MARSBUGS: The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter Volume 4, Number 12, 25 July, 1997. Editors: David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, USA, thoma457@uidaho.edu or Marsbugs@aol.com. Julian Hiscox, Division of Molecular Biology, IAH Compton Laboratory, Berkshire, RG20 7NN, UK. Julian.Hiscox@bbsrc.ac.uk or Marsbug@msn.com MARSBUGS is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted by the number of articles and announcements. Copyright of this compilation exists with the editors, except for specific articles, in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either of the editors. Contributions are welcome, and should be submitted to either of the two editors. Contributions should include a short biographical statement about the author(s) along with the author(s)' correspondence address. Subscribers are advised to make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, ordering goods etc. Back issues may be obtained via anonymous FTP at: ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of information for scientists, educators and other persons interested in exobiology and related fields. This newsletter is not intended to replace peer-reviewed journals, but to supplement them. We, the editors, envision MARSBUGS as a medium in which people can informally present ideas for investigation, questions about exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events. Exobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may come out of the most unexpected places. Subjects may include, but are not limited to: exobiology proper (life on other planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis/ terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. ----------------------------------------------------------------- INDEX 1) MARS PATHFINDER, IMP BRING MARS HOME TO EARTH University of Arizona News Services 2) FROM DEEP BLUE TO DEEP SPACE: IBM RS/6000 TECHNOLOGY EXPLORES NEW WORLDS; TAKES ON GREAT CHALLENGES AT HOME IBM News 3) PLANET PLACE NAMES IN THE U.S.: MARS MAY BE JUST AROUND THE CORNER U.S. Geological Survey 4) NEW STUDIES OF MARTIAN METEORITE LAUNCHED NSF PR 97-50 5) NASA TECHNOLOGY MAY HELP ASSESS RISK OF BONE PROBLEMS NASA release: 97-155 6) NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY LECTURE SERIES: SPECIAL EVENT! "Venus Revealed" 7) MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS JPL reports 8) MARS PATHFINDER MIRROR SITES Choose the location nearest you ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARS PATHFINDER, IMP BRING MARS HOME TO EARTH University of Arizona News Services July 7, 1997 Over the July 4 weekend, a science team lead by Peter H. Smith of the University of Arizona became the most famous photographers in the solar system. Smith heads the Imager for Mars Pathfinder, the camera taking stunning color and stereoscopic photos from the surface of Mars. On Sunday morning, July 6, Smith showed the world IMP's "monster panorama" of the Mars landscape at Ares Vallis, the landing site. Mars Pathfinder geologists are ecstatic with the site, which presents them with what Dan Britt calls "a cornucopia of rocks" and soils that will help unravel the mystery of Mars' planetary evolution. Britt is a planetary geologist with the UA Lunar and Planetary Lab and IMP team project manager. Part of the panorama shows two peaks on the Martian horizon, about a mile from the lander. The peaks resemble the twin peaks in the "M" in IMP's logo. "It's fate, I believe," Smith said. The panorama and many other IMP images are being posted on the World Wide Web. "Please come in and look at the panorama and experience Mars for yourself," Smith urged everyone watching the July 6 news conference, televised from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., on the NASA Select channel. More than 100 million web viewers had accessed the Web site by Sunday. Mars Pathfinder soon will be the largest Internet event in history, mission leaders say. Images are availabale at two sites: http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov, which includes a listing of several mirror sites, and http://mars.sgi.com. The new images also are being archived on the University of Arizona LPL site at http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/imp/index.html. The IMP and the mission's rover, Sojourner, have begun to explore the terrain, starting with a nearby rock that scientists affectionately tag as "Barnacle Bill" for its lumpy surface. First good views and spectra on Barnacle Bill are to be downlinked today, July 7. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FROM DEEP BLUE TO DEEP SPACE: IBM RS/6000 TECHNOLOGY EXPLORES NEW WORLDS; TAKES ON GREAT CHALLENGES AT HOME IBM News July 7, 1997 The same IBM RS/6000 technology that took on Chess Grand Master Garry Kasparov has delivered NASA's Pathfinder to a safe landing on Mars. From Deep Blue to deep space, IBM technology is exploring new worlds, will be powering the world's fastest supercomputer in the future, and is serving as host for the most popular Web sites of our time. The flight computer aboard the Pathfinder, the RAD 6000, is based on a version of IBM's RS/6000 technology. The RAD 6000 is the most powerful on-board flight computer ever used by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the first commercially based processor to travel into deep space. The computer, supplied by Lockheed Martin Federal Systems in Manassas, Virginia, contains a radiation-hardened single chip implementation of the RS/6000 processor. The RAD 6000 was responsible for over 100 pyro (explosive) events that allowed the Pathfinder to land safely on Mars, including deploying the parachutes, inflating the airbags, and firing the retro rockets. In the coming month, the flight computer will continue to control such important activities as establishing and maintaining communications with Earth, Mars and the Sojourner