Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter
Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 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.
Astronomers using the Keck I telescope in Hawaii are learning much more about a strange,
thermal "hot spot" on Saturn that is located at the tip of the planet's south pole. In what the team is
calling the sharpest thermal views of Saturn ever taken from the ground, the new set of infrared
images suggest a warm polar vortex at Saturn's south pole—the first to ever be discovered in the
solar system. This warm polar cap is home to a distinct compact hot spot, believed to contain the highest measured temperatures on Saturn. A paper
announcing
the
results
appears
in
the
February
4th
issue
of
Science.
Additional
information
is
available
at
http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/news/science/saturn/. [http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/news/science/saturn/saturn2004a.jpg]
Articles and News
Mission Reports
Page 1
MELTING MARS
From Astrobiology Magazine
Page 5
PUBLICATION OF ESA/UK COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
INTO BEAGLE 2
British National Space Centre (BNSC) release 2005/38
Page 2
TITAN: A WORLD OF ITS OWN
By Seth Shostak
Page 5
CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 27 JANUARY - 2
FEBRUARY 2005
NASA/JPL release
Page 7
MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATES
NASA/JPL releases
Page 7
GREEN LIGHT FOR DEPLOYMENT OF ESA’S MARS
EXPRESS RADAR
ESA release 08-2005
Page 9
MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
NASA/JPL/MSSS release
Page 9
MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES
NASA/JPL/ASU release
Page 2
HIGH VOLTAGE MARS
By Leslie Mullen
Page 3
ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER BEGINNINGS OF "MINI"
SOLAR SYSTEM
NASA/JPL release 2005-022
Announcements
Page 4
JOIN THE CELEBRATION OF NATURAL SELECTION:
DARWIN DAY AT THE ESSIG IS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8
By Barry Bergman
Page 4
THE JOINT INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIA FOR
SUBSURFACE MICROBIOLOGY (ISSM 2005) AND
ENVIRONMENTAL BIOGEOCHEMISTRY (ISEB XVII)
American Society for Microbiology release
MELTING MARS
From Astrobiology Magazine
Based on an AGU report
3 February 2005
Injecting synthetic "super" greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere
could raise the planet's temperature enough to melt its polar ice caps and
create conditions suitable for sustaining biological life. In fact, a team of
researchers suggests that introducing global warming on the Red Planet may
be the best approach for warming the planet's frozen landscape and turning it
into a habitable world in the future. Margarita Marinova, then at the NASA
Ames Research Center, and colleagues propose that the same types of
atmospheric interactions that have led to recent surface temperature warming
trends on Earth could be harnessed on Mars to create another biologically
hospitable environment in the solar system. In the February issue of Journal
of Geophysical Research-Planets, published by the American Geophysical
Union, the researchers report on the thermal energy absorption and the
potential surface temperature effects from introducing man-made greenhouse
gases strong enough to melt the carbon dioxide and ice on Mars.
"Bringing life to Mars and studying its growth would contribute to our
understanding of evolution, and the ability of life to adapt and proliferate on
other worlds," Marinova said. "Since warming Mars effectively reverts it to
its past, more habitable state, this would give any possibly dormant life on
Mars the chance to be revived and develop further."
The authors note that artificially created gases—which would be nearly
10,000 times more effective than carbon dioxide—could be manufactured to
have minimal detrimental effects on living organisms and the ozone layer
while retaining an exceptionally long lifespan in the environment. They then
created a computer model of the Martian atmosphere and analyzed four such
gases, individually and in combination, that are considered the best candidates
for the job.
Their study focused on fluorine-based gases, composed of elements readily
available on the Martian surface, that are known to be effective at absorbing
thermal infrared energy.
They found that a compound known as
octafluoropropane, whose chemical formula is C3F8, produced the greatest
warming, while its combination with several similar gases enhanced the
warming even further.
The researchers anticipate that adding approximately 300 parts per million of
the gas mixture in the current Martian atmosphere, which is the equivalent of
nearly two parts per million in an Earth- like atmosphere, would spark a
runaway greenhouse effect, creating an instability in the polar ice sheets that
would slowly evaporate the frozen carbon dioxide on the planet's surface.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 2005
2
They add that the release of increasing amounts of carbon dioxide would lead
to further melting and global temperature increases that could then enhance
atmospheric pressure and eventually restore a thicker atmosphere to the
planet.
Such a process could take centuries or even millennia to complete but,
because the raw materials for the fluorine gases already exist on Mars, it is
possible that astronauts could create them on a manned mission to the planet.
It would otherwise be impossible to deliver gigaton-sized quantities of the gas
to Mars. The authors conclude that introducing powerful greenhouse gases is
the most feasible technique for raising the temperature and increasing the
atmospheric pressure on Mars, particularly when compared to other
alternatives like sprinkling sunlight-absorbing dust on the poles or placing
large mirrors in the planet's orbit.
Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1427.html.
An additional article on this subject is available at
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_terraform_050203.html.
