 9:39 AM EDT
The MRO spacecraft has been mated with the Atlas V for the last phase
of launch preparations. This will be the first government civil launch of
an Atlas V. The launch vehicle will perform an Integrated Systems Test
(IST) later today to verify electrical compatibility. The final stages of
the launch campaign begin with the Flight Readiness Review on August
4, and the Launch Readiness Review is August 8.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 27, 3 August 2005
UA Team Heads for Launch of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and
HiRISE
By Lori Stiles, University of Arizona release, 1 August 2005
NASA plans to launch a new orbiter called Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter (MRO) on August 10 as the next step in its ambitious Mars
exploration program. MRO will return more data about the red planet
than all previous Mars missions combined, according to the U.S. space
agency. More than 40 University of Arizona researchers, family
members and friends leave for NASA's Kennedy Space Center in
Florida next week to cheer the launch. The soon-to-fly orbiter payload
includes UA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE)—the largest-diameter telescopic camera ever sent to another
planet.
"HiRISE is going to both resolve old mysteries and raise new questions
about Mars," said HiRISE principal investigator Alfred S. McEwen of
UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "It's also going to address
specific questions related to future Mars exploration."
HiRISE, two other cameras, a spectrometer, a radar instrument and a
radiometer aboard MRO will examine Mars from the top of its
atmosphere to its underground layers. Scientists will use MRO to study
the history and distribution of martian water, characterize landing sites
for future missions—including UA's 2007 Phoenix Mission to Mars—
and provide a high-data-rate communications relay between Mars lander
missions and Earth. Professor McEwen and his team will plan HiRISE
observations, upload commands, monitor instrument performance,
retrieve, process and analyze image data at the HiRISE Operations
Center, called "HiROC," located in the Lunar and Planetary Lab's Sonett
Building on the UA campus in Tucson.
"The HiRISE team is more than excited to see the successful launch of
MRO," HiRISE co-investigator and HiROC manager Eric Eliason said.
"We've invested a lot of hard work to ensure HiRISE is the best possible
camera for this mission. We've been practicing and rehearsing how to
command our instrument. We've been developing software to process
and analyze returned images and now we're looking forward to finally
having some real images of Mars."
The 145-pound (65 kg) HiRISE camera—the largest instrument on the
MRO payload—features a 20-inch (half-meter) primary mirror, the
largest on any telescope ever sent beyond Earth orbit. HiRISE will take
ultra-sharp photographs over 3.5-mile (6 kilometer) swaths of the
martian landscape, resolving rocks and other geologic features as small
as 40 inches (one meter) across. It will take pictures in stereo and color,
too, while it zooms along at more than 7,800 mph (3 and 1/2 km per
second) about 190 miles (300 km) above Mars' surface.
"HiRISE is capable of getting such views over any selected region of
Mars, providing a bridge between orbital remote sensing and landed
missions," McEwen said.
MRO's planned orbit is more than 20 percent lower than the average for
any of the three current Mars orbiters, which are NASA's Mars Odyssey
and Mars Global Surveyor, and the European Space Agency's Mars
Express. Low orbit is an advantage when it comes to seeing Mars at
higher resolution than ever before. The orbiter will reach Mars in March
2006. The spacecraft will gradually adjust its elliptical orbit to a circular
orbit by aerobraking, a technique that creates drag using the friction of
careful dips into the planet's upper atmosphere. MRO's 25-month
primary science phase begins in November 2006. HiROC researchers
say they expect to process 1,000 gigantic high-resolution images and
9,000 smaller high-resolution images during the science phase of the
MRO mission.
"These are huge images, and we've been developing techniques to deal
with images as large as 20,000 pixels wide and 60,000 pixels long,"
McEwen said.
It would take 1,200 typical computer screens to display all of a large
HiRISE image at full resolution. HiROC will acquire a large-format
17
printer for making photographs up to five feet wide and 10-to-15 feet
long, McEwen added.
The HiRISE team has also been developing HiWeb, an Internet site that
expert Mars scientists and the general public worldwide can use to
suggest HiRISE imaging targets. HiRISE is called "the people's camera"
because anyone can suggest places on Mars for HiRISE to photograph
and because the images will be made publicly available as soon as
possible. Operations staff member Ingrid Daubar and senior software
developer Christian Schaller suggested a people-friendly metaphor for
what they will do at HiROC.
"Basically, you can think of what we do as aiming and focusing the
HiRISE camera, pushing the button to take a picture, downloading the
pictures to our computers and then processing the pictures," Daubar said.
"Of course, it's really much more complicated than that."
The first milestone after launch will be when McEwen and the HiRISE
team make their first observations of actual targets in the solar system on
September 8, 2005. They have targeted Earth's moon and the Omega
Centauri star cluster to calibrate HiRISE and check its in-flight
performance. It may take several days for the big images to arrive at
HiROC.
What will HiRISE look at first when the science mission begins in
November 2006? First planned targets include candidate landing sites
for the 2007 Phoenix Mission to Mars, led by Peter Smith of UA's Lunar
and Planetary Laboratory.
"We actually have only a limited time before winter arrives at Mars'
north pole and lighting conditions deteriorate, so we want to do that
quickly," McEwen said.
And if Spirit and Opportunity are still roving, photographing the Mars
Expedition Rover landing sites is very high priority, McEwen said.
Views of past Mars mission landing sites—the successful Pathfinder and
Viking missions, and possibly the unsuccessful Mars Polar Lander and
Beagle 2 landing sites—are also of interest, he added. Then HiRISE
will tackle a huge list of science priorities, McEwen said.
MRO weighs more than two tons fully fueled. To loft so big a
spacecraft, NASA will use a powerful Atlas V launch vehicle for the
first time on an interplanetary mission.
The mission is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of
the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science
Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the
prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. Ball Aerospace
& Technologies Corporation of Boulder, CO, designed, built and tested
the $40 million HiRISE camera.
Contacts:
Alfred S. McEwen
Phone: 520-621-4573
E-mail: mcewen@lpl.arizona.edu
Eric Eliason
Phone: 520-626-0764
E-mail: eeliason@lpl.arizona.edu
Ingrid Daubar
Phone: 520-626-0763
E-mail: ingrid@lpl.arizona.edu
Christian Schaller
Phone: 520-626-0767
E-mail: schaller@lpl.arizona.edu
An additional article on this subject is available at
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/050727_mro_prepare.html.
End Marsbugs, Volume 12, Number 27.