rover, managing both the lander camera that will bring back images of the Martian landscape, and directing the lander's meteorological station used to study the makeup of the Martian atmosphere. NASA developed the Pathfinder in less than three years at a cost of approximately $170 million, or less than the price of some major motion pictures. This budget signals NASA's commitment to doing more with less in an age of fiscal restraint. Economies were achieved by using commercially available hardware, like the RS/6000, which allowed NASA to more quickly begin developing specialized software for the mission. RS/6000 background The selection for the Pathfinder mission is a tribute to the performance and reliability of RS/6000 technology. More than 600,000 RS/6000 systems are in use by over 100,000 commercial and technical customers around the world. The RS/6000 is IBM's family of computers that feature the Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC)-based PowerPC* chip and AIX*, IBM's UNIX**-based operating system. IBM's RS/6000 products range in size and capability from laptops, workstations, workgroup and enterprise servers, to the RS/6000 SP*, the flagship "supercomputer" that challenged Kasparov. From businesses working to become more efficient and profitable, to governments and universities seeking to solve the greatest challenges of our time, the RS/6000 supports a wide range of applications and provides the reliability, availability, and price/performance that today's information technology managers demand. Among the many high-profile applications of RS/6000 technology: * The Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore Laboratory selected IBM to build what will be the world's fastest supercomputer, an RS/6000 SP. When complete, the computer will serve as a watchdog for the nation's nuclear stockpile--allowing scientists to develop 3D simulations to analyze the effects of aging on our nation's nuclear weapons. In a White House press conference, President Clinton said the computer will calculate in one second what it would take someone with a hand-held computer 30,000 years to do. * With more than 2,500 systems installed around the world, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. Fortune 100 companies have selected the RS/6000 SP for such demanding applications as data warehousing, online transaction processing, enterprise resource planning, and server consolidation. The world's most successful companies rely on the SP to: access and update huge data bases, including airline and hotel reservation systems; identify consumer buying habits that improve profitability and reduce expenses; coordinate the disparate departments of global corporations; and power the Web sites that attract millions of visitors each day. * The IBM RS/6000 is rapidly becoming the Web server of choice-- powering sites as demanding as the U.S. Tennis Open, Wimbledon, and the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta. Leading companies have recognized the performance and scalability of the RS/6000, including Charles Schwab. Schwab uses RS/6000 to accommodate the rapid growth of its online trading service--which allows its customers to buy and sell securities over the Internet. * Automakers, airline manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies around the world are reducing business costs and bringing products to market faster by using RS/6000 workstations and servers to design and develop new products. In Dresden, Germany, RS/6000 workstations are helping to rebuild die Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), one of Europe's most treasured architectural landmarks that was destroyed during Allied Forces bombing raids in World War II. * Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. ** UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Ltd. AIX Version 4.2 is branded X/Open UNIX 95, signifying full compliance with the Single UNIX Specification (formerly known as Spec 1170). ----------------------------------------------------------------- PLANET PLACE NAMES IN THE U.S.: MARS MAY BE JUST AROUND THE CORNER U.S. Geological Survey July 15, 1997 Can't find a travel agent booking flights to Mars? Try exploring one of the 478 planet places right here in the United States. For those determined to get to Mars there is always Mars, PA; or you can climb Mount Mars, CA; or cross over Mars Bridge in SC; or take a dip in Mars Lake, WI. Of course no trip to Mars would be complete without touching down on Mars Landing Strip, OH. If you don't want to limit yourself to Mars, try Neptune Island, NY, fly into Venus Airport, TX picnic on Uranus Ridge, ID, fish Saturn Creek, OR, swim in Mercury Lake, MI, or maybe a hike through Pluto Canyon, NV, is more to your liking. When it comes to naming our towns, rivers, mountains, and other geographical features, the most common planet name in the U.S. is Mars which describes 185 features and the least common planet name is Uranus, which appears on 17 geographic locations. Earth falls near the middle with about 47 geographic locations, aside from the actual planet, of course. As much fun as they are, heavenly names, like all place names in the U.S., aren't handed out lightly. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names is responsible for standardizing more than 2 million geographic names in the United States for use on Federal maps and publications. The interagency Board considers about 400 proposed new and revised names for geographic features that are submitted each year by citizens and organizations from across the country. The U.S. Geological Survey, as the Nation's largest civilian mapping agency, provides staff support for the domestic names work of the Board. "A map is about the last place you want to spell a name wrong or put the wrong name on the wrong feature" said Roger Payne, Executive Secretary of the U.S. Board. "There are a lot of good reasons to keep track of what we call our hills, rivers, and swamps and where they are," Payne said. "Is the rescue pilot going to the right mountain, is the proposed name of the new town already in use, and is it Mount Venus or Venus Mountain?" The newly generated excitement over the Pathfinder Mission and the geological features being discovered and named on Mars is sure to renew interest in naming celestial bodies and features. You can visit the Geographic Names and USGS Mars mission home pages at: http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/gnis/ and http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/USGSFlag/Space/nomen/nomen.html ----------------------------------------------------------------- NEW STUDIES OF MARTIAN METEORITE LAUNCHED NSF PR 97-50 July 17, 1997 The National Science Foundation has awarded grants for seven new projects to study Martian meteorite ALH84001 in greater depth. The grants are part of a coordinated program with NASA to further investigate possible traces of ancient life in the Martian rock. After the announcement last August that the meteorite may harbor fossils of ancient Martian life, NSF and NASA called for further research into the evidence. The agencies set up a coordinated, interdisciplinary program which included joint review of research proposals. NASA announced on June 19 that it had awarded 16 individual grants under the program. NSF's seven new grants, totaling nearly $800,000 for projects over two or three years, will use advanced instrumentation to further analyze the provocative rock. Some projects will study ALH84001 itself. Others will investigate analogous features in terrestrial rocks from environments that may resemble those of ancient Mars--hot springs and other extreme habitats of earthbound microbes--to provide a better context for understanding the tiny structures in the Martian rock. Meteorite ALH84001 is one of about 8,000 meteorites collected in Antarctica by U.S. researchers. NSF is the lead agency for managing the collection and distribution of Antarctic meteorites, done in collaboration with NASA and the Smithsonian Institution. Samples of ALH84001 are being sent to the researchers from the Antarctic Meteorite Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The samples, typically only a few grams apiece, are handled similarly to the lunar samples collected during the Apollo program. The new research will include scanning the meteorite for extremely fine-scale alteration of the mineral interface by microbes. Other studies will focus on the meteorite's carbon isotopes to see if they reflect a ratio typical of microbial life, and develop a chemical method to fingerprint biological activity in meteorites using different isotopes of iron, some of which may be taken up preferentially by living organisms. Still other projects will look at mineral particles--oxides and sulfides of iron--with potential as "biomarkers" (signs of past life) both in the Martian meteorite and in bacteria on Earth. Some researchers will attempt to: fix the temperature and fluid composition under which the meteorite's minerals formed, presently an area of controversy; develop thermodynamic models for mineral alteration in hydrothermal environments; and delineate the rock's temperature history and its past infiltration by fluids. Institutions receiving the grants are the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, Iowa State University, Arizona State University, University of Minnesota, University of California-Santa Cruz, University of Hawaii, Washington University in St. Louis, and the California Institute of Technology. ----------------------------------------------------------------- NASA TECHNOLOGY MAY HELP ASSESS RISK OF BONE PROBLEMS NASA release: 97-155 A portable device developed for the space program to examine how physical activity relates to bone density may someday serve as a way to assess a person's risk of osteoporosis. The device, developed by researchers in the Life Sciences Division at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, provides a record of the major forces people apply to their bodies throughout the day. It does this by measuring and recording the interaction between the foot and the ground during daily activity. This "loading" of the body plays an important role in maintaining muscle and bone strength in the lower limbs. "This device was designed to quantify daily physical activity and daily musculoskeletal loading by measuring the ground-reaction force," said Dr. Robert Whalen, head of the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Laboratory in the Gravitational Research Branch at Ames. The device measures the force that occurs on the foot during each step. The force can reach one and one-half times a person's body weight during walking and two to three times body weight during running. "It's very important to monitor this force throughout the day because it also is responsible for high muscle and bone forces in the legs and critical bone regions such as the hip and pelvis," Whalen explained. The force exerted on the body when it meets the ground is what keeps muscles and bones in the lower body strong. If muscles and bones aren't used, they become significantly weaker, a problem encountered by astronauts during space flight, particularly by astronauts who do not exercise vigorously in space. "Maintaining muscles and bones during long duration space flight is primarily a biomechanical problem," Whalen said. "With current in-flight exercise devices, it is difficult to achieve force levels equivalent to levels achieved during normal daily activity on Earth. We are investigating new ways to counteract these changes with devices capable of imposing Earth-equivalent levels of force on the body in space." Whalen and Dr. Gregory Breit, researchers at Ames, are studying the relationship between the mechanical forces humans put on the skeleton every day and the