TITAN: A WORLD OF ITS OWN
By Seth Shostak
From Space.com
3 February 2005
OK, everyone anticipated that Titan was going to be interesting, but few
expected it to be weirder than Michael Jackson. Two weeks ago, as the
Huygens probe parachuted through this distant moon's oily, pumpkin skies, a
less-than-consumer-grade 0.04 megapixel camera was trained on the
landscape ten miles below. It saw a hostile shoreline, riven with tributaries,
and what appears to be a (possibly dry) lake.
Imagine the luck: a shoreline and a lake. Try dropping a penny on a big map
of your home state, and see how often it lands on a bit of shoreline
topography. Not often, unless you live in Minnesota. The implication is that
Titan is pockmarked with ponds; it's Minnesota trapped in the mother of all
winters. Daytime temperatures are an unpleasant -180°C (-290°F).
Read the full article at
http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_titan_shostak_050203.html.
HIGH VOLTAGE MARS
By Leslie Mullen
From Astrobiology Magazine
7 February 2005
Left: "I think the ingredients of the [martian] biosphere
should be martian. That would be the most interesting
situation." —Chris McKay. Image credit: University of
Arizona. Right: "I think it's increasingly evident that there
is a large inventory of water on Mars." —Lisa Pratt.
Image credit: NASA.
Hydrogen peroxide is a strong oxidant, and would destroy any organic
materials existing on the planet's surface. Since life as we know it is based on
organic chemistry, the hydrogen peroxide dust would snuff out any chances
for such life to appear there.
The lack of organics on Mars was first established by the Viking landers in
1976. The two landers conducted four experiments to try to detect life, and
one of these experiments showed that the surface of Mars was entirely devoid
of carbon compounds. Because the thin Martian atmosphere does little to
shield the planet from the harsh ultraviolet radiation of the sun, scientists
suspected that UV light destroyed some of the organics. They also speculated
that oxidizing compounds in the soil, like hydrogen peroxide, also could
destroy organics.
But hydrogen peroxide had never been detected on Mars. That changed in
2003, when two groups detected small amounts of hydrogen peroxide in the
martian atmosphere. Atreya is a member of the Infrared TEXES spectrometer
team, and he says they measured 20 to 50 parts per billion of hydrogen
peroxide using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility in Hawaii. Hydrogen
peroxide also was detected by a team led by Todd Clancy of the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, using the James Clerk Maxwell
Telescope in Hawaii.
But, says Atreya, the amount of hydrogen peroxide detected on Mars is not
enough to remove all the organics that should be on the surface. Even if there
were no indigenous organics on Mars, substantial amounts of organic material
should have been delivered to Mars by the many meteorites and comets that
have impacted the planet since the early days of the solar system. Large
amounts of hydrogen peroxide or another superoxide produced by dust storms
could explain why the surface of Mars is so barren today.
Mars is often enveloped by planet-wide dust storms—their biting winds choke
the air and scour the arid surface. Tornado-like dust devils dance across the
planet so frequently that their numerous tracks crisscross each other, tracing
convoluted designs in the red soil. Such weather conditions would make life a
hardship for any future explorers on Mars. According to Sushil Atreya,
Professor and Director of the Planetary Science Laboratory at the University
of Michigan, these storms also may have prevented life from ever existing on
the martian surface.
Dust particles in a storm create an electrostatic charge whenever they strike
one another or the ground. In field experiments led by William Farrell of
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, electrical fields of 10 kilovolts per
meter were measured in dust devils on Earth. Such experiments suggest that
dust devils on Mars could generate very large electric fields of about 5 to 20
kilovolts per meter. These electric fields would cause gas molecules in the
martian atmosphere to break down. For example, when the electric fields
break down water vapor (H2O), they would produce hydroxyl radicals (·OH).
According to Atreya, these hydroxyls would eventually help form hydrogen
peroxide (H2O2).
The sun probably generates some hydrogen peroxide by photo-dissociating
water vapor in the upper atmosphere. But Atreya estimates the dust storms
might result in 200 times more hydrogen peroxide gas in the atmosphere than
the sun could produce, since most of the water vapor on Mars is close to the
surface—right where the dust storms occur.
"The amount of hydrogen peroxide becomes so large, the atmosphere cannot
hold any more of the gas," says Atreya. "So it begins to snow out of the
atmosphere, and settles on to the surface as hydrogen peroxide dust."
Man, machine, and the environment to change.
Image credit: ESA.
However much hydrogen peroxide is produced by dust storms, the sun's UV
rays would ensure it would not last long in the air, breaking the molecules
down after a few days. But if hydrogen peroxide ice particles are bound to the
dust particles they ride on, they could mix with the surface soils after they fall
out of the atmosphere, allowing them to persist in the environment for much
longer. This longer residence time would allow the hydrogen peroxide snow
to eventually be converted into other superoxides by surface chemistry.
If water is mixed in with the soil, or if there is sub-surface ice, the hydrogen
peroxide eventually would combine with this water. Depending on the
concentration of H2O2, this would lower the freezing point of the water, just as
salt makes ocean water less apt to freeze on Earth.
Thus, while hydrogen
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 2005
peroxide on the martian surface would reduce the chance for life above
ground, its presence in subsurface martian water would increase the odds that
life could exist beneath the surface.
The dust storms block our view of what is happening on Mars, so to prove the
storms really are generating hydrogen peroxide, Atreya says a measuring
device would have to be sitting on the surface.
3
"There may be a host of miniature solar systems out there, in which planets
orbit brown dwarfs," said Dr. Kevin Luhman, lead author of the new study
from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass.
"This leads to all sorts of new questions, like 'Could life exist on such
planets?' or 'What do you call a planet circling a planet-sized body? A moon
or a planet?'"
"Surfaces are hard to detect with remote sensing, especially the localized
chemicals," says Atreya. "Also, the hydrogen peroxide would be mixed in
with the regolith, making remote observations of it even more difficult."
The Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity have been traveling on the martian
surface for over a year, but they are not equipped to detect hydrogen peroxide
or other superoxides. Atreya says that the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL)
mission, scheduled for 2009, will include a suite of instruments that are
expected to measure the presence of superoxides such as hydrogen peroxide.
"This idea is new, and possibly very important," says Mike Mumma, Director
of the Center for Astrobiology at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "It
suggests there should be abundant oxidants on dust particles. If it bears out, it
could provide a very efficient way for destroying organic compounds much
more rapidly than by photochemistry."
Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1431.html.
ASTRONOMERS DISCOVER BEGINNINGS OF "MINI" SOLAR
SYSTEM
NASA/JPL release 2005-022
7 February 2005
Moons circle planets, and planets circle stars. Now, astronomers have learned
that planets may also circle celestial bodies almost as small as planets.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a dusty disc of planet-building
material around an extraordinarily low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed star".
The brown dwarf, called OTS 44, is only 15 times the mass of Jupiter.
Previously, the smallest brown dwarf known to host a planet-forming disc was
25 to 30 times more massive than Jupiter. The finding will ultimately help
astronomers better understand how and where planets—including rocky ones
resembling our own—form.
This artist's concept shows a brown dwarf surrounded by a swirling
disk of planet-building dust. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope spotted
such a disk around a surprisingly low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed
star." The brown dwarf, called OTS 44, is only 15 times the size of
Jupiter, making it the smallest brown dwarf known to host a planetforming, or protoplanetary disk. Astronomers believe that this unusual
system will eventually spawn planets. If so, they speculate that OTS
44's disk has enough mass to make one small gas giant and a few
Earth-sized rocky planets. OTS 44 is about 2 million years old. At this
relatively young age, brown dwarfs are warm and appear reddish in
color. With age, they grow cooler and darker. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC).
Image credit: NASA/JPLCaltech/Harvard-Smithsonian CfA.
Brown dwarfs are something of misfits in the astronomy world. These cool
orbs of gas have been called both failed stars and super planets. Like planets,
they lack the mass to ignite and produce starlight. Like stars, they are often
found alone in space, with no parent body to orbit.
"In this case, we are seeing the ingredients for planets around a brown dwarf
near the dividing line between planets and stars. This raises the tantalizing
possibility of planet formation around objects that themselves have planetary
masses," said Dr. Giovanni Fazio, an astronomer at the Harvard Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics and a co-author of the new study.
The results were presented today at the Planet Formation and Detection
meeting at the Aspen Center for Physics, Aspen, CO, and will be published in
the February 10th issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Planet-forming, or protoplanetary, discs are the precursors to planets.
Astronomers speculate that the disc circling OTS 44 has enough mass to make
a small gas giant planet and a few Earth-sized, rocky ones. This begs the
question, "Could a habitable planet like Earth sustain life around a brown
dwarf?"
This graph of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows that
an extraordinarily low-mass brown dwarf, or "failed star," is circled by a
disk of planet-building dust. The brown dwarf, called OTS 44, is only
15 times the mass of Jupiter, making it the smallest known brown
dwarf to host a planet-forming disk. Spitzer was able to see this
unusual disk by measuring its infrared brightness. Whereas a brown
dwarf without a disk (red dashed line) radiates infrared light at shorter
wavelengths, a brown dwarf with a disk (orange line) gives off excess
infrared light at longer wavelengths. This surplus light comes from the
disk itself and is represented here as a yellow dotted line. Actual data
points from observations of OTS 44 are indicated with orange dots.
These data were acquired using Spitzer's infrared array camera.
"If life did exist in this system, it would have to constantly adjust to the
dwindling temperatures of a brown dwarf," said Luhman. "For liquid water to
be present, the planet would have to be much closer to the brown dwarf than
Earth is to our Sun."
"It's exciting to speculate about the possibilities for life in such as system, of
course at this point we are only beginning to understand the unusual
circumstances under which planets arise," he added.
Brown dwarfs are rare and difficult to study due to their dim light. Though
astronomers recently reported what may be the first-ever image of a planet