structure of the skeleton. "Bone is highly responsive to mechanical forces," Breit said. "That may be the key to understanding why bone is lost gradually with age and why certain exercise programs can't build bone mass," Whalen added. The key, Whalen explained, is determining how individuals can "load" their bodies to maintain muscle and bone strength. Since our muscles generate their own forces, we are limited by how strong our muscles are. "If you don't have the muscle strength, you can't exert high forces on bones to increase bone mass," Whalen said. "As people age, a gradual decline in activity level and intensity contributes to a decline in muscle strength, and therefore our ability to load our bones also decreases." The result can be less dense, weaker bones that are more prone to fractures. The device consists of two elements: a force sensor resembling an insole that is worn in the shoe, and a small computer carried in a fanny pack. A cable connects the sensor to the small computer, which samples the applied force 100 times per second. It stores only the significant maximum and minimum forces occurring during each loading or gait cycle, as well as the peak loading and unloading rate and the time at which each event occurred. The device is capable of storing approximately two weeks of activity data. Although scientists have used step-meters and activity logs to estimate a person's daily activity level and musculoskeletal loading history, Whalen said these devices don't give a reliable measurement of forces on the skeleton, due to differences among people and differences in the amount and "intensity" of their daily activities. A person walking quickly will generally experience higher forces than when walking more slowly, for example. The new device provides a reliable measure of the actual forces exerted on the body. The Ames researchers are collaborating with the Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital and with Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, to study how daily activity level and exercise influence bone density. "Once we have enough data, we can get an idea of the daily physical activity level of an 'average' person," Breit said. "Then people can decide if they are above or below average and what they need to do to improve. In the future, we hope to understand bone adaptation well enough to assess whether an individual's bone density is consistent with his or her daily activity level." Breit said that this device will allow measurement of an individual's activity to assess his or her risk of low bone density from low physical activity level and will allow an individual exercise prescription to improve the health of an older person. For photographs or more information about the Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Laboratory, visit the Web site at URL: http://pioneer.arc.nasa.gov/~rwhalen/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- NATIONAL SPACE SOCIETY LECTURE SERIES: SPECIAL EVENT! "Venus Revealed" by David Harry Grinspoon Thursday, July 31, 7:30 p.m. Professor David Grinspoon of the University of Colorado, author of the book Venus Revealed, will talk about the history of and our current understanding of "Earth's twin." He says what we know of Venus can help protect the environment of Earth. The lecture will be held at MIT Lab for Computer Science, 8th floor, room NE43-800, 545 Tech. Square, on Main St. at railroad tracks, Cambridge. (617)258-2828. Free, A/C, refreshments. These meetings are sponsored by the Boston Chapter of the National Space Society (NSS); together with the MIT chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS). NSS sponsors lectures on space related topics, usually on the first Thursday of every month at the location listed above. ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARS PATHFINDER MISSION STATUS JPL reports 6 July 1997, 11:30 am PDT Today is a working day on Mars. Both the Imager for Mars Pathfinder and the Sojourner Rover have their work cutout for them today. First, the Imager will be taking what the Mars Pathfinder team affectionately calls the "monster panorama." It will image the entire 360 degree view using both "eyes" and its red filter. The use of spectral filters enables geologists to get a good idea of the composition of rocks and soil. The resulting stereo image will also be an important planning tool for Sojourner controllers since they will be able to see in 3 dimensions and plan for the upcoming activities accordingly. The rover driver will be able to put on his stereo goggles and plan the route the rover will be taking to get to the first designated target rock. This rock, now named "Barnacle Bill" has interesting features that Mars Pathfinder scientists and geologists are eager to see close-up. Today the rover will make a 20 degree turn and back up to this rock in order to place its Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) there. Good news coming out of Mars Pathfinder Mission Control: the data rate at which the lander communicates back to Earth has been increased to 8 kb/sec, an unprecedented communication rate this early in a mission. This will allow more data to be received back here on Earth, and more commands to be sent up to Mars. July 6, 1997 9 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time With a perfectly healthy lander and rover on the surface of Mars, scientists on the Mars Pathfinder team burned the midnight oil last night to design their first day of activities for the robust, 23-pound rover named Sojourner Truth. The rover spent its first night on Mars very near the end of the rear ramp from which it exited the lander last night, taking measurements of the Martian soil with its alpha proton X-ray spectrometer. At 3:45 p.m. PDT today, the operations team at JPL "woke up" the rover by playing "Final Frontier," the theme song from the television program "Mad About You," in keeping