around a brown dwarf called 2M1207, not much is understood about the
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 2005
planet-formation process around these odd balls of gas. Less is understood
about low-mass brown dwarfs, of which only a handful are known. OTS 44
was first discovered about six months ago by Luhman and his colleagues
using the Gemini Observatory in Chile. The object is located 500 light-years
away in the Chamaeleon constellation. Later, the team used Spitzer's highly
sensitive infrared eyes to see the dim glow of OTS 44's dusty disc. These
observations took only 20 seconds. Longer searches with Spitzer could reveal
discs around brown dwarfs below 10 Jupiter masses.
4
and science education. The open house, scheduled for 1:00 to 5:00 PM, has
become an annual event at the museum, which holds millions of insect
specimens and is normally closed to the general public. Kipling Will, the
Essig's associate director, says this year's festivities are a way of "gearing up
for 2009," Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the
publication of his landmark work, On the Origin of Species.
Darwin Day will also feature experts from Berkeley, the California Academy
of Sciences, and the National Center for Science Education, who will present
a series of "vignettes on modern Darwinism and anti-evolutionism" under the
rubric "Setting the Record Straight". Scheduled speakers include Brent
Mishler, professor of integrative biology and director of the Jepson and
University Herbaria, who will discuss "Genomics and Darwin," and the
Essig's director, Rosemary Gillespie, who will address the misuse of research
on Hawaiian spiders by proponents of creationism and its close relation,
"intelligent design".
This year's celebration comes at a time of rising political influence for
creationists. A Pennsylvania school district, for example, now requires highschool biology students to consider "intelligent design," the belief that life was
shaped by a higher power, along with natural selection. Will, however, says
the Darwin Day festivities are meant to "promote the idea of right science
thinking," and to commemorate evolutionary theory as "the unifying
principle" in scientific research.
This artist's conception shows the relative size of a hypothetical brown
dwarf-planetary system (below) compared to our own solar system. A
brown dwarf is a cool or "failed" star, which lacks the mass to ignite
and shine like our Sun. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope set its
infrared eyes on an extraordinarily low-mass brown dwarf called OTS
44 and found a swirling disk of planet-building dust. At only 15 times
the mass of Jupiter, OTS 44 is the smallest known brown dwarf to host
a planet-forming, or protoplanetary, disk. Astronomers believe that this
unusual system will eventually spawn planets. If so, they speculate
that OTS 44's disk has enough mass to make one small gas giant and
a few Earth-sized rocky planets. Examples of these possible planets
are depicted at the bottom of this picture, circling a low-mass brown
dwarf. Above, the bodies of our own solar system have been drawn to
the same scale. In each system, the terrestrial planets have been
enlarged and the distances between the planets and their parent
bodies have been scaled down for easier viewing. Image credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC).
Other authors of this study include Dr. Paola D’Alessia of the Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; and Drs. Nuria Calvet, Lori Allen, Lee
Hartmann, Thomas Megeath and Philip Myers of the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA,
manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission
Directorate, Washington, DC. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer
Science Center, Pasadena, CA. JPL is a division of Caltech. The infrared
array camera, which spotted the protoplanetary disc around OTS 44, was built
by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD; its development was
led by Fazio.
Artist's conceptions and additional information about the Spitzer Space
Telescope are available at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu.
Contact:
Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Phone: 818-354-4673
JOIN THE CELEBRATION OF NATURAL SELECTION: DARWIN
DAY AT THE ESSIG IS TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8
By Barry Bergman
University of California, Berkeley release
2 February 2005
Berkeley's Essig Museum of Entomology will throw open its doors on
Tuesday, February 8, as part of a worldwide celebration of Charles Darwin
As part of its open house, the Essig—located at 211 Wellman—will hold halfhourly tours. The museum will supplement its vast collection of insect
specimens with birds, barnacles, and carnivorous plants from other museums.
Speakers will make their presentations from 7:00 to 9:00 PM in 145 Dwinelle
Hall. In addition, the event's sponsors—the Essig Museum, the Entomology
Students Organization, and Bay Area Biosystematists—will offer daily
lunchtime screenings of the five-part Nova/WGBH series, Evolution,
beginning Monday, February 7.
Read the original news release at
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2005/02/02_darwin.shtml.
THE JOINT INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIA FOR SUBSURFACE
MICROBIOLOGY (ISSM 2005) AND ENVIRONMENTAL
BIOGEOCHEMISTRY (ISEB XVII)
American Society for Microbiology release
7 February 2005
The Joint International Symposia for Subsurface Microbiology (ISSM 2005)
and Environmental Biogeochemistry (ISEB XVII), Jackson Hole, Wyoming,
August 14-19, 2005.
Abstracts due: March 1, 2005
Notification of acceptance: May 16, 2005
ISSM/ISEB 2005 will address important scientific and engineering issues for
which biogeochemistry and subsurface microbiology play essential roles.
These symposia will provide opportunities for international attendees to
advance ideas on current research topics, scientific interconnections, and
future directions for the biogeosciences.
Plenary sessions:

Carbon cycling, sequestration and energy

Metal sequestration

Methods and tools of biogeochemistry

Field-scale biogeochemistry in the future

Extremophiles and exobiology
Concurrent and poster sessions:

Subsurface extremophiles

Exobiology

Subseafloor microbiology

Biogeochemical cycling

Microbes and energy

Redox geochemistry and microbiology

Subsurface microbiology in mesoscale systems

Molecular scale science and subsurface microbiology

Applications of new and innovative methods

In situ measurement of subsurface microbes and activities

Geophysics and microbiology

Microbial mineral weathering and formation
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 2005









Bacterial transport
Environmental genomics and proteomics in the study of the
subsurface
Novel subsurface sampling methods
Nanotechnology for studying subsurface microbiology
Development of knowledge from the lab to field-scale processes
Bioremediation research and applications
Human health and subsurface microbiology
Modeling subsurface geomicrobial processes and diversity
Future perspectives for subsurface microbiology
5
Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.
Addition information is available at http://www.issm-iseb.org/.
PUBLICATION OF ESA/UK COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO
BEAGLE 2
British National Space Centre (BNSC) release 2005/38
3 February 2005
The British National Space Centre has today published the report of the
ESA/UK Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate the circumstances and
possible reasons that prevented completion of the Beagle 2 mission.
The report was always seen by BNSC and ESA as an internal inquiry. Its
purpose was to learn lessons for the future. There were also concerns about
the confidentiality of commercial information. The organizations involved
were given a strong indication that the information they supplied was only for
the use of the inquiry. For these reasons the report was not published. ESA
and the UK did however think it right that the recommendations of the report
should be published as these covered the most important issues.
Thursday, January 27:
We are now in the second week of execution of background sequence S08.
For the first time, Cassini acquired Radar data over a region on Titan that has
been previously imaged by the Imaging Science Subsystem and Visual and
Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instruments. This overlapping data is
fundamental to putting the probe-landing site in context with the rest of Titan.
The ill-fated Beagle 2 lander would have been the first probe to look for
signs of life on Mars' surface since the Viking program. Image credit:
ESA/BNSC/Astrium.
The Science and Technology Select Committee was also confidentially given
a copy of the full report. Subsequently, in view of the Committee's strongly
held view that the report should be published in full, we have discussed the
issue again with ESA and have persuaded them that the report should be
published. We have also had further discussions with the other organizations
involved about now publishing the report and they are aware that the report is
being published today. The contents of the report have not been agreed with
the parties. A full copy of the report, including recommendations, can be
found at http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/assets/channels/resources/press/report.pdf.
Read the original news release
http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/default.aspx?nid=4900.
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/beagle2-05a.html
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/beagle_2_failure_report.html
CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 27 JANUARY - 2 FEBRUARY
2005
NASA/JPL release
4 February 2005
The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired today from the Goldstone
tracking station. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is
operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the
Intricate undulations and swirls within the banded atmosphere of
Saturn give scientists clues to the processes occurring there. The
lower part of the image shows the characteristic billows that form at the
turbulent boundary between two air masses of different densities
moving at different speeds. This can be contrasted with the dark band
just to the north that shows linear features moving in an apparently
stable region with no obvious turbulent mixing from north to south. The
bright band farther north appears to have the same morphology. At
the top of the image, a dark oval-shaped storm resides in a band
where a chevron pattern dominates.
The chevron pattern is
suggestive of a place where momentum is being redistributed in
Saturn's atmosphere. The image of Saturn's southern hemisphere
was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on
December 6, 2004, at a distance of approximately 3.4 million
kilometers (2.1 million miles) from Saturn through a filter sensitive to
wavelengths of infrared light centered at 727 nanometers. The image
scale is 40 kilometers (25 miles) per pixel. Contrast was enhanced to
aid visibility of features in the atmosphere.
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 2005
6
Meanwhile VIMS performed several stellar calibration observations to
determine the state of the instrument optics and whether decontamination will
be necessary. VIMS also conducted one in a series of mosaics of the entire
ring system while Cassini is near apoapsis. The Magnetospheric and Plasma
Science (MAPS) instruments continued their dawn-side magnetospheric
boundaries campaign.
In the dim light of the outer solar system, Cassini gazed back at
Saturn's brightest gem—the moon Enceladus. The icy little world
presents only a slim crescent in this natural color view. Cassini has
now matched the best spatial resolution on Enceladus achieved by
NASA's Voyager spacecraft, and will soon have excellent coverage of
the moon (at more than 10 times the resolution in this image), following
a flyby planned for February 17. When seen from its day side,
Enceladus (499 kilometers, or 310 miles across) has one of the
brightest and whitest surfaces in the solar system. Since it reflects
most of the sunlight that strikes it, the temperature there remains at a
chilly -200 degrees Celsius (-330 degrees Fahrenheit). In this view,
Cassini was pointed at the leading hemisphere of Enceladus, which
was in darkness at the time. The image has been rotated so that north
on Enceladus is up. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral
filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images
were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on
January 16, 2005, at a distance of approximately 209,300 kilometers
(130,100 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or
phase, angle of 148 degrees. Resolution in the original image was
about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrastenhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
The Huygens Probe System Engineer and Cassini Outreach team members
participated in a telecon for students working in the Goldstone Apple Valley
Radio Telescope Project (GAVRT). Two hundred students from 15
classrooms from across the US and in Okinawa, Japan, asked questions about
the Huygens Mission, the science, and careers in space exploration. Students
taking part in GAVRT have access to the dish antenna via the Internet, and
have been gathering data about Saturn's atmosphere and its thermal
temperature, sharing that information with NASA.
The trailing hemisphere of Saturn's moon Rhea seen here in natural
color, displays bright, wispy terrain that is similar in appearance to that
of Dione, another one of Saturn's moon. At this distance however, the
exact nature of these wispy features remains tantalizingly out of the
reach of Cassini's cameras. At this resolution, the wispy terrain on
Rhea looks like a thin coating painted onto the moon's surface. Cassini
images from December 2004 revealed that, when seen at moderate
resolution, Dione's wispy terrain is comprised of many long, narrow
and braided fractures. Images taken using red, green and blue
spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The
images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle
camera on January 16, 2005, at a distance of approximately 496,500
kilometers (308,600 miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft,
or phase, angle of 35 degrees. Resolution in the original image was
about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The image has been rotated so
that north on Rhea is up. Contrast was enhanced and the image was
magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.
Friday, January 28:
The Titan 3 encounter is coming up next week. In preparation for this event,
TOST & HSWT hosted a preview event. This was an open meeting where
science objectives and activities were shared with anyone who was interested.
Yes, you did notice correctly. The 4th encounter is indeed numbered T-3. If
you go back and check you will see that the first three Titan flybys were
numbered a, b, and c. This was the result of re-planning the early part of the
tour in support of the Probe receiver problem.
Orbital trim maneuver #12 (OTM) was completed on the spacecraft early this
morning. This maneuver in combination with OTM-11 served two purposes.
The first was to return us to the original tour design after Probe release and
relay, and the second was to target the spacecraft for Cassini's fourth
encounter with Titan (T-3) on February 15. The main engine burn began at
12:15 AM Pacific Time. A "quick look" immediately after the maneuver
showed the burn duration was 120.1 seconds long, giving a delta-V of 18.68
m/s. All subsystems reported a nominal OTM.
Tuesday, February 1:
A sequence change request for S08 submitted by CDA was approved today.
Commands will be sent to the spacecraft to make CDA "prime" for their
observation on February 16. The commands will be tested in the Integrated
Test Laboratory prior to uplink.
As a note, every day this week the instruments are taking data, the Navigation
team is obtaining Optical Navigation images, and we have on average one
DSN pass a day where we downlink the data. If you don't see anything listed
on a particular day, it's because we are just doing business as usual and have
no special events going on.
Made astronomy picture of the day again with an image of Iapetus! That's six
since the start of the New Year. The sequence leads uplinked Instrument
Expanded blocks for VIMS today and performed some memory readouts.
At the first Exploration Conference on "Education for Advocacy: The
Challenge of Sustaining Societal Support for Space Exploration", the Cassini
K-4 Literacy Program was called out as an example of what NASA should be
doing as a program that could produce significant results in the classroom,
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reach out to under-served students, and thereby gather long term societal
support for NASA.
Poking Around on the Plains
4 February 2005
Wednesday, February 2:
Opportunity continues to be active and healthy, making good progress south
across the Meridiani plains with a few hiccups along the way. Despite the
early end of one autonomous traverse and a Deep Space Network problem that
precluded sending commands on sol 364, the rover covered more than 300
meters (984 feet) in the past week, breaking its own one-sol distance records
twice! Having scuffed and trenched in the sands of the plain, Opportunity is
now examining the trench and nearby soil targets.
A delivery coordination meeting was held today for Mission Sequence
Subsystem version 10.5 and Inertial Vector Propagator 10.5. This was a big
day for the Science Planning (SP) folks. The reports from the port#2 end-toend pointing validation for S39 and S40 have been delivered to SP by AACS.
The team is currently in the process of preparing the products to be archived.
The wrap-up meeting is scheduled for February 9.