with the traditional wake-up songs used to arouse the astronauts during space shuttle missions. Two experiments for Sol 3 were radiated to Pathfinder earlier today. The first is a soil mechanics experiment, in which the rover will lock five of its wheels, then turn the sixth wheel in both directions. Scientists will observe the depth of the wheel tracks and the movement of a top layer of fine-grain material. The second experiment will send Sojourner to its first rock, nicknamed "Barnacle Bill," for its very rough, barnacle- like surface. This traverse to Barnacle Bill will involve two maneuvers for the rover: the first to turn its wheels approximately 70 degrees in the direction of the rock; the second maneuver to move backward with its fully deployed spectrometer until it touches the rock. The rover will travel approximately 36 centimeters (1.2 feet) to reach the rock. Once the spectrometer has been placed against Barnacle Bill, Sojourner will spend the night gathering data on its composition. "With any luck, we will get a picture of Sojourner holding hands with Barnacle Bill," said Brian Muirhead, deputy project manager, at a 6 p.m. press briefing. Among the most anticipated data expected to be returned tonight are 12-color, high resolution images that will be pieced together like a mosaic to create a 360-degree, color panorama, or "monster pan," of the landing site. The color variations and higher resolution will help scientists identify more geological features worthy of exploration in this very rocky flood plain. The first picture of the Pathfinder lander taken by the rover is also expected to be returned tonight. Scientists pointed out other interesting rocks, soil deposits and features on the horizon in this evening's press briefing. A pair of mountain peaks, nicknamed "Twin Peaks," revealed ribbons of different colored rock. Scientists noted that the horizontal bands could be sedimentary layers or terraces cut by erosion. Angular rocks appearing in the foreground, all leaning in the same direction, suggest they were ejected from a nearby impact crater. A variety of smooth round rocks suggested that they were transported by water in Mars' early evolution. "In the initial analysis of these images, we see multiple episodes of flooding, not just one catastrophic event, but many," said Dr. Ronald Greeley, of Arizona State University, a co- investigator on the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) team. "We have a view of Mars that we have never seen before," added Dr. Matthew Golombek, project scientist at JPL. "We really have a grab bag of rocks here, varying in color, texture, fabric, sizes and shapes. They are completely different from the Viking landing sites and from each other too." Scientists expect to begin reporting results of the first day of science activities at a 10 a.m. PDT press briefing at JPL. Meanwhile, all instruments and spacecraft systems continue to perform exceptionally well. The operations team will be increasing Pathfinder's data rate to more than 8,000 bits per second tomorrow in order to maximize the return of science measurements. July 7, 1997 1 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time Moderate weather yesterday, temperatures hovering around minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit, pressure about 6.8 millibars, steady light winds blowing from the southeast. Afternoon temperatures reached about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The forecast for today: 10 degrees Fahrenheit, cooling overnight to about minus 105 degrees Fahrenheit. A little extreme for an Earthly weather report? Perhaps, but with that, scientists on the Mars Pathfinder mission today presented the first weather report from Ares Vallis, an outflow channel on the surface of Mars. Four days into surface operations, the Mars Pathfinder lander, rover and instruments are performing perfectly and returning a wealth of new data on the rocks, soils and atmosphere of Mars. "The site is everything we hoped it would be," said Dr. Matthew Golombek, Pathfinder project scientist, at a 10 a.m. PDT press briefing. "We are finding more and more surprises as we look in detail at the rocks and terrain." Images presented this morning included the first photograph of the lander taken by the rover. The image showed final retraction of the airbags in a very high, puffy clump that blocked most of the lander from view. Meanwhile, the lander's Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) camera has provided a new perspective on rocks and hills on the Martian horizon now that it is deployed on its mast and photographing the site at an elevation of 1.0 meters (3.2 feet) above the lander, said Dr. Peter Smith, IMP principal investigator from the University of Arizona. Another new image presented this morning showed Sojourner Truth, the 23-pound rover that has begun to explore rocks around the landing site, as it was gathering data overnight on "Barnacle Bill." This rock, which was about 36 centimeters (1.2 feet) from the rover after it exited the lander, is thought to be about 8- to-10-inches tall, Smith said, and has a very distinctive surface that looks almost as if it is covered with barnacle-shaped objects. "Here we have proof that Sojourner sort of nestled up and kissed Barnacle Bill," Golombek said as the photograph was presented. "We have also received data from the rover's first soil experiment. The APXS (alpha proton X-ray spectrometer) is working perfectly," Golombek continued. "However, because we started taking data earlier in the day than we originally planned, the temperatures on Mars were warmer than the detectors liked and we have a bit of noise in the spectra. The team needs an extra day to try to figure out how to subtract that noise out." The science team said a full chemical analysis of both the Martian soil and Barnacle Bill would be reported at tomorrow's 11 a.m. PDT press