Official port#2 for S41 occurred today as well. The wrap-up meeting is
scheduled for February 16. At that time, all tour sequences will have passed
through the implementation process.
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
Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate,
Washington, DC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit took this full-circle panorama of
the region near "Husband Hill" (the peak just to the left of center) over
the Thanksgiving holiday, before ascending farther. Both the Spirit and
Opportunity rovers are still going strong, more than a year after landing
on Mars. This 360-degree view combines 243 images taken by Spirit's
panoramic camera over several martian days, or sols, from sol 318
(November 24, 2004) to sol 325 (December 2, 2004). It is an
approximately true-color rendering generated from images taken
through the camera's 750-, 530-, and 480-nanometer filters. The view
is presented here in a cylindrical projection with geometric seam
correction. Spirit is now driving up the slope of Husband Hill along a
path about one-quarter of the way from the left side of this mosaic.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell.
An additional article on this subject is available at
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/natural_colour_rhea.html.
Spirit Encounters "Alligator"
7 February 2005
MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATES
NASA/JPL releases
Spirit has completed examination of a rock target called "Alligator" using
every tool on the instrument deployment device (robotic arm). With Spirit's
batteries recharged and atmospheric dust stable again, the rover is in excellent
health and ready to approach "Cumberland Ridge", a crest on "Husband Hill".
SP hosted a Science In-reach talk on UVIS results from stellar occultations of
Titan. The S10 SSUP process kicked off today. And let us not forget about
the folks from the Mission Support & Services Office. During this postHuygens period, the ground system is definitely not "quiet". MSSO submitted
an extensive list of testing, installations, and support performed this week. It's
good to have these folks working with us!
Spirit Productive with Peace Efforts
2 February 2005
Spirit had another productive week in the locale of a target called "Peace."
Because of strong interest in the unusual character of "Peace," the team
decided to throw the full science instrument payload at the rock.
The latest full MER updates are available at:
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spirit.html
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunity.html
Additional articles on this subject are available at:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1430.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05l.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05m.html
This stunning image features the heat shield impact site of NASA's
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity. This is an approximately truecolor mosaic of panoramic camera images taken through the camera's
750-, 530-, and 430-nanometer filters. The mosaic was acquired on
Opportunity's sol 330 (December 28, 2004), shortly after Opportunity
arrived to investigate the site where its heat shield hit the ground south
of "Endurance Crater" on January 24, 2004. On the left, the main heat
shield piece is inverted and reveals its metallic insulation layer, glinting
in the sunlight. The main piece stands about 1 meter tall (about 3.3
feet) and about 13 meters (about 43 feet) from the rover. The other
large, flat piece of debris near the center of the image is about 14
meters (about 46 feet) away. The circular feature on the right side of
the image is the crater made by the heat shield's impact. It is about
2.8 meters (9.2 feet) in diameter but only about 5 to 10 centimeters
(about 2 to 4 inches) deep. The crater is about 6 meters (about 20
feet) from Opportunity in this view. Smaller fragments and debris can
be seen all around the impact site. The impact excavated a large
amount of reddish subsurface material. Darker materials cover part of
the crater's flat floor and have formed a streak or jet of material
pointing toward the two largest heat shield fragments. Image credit:
NASA/JPL/Cornell.
GREEN LIGHT FOR DEPLOYMENT OF ESA’S MARS EXPRESS
RADAR
ESA release 08-2005
8 February 2005
The European Space Agency has given the green light for the MARSIS radar
on board its Mars Express spacecraft to be deployed during the first week of
May. Assuming that this operation is successful, the radar will finally start
the search for subsurface water reservoirs and studies of the Martian
ionosphere. ESA's decision to deploy MARSIS follows eight months of
intensive computer simulations and technical investigations on both sides of
the Atlantic. These were to assess possible harmful boom configurations
during deployment and to determine any effects on the spacecraft and its
scientific instruments.
The three radar booms of MARSIS were initially to have been deployed in
April 2004, towards the end of the Mars Express instrument commissioning
phase. They consist of a pair of 20-meter hollow cylinders, each 2.5
centimeters in diameter, and a 7-meter boom. No satisfactory ground test of
deployment in flight conditions was possible, so that verification of the
booms' performance had to rely on computer simulation. Just prior to their
scheduled release, improved computer simulations carried out by the
manufacturer, Astro Aerospace (California), revealed the possibility of a
whiplash effect before they locked in their final outstretched positions, so that
they might hit the spacecraft.
Following advice from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which
contributed the boom system to the Italian-led MARSIS radar instrument, and
the Mars Express science team, ESA put an immediate hold on deployment
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until a complete understanding of the dynamics was obtained. JPL led a
comprehensive investigation, including simulations, theoretical studies and
tests on representative booms, the latter to assess potential aging of the boom
material. European experts, from ESA and the former spacecraft prime
contractor, Astrium SAS, France, worked closely with JPL throughout the
entire investigation. An independent engineering review board, composed of
ESA and industry experts, met in January to evaluate the findings and advise
on "if and when" to proceed with deployment.
The Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding
(MARSIS) on board ESA's Mars Express will employ groundpenetrating radar to map underground water (if it exists) on Mars.
Low-frequency waves will be directed towards the planet from a 40meter long antenna which will be unfurled after Mars Express goes into
orbit. The radio waves will be reflected from any surface they
encounter. In most cases this will be the surface of Mars, but because
low frequencies are used, a significant fraction will travel through the
crust to encounter further layers of different material—perhaps even
water. Analysis of the echoes produced will reveal much about the
composition of the top five kilometers of the crust. Image credit: ESA.
The ESA review board, at its final meeting on 25 January, recommended
deployment of the MARSIS booms. The rationale for the decision was based
on the results of the analyses, which showed the possible impact scenarios, the
amount of energy involved, the nature of the materials, and the physical
conditions in space. The board concluded that the risk of an impact on the
spacecraft could not be ruled out, but that the impact energy would be low and
the probability of a severe failure was very small.
One credible failure case is that an antenna boom could become blocked
during deployment, either by itself or by the spacecraft. Although means are
available to unblock a deployment, in the worst case MARSIS would have to
be considered partially or completely lost. However, the analyses have shown
that the Mars Express control systems would be able to cope with such a
configuration and minimize the consequences for the other scientific
instruments.
The ESA board recommended planning the deployment for the week
beginning 2 May. However, should the remaining preparations proceed faster
than planned, it might be feasible to start deployment during the week
beginning 25 April. An early deployment is scientifically desirable, as the
evolution of the Mars Express orbit will allow radar measurements of the most
interesting scientific regions on Mars to start in May 2005. If, as expected,
the deployment is successful, MARSIS will probe the secrets of Mars’s
subsurface at least until 30 November 2005, the nominal end date of Mars
Express operations, and beyond if the mission is further extended.
MARSIS main antenna during Mars Express payload
tests. One of the two main radar booms is shown here, a
20-metre long hollow cylinder, of 2.5 centimetres
diameter, folded up in a box like a concertina (accordion).
When the box is opened, the elastic energy of the
compressed glass-fibre booms will let them unfold like a
jack-in-the-box.
Image credit: Universität der
Bundeswehr, München.
Mars Express was launched on 2 June 2003 and reached the planet on 25
December 2003. Since entering its operational orbit on 28 January 2004, it
has been performing studies and global mapping of the atmosphere and
surface, analyzing their chemical composition, and delivering amazing images
of Martian landscapes.
Contacts:
ESA Communication Department
Media Relations Office
Paris, France
Phone: +33(0)15369 7155
Fax: +33(0)1 5369 7690
Rudolf Schmidt
ESA Mars Express Project Manager
Noordwijk, The Netherlands
Phone: +31 71 565 3603
For more information about the Mars Express mission visit http://mars.esa.int.
For more information about the Science Program visit
http://www.esa.int/science.
MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES
NASA/JPL/MSSS release
27 January - 2 February 2005
The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the
Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available.
Intracrater Dunes (Released 27 January 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/27/
Big Dust Devils (Released 28 January 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/28/
Pavonis Slope Streaks (Released 29 January 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/29/
Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 5, 8 February 2005
Becquerel's Bands (Released 30 January 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/30/
Ascraeus Pits (Released 31 January 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/31/
Mars at Ls 160 Degrees (Released 1 February 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/02/01/
Wind-Exhumed Crater (Released 2 February 2005)
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/02/02/
All of the Mars Global Surveyor images
http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html.
are
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 long-term 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.
MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES
NASA/JPL/ASU release
31 January - 4 February 2005
THEMIS Images As Art #26 (Released 31 January 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050131A.html
THEMIS Images as Art #27 (Released 1 February 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050201A.html
THEMIS Images as Art #28 (Released 2 February 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050202A.html
THEMIS Images as Art #29 (Released 3 February 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050203A.html
THEMIS Images as Art #30 (Released 4 February 2005)
http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050204A.html
All of the THEMIS images are archived at http://themis.la.asu.edu/latest.html.
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.
End Marsbugs, Volume 12, Number 5.
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