briefing. Meanwhile, Sojourner will travel to a larger rock later today, called "Yogi," and study the composition of the soil around it using the alpha proton X-ray spectrometer. Several scientists have commented that a smooth depression of soil around the rock resembles a moat. Looking south at a pair of sloping hills, called "Twin Peaks," that are about a mile away, Smith pointed out new observations made possible by the fully deployed IMP camera. A depression in the landscape in front of the peaks suggests the presence of a channel. "This is actually a channel back behind those rocks, we're on the edge of a channel," he said. A high resolution close-up of the Martian soil near the base of the lander also revealed a texture perfectly preserved in the Martian environment. Dr. Jim Bell of Cornell University explained the calibration targets that are used to achieve the true color of the Martian landscape. Color variations allow scientists to identify different types of minerals that are present in the environment. The bright reddish color of the soil, for example, points to the presence of oxidized iron in surface materials. "The surface of Mars is rusting," Bell said. "We don't know when or how fast it's rusting, but we hope to find these things out. Not all of the surfaces are the same, though. There's lots of diversity and variation in the landscape. We can see some surfaces that are much less red, for example, and more consistent with volcanic rocks." Building on comments made yesterday by Dr. Ronald Greeley (Arizona State University) about the evidence for floods in this region, Dr. Michael Malin, an interdisciplinary scientist, said the floods were so catastrophic that they would have filled up the Mediterranean basin here on Earth. Evidence, he said, can be seen in the variety of rocks, sediments and "puddles" left in the Martian soil that materials from the highlands were swept into this flood basin. A full color, 360-degree panorama of the Pathfinder landing site will be presented at tomorrow's 11 a.m. press briefing, as will data about the composition of the Martian soil and Barnacle Bill. Briefings are carried live on NASA TV, which is available on GE- 2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees west longitude, vertical polarization, with a frequency of 3880 MHz, and audio of 6.8 MHz. July 8, 1997 3 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time The first in-situ chemical measurements ever obtained of a rock on Mars - nicknamed Barnacle Bill for its rough, barnacle-like surface - surprised scientists and raised questions about the duration of volcanic activity occurring on Mars in its early formation. Dr. Rudolph Rieder, of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Germany, and principal investigator on the Alpha Proton X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) team, reported that Barnacle Bill, an 8-to- 10-inch tall rock near the Mars Pathfinder lander, was unusually rich in silicon, which is more characteristic of Earth rocks than Martian rocks. On Earth, volcanic rocks contain significant amounts of free silica in the form of quartz. The rich silicon content puts Barnacle Bill in one of the most common categories of volcanic rocks on Earth, known as "andesites." "It turns out this rock has some rather peculiar chemical characteristics, which make it very unlike the other SNC meteorites," said Dr. Hap McSween, University of Tennessee, who is a participating scientist on the APXS team. (The SNC meteorites are those found on Earth that are believed to be of Martian origin.) "In particular, it has a very high content of silicon or silicon dioxide (quartz)," McSween said. "It appears that Barnacle Bill falls into a category called 'andesites,' which are among the most common volcanic rocks on Earth." Andesites are mixtures of very fine crystalline and other minerals that are formed through a process known as differentiation. Differentiation is the process by which crustal materials deep within a planet's interior are repeatedly melted and remelted, thereby shaping and reshaping the surface of the planet. Mars today has very few volcanoes and no continental plates like those found on Earth to suggest it was internally active for very long. Barnacle Bill's chemical signature may throw that theory into question. Today's weather report was similar to yesterday's: at 3 p.m. local Mars time, it was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit, pressure was about 6.74 millibars, with very light winds out of the northwest. "The weather on Mars is pretty boring," said Dr. Jeffrey Barnes, Oregon State University, who is a member of the atmospheric/meteorological experiment. "Northern summer in the subtropics on Mars is pretty much the same from day to day. Fifty or 60 days from now, we'll start to see dramatic changes with fall." Atmospheric opacity - or how clear the sky is according to Pathfinder's atmospheric experiment - showed that Mars is moderately dusty up to about 40 kilometers (25 miles) above the surface. The dust appears to be uniformly distributed, and is expected to rise as Mars approaches its dusty season in the fall, Barnes said. The visibility on Mars was estimated to be about 32 kilometers (20 miles) or more, roughly equivalent to a moderately smoggy day in Los Angeles. The rover's next task later today will be to perform a chemical analysis of the soil around a large rock named "Yogi." Once the soil measurements are taken, Sojourner will then back up to the left side of the rock and begin a chemical analysis using the APXS instrument. On the fifth day of surface operations since Pathfinder's historic July 4 landing, all spacecraft and rover systems continue to operate extremely well. Pathfinder is returning data at an unprecedented rate of more than 8,500 bits per second and has returned 1,575 images of the Martian surface to date. A 360- degree, color panorama of the Ares Vallis landing site is expected to be released within the next few days. July 9, 1997 3 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time Six days after landing in an ancient outflow channel called Ares Vallis, the Mars Pathfinder lander and rover continue to operate extremely well, returning unprecedented amounts of data during daily downlink sessions. Yesterday, Pathfinder returned 85 megabits of data on the Martian atmosphere, weather, soil and a rock called "Barnacle Bill," the first rock on Mars ever to be studied up close and personal. Additional rover and lander imaging was also returned. Tonight the operations team will perform a low-gain antenna session from 6:30 p.m.- 7 p.m. PDT to acquire data on the health of the lander and rover. A three-hour high-gain transmission will begin later this evening, at 10 p.m. - 1:30 a.m. PDT, at the higher data rate. The rover has completed its soil analysis of the smooth, moat- like terrain around a large boulder named "Yogi." After completing the analysis, the rover retracted the alpha proton X- ray spectrometer, then conducted a wheel abrasion experiment in which it dug into the soil and disturbed the crusty material as it was turning its wheels. This soil abrasion test is one of many technology and mobility experiments planned for the rover to help engineers understand the dynamics of its mobility on Martian soil for future generations of rovers. "We used the rover as sort of a bulldozer to push this rock and crusty material up," said Dr. Matthew Golombek, Pathfinder project scientist at a 1 p.m. PDT press briefing. "Next the rover moved slightly to the left and imaged Yogi with its front cameras, then turned around and imaged the lander with its front cameras. After that, the rover will photograph Yogi at close range. That data will be returned tonight." Further preliminary analysis of "Barnacle Bill" showed that its texture seems to be consistent with volcanic "andesites," the second most common volcanic rock on Earth, said Dr. Jeff Johnson, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, AZ, who is on the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) camera team. Scientists will use reflectance spectra collected by the lander and rover cameras to determine whether the rock, which measures about 40 centimeters (1.3 feet) across and 1.1 to 1.5 centimeters (8-to-10-inches) tall, is a sedimentary rock composed of many different rock fragments, or whether it is "homogenous," which would be consistent with scientists' first impression that it is a volcanic rock. On a lighter note, Dr. Peter Smith, principal investigator of the IMP team, shared some of his personal insights on what it's like to be living on local Mars time, which means working on a 24-hour, 37-minute clock each day. "When you say good morning, and the sun is setting, now that's living on Martian solar time. When your sunglasses start looking like this (holding up the red-and-blue stereo glasses used to view images in 3-D), that's living on Martian time. When you start admiring strange-looking rocks and giving them names, then telling your friends, that's living on Martian time. When your days are called Sols, and your nights are called days, that's living on Martian time. But when you start laughing at the engineers' jokes, you know you're living on Martian time." Next on the rover's schedule of investigations are two rocks that appear white or very light in color: "Casper" and "Scubee- Dubee-Doo," located off to the left of the Pathfinder lander. Among the many images planned in the next week are shots of the Martian sunset and sunrise; pictures of the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos; and pictures of "Twin Peaks," two sloping hills that are about 800 meters (about half a mile) away from the landing site. July 10, 1997 2 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time Seven days into surface activities on the Mars Pathfinder mission, all spacecraft systems and instruments are continuing to perform well. The rover remains in excellent health and appears to be driving a little bit faster when left to its own devices than when it receives instructions from Earth. "Basically the rover overshot its target rock, Yogi, by a little bit last night," explained Dr. Justin Maki, of the University of Arizona, who is a member of the Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP) team. Maki showed a movie of Sojourner as it approached the large boulder and began to climb up its side with one wheel. In this type of dead reckoning, the rover performed just as it should have, which was to back off the rock once it knew the rock was in the way, then turned and moved away from the object. Although the rover travels about 1 centimeter per second (about 2 feet per minute), it appeared to be moving a little bit faster on its own. The science team targeted the left side of Yogi for alpha proton X-ray spectrometer study because it appears to be dark and free of Martian dust. However, that side turned out to be tricky for the rover because of the rock's uneven contours and the slight depression in the soil beneath the rock. The rover team will instruct Sojourner to attempt instrument placement again tonight. Multiple attempts to position the science instrument were anticipated, making this repeat attempt nothing out of the usual. The navigation team also announced the Ares Vallis landing site coordinates today as 19.33 degrees north latitude, 33.55 degrees west longitude. Dr. Carol Stoker of NASA Ames Research Center showed some of the virtual reality products that her team is beginning to produce from the Pathfinder data during today's press briefing. Data from the lander camera's stereo images are overlain with terrain models to create the three-dimensional perspective, which can then be rotated in any direction on any plane on a computer screen. The 3-D perspective will be very useful to the science team in planning rover traverses and in analyzing data. Dr. Julio Magalhaes, also of NASA Ames Research Center, a member of the atmospheric structure instrument/meteorology package (ASI/MET) on board the Pathfinder lander, reported that atmospheric temperatures in the upper atmosphere of Mars are extremely cold. The science team has recorded temperatures at an altitude of 80 kilometers (50 miles) above the surface as minus 171 Celsius (minus 275 degrees Fahrenheit). In the lower atmosphere, between 60 km to 13 km (37 to 8 miles), the temperatures are warmer and very close to those recorded by the Viking landers of the mid-1970s. July 11, 1997 11:15 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time Commands for the next day of activities for Mars Pathfinder were not sent last night because the Pathfinder spacecraft's receiver had not been turned on in advance of the uplink session. NASA's Deep Space Network conducts a routine frequency sweep before uplink sessions each day. The Goldstone, CA station initiated this sweep yesterday at about 1:35 p.m. PDT, when it came online. Because Pathfinder's receiver is only turned on at specific times each day to conserve power, it was not scheduled to be turned on until 1:46 p.m., an 11-minute miscalculation. Therefore the planned command link to the spacecraft was not established. The operations team did not discover the problem until it was ready to begin its downlink session at 9:12 p.m. PDT last night. That 30-minute downlink would have been followed by a later downlink of data at 10:30 p.m. to 12:20 a.m. The lost transmission session did not impact the mission in any way, except to delay the rover and lander activities. The operations team will retransmit the same set of sequences tonight during the 8 p.m. PDT session. Activities planned for today will repeat the tasks not completed yesterday, including backing Sojourner down from Yogi and repositioning its science instrument against the rock. A full color panorama is also planned. Meanwhile, all spacecraft and rover systems are performing well. Today is Sol 8 of the Mars Pathfinder mission. July 11, 1997 2 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time After determining Pathfinder's landing site coordinates yesterday, the Mars Pathfinder navigation team today reconstructed the spacecraft's novel entry, descent and landing at a 12:00 Noon PDT briefing. The team has been analyzing data acquired in the last week to come up with this preliminary landing profile. Pathfinder was "right on the money," within a kilometer (6/10ths of a mile) of the target landing site, said Dr. Sam Thurman, one of the entry, descent and landing team members. The spacecraft's terminal velocity as it parachuted to the ground was about 60 meters per second (134 miles per hour). An algorithm onboard the spacecraft that controlled the retro rockets recorded Pathfinder's speed at about 61.5 meters per second (140,000 miles per hour) at the time the RAD (rocket- assisted deceleration) rockets fired. One issue of great importance to the Mars Global Surveyor team was Pathfinder's performance during descent, while it was subjected to the forces of the Martian environment. The Pathfinder navigation team reported that the spacecraft did indeed pick up some horizontal wind velocity on the order of about 13 meters per second (20 to 25 miles per hour), which was still well within the limits of the descent and landing design. That information, however, will be very useful to the Mars Global Surveyor flight team when its spacecraft begins aerobraking through the upper atmosphere of Mars in order to circularize the spacecraft's orbit. Pathfinder next fired its retro rockets at about 98 meters (321 feet) above the ground, just slightly higher than the 90- meter (295-foot) predicted elevation target, but also well the parameters of the landing strategy. The 65-foot bridle was cut at about 21 meters (65 feet) above the ground, with just four seconds before impact. Pathfinder's airbags -- a new component of the spacecraft never before tested for a semi-hard landing -- hit the ground at a speed of about 18 meters per second (40 miles per hour) and skidded horizontally across the landscape at about 12.5 meters per second (28 miles per hour). Pathfinder bounced about 15 meters (50 feet) high after impact, then bounced about 14 or 15 times more before coming to a stop. In all, the spacecraft bounced and rolled for about 2.5 minutes and traveled about 1 kilometer (6/10ths of a mile) before coming to a halt. Activities for Sol 8 of Pathfinder's nearly flawless mission will include a set of commands to drive Sojourner off the large boulder, named Yogi, that it began to climb yesterday before automatically stopping itself. The rover team will send the rover new commands to reposition itself near the rock and attempt to place the alpha proton X-ray spectrometer against the rock again. The imaging team, meanwhile, released the famous "monster pan" today, a full, 360-degree color panorama of the Ares Vallis landing site. July 17, 1997 11 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time Mars Pathfinder engineers reported a day of flawless operations of the lander and Sojourner Rover on Mars with the end of the mission's 13th day on Mars this morning, and also noted that they have found and are in the process of fixing a software bug that had caused the lander's computer to reset itself four times in recent days. "The resets on the lander computer were caused by a software task that was unable to complete the task in the allotted time," said Flight Director Brian Muirhead. "We found that the task was being cut short because it had not been given high enough priority to run through to completion. Basically, we just need to add one instruction to the computer software to raise the priority of that task." The problem was reproduced and isolated in testing at JPL. Further tests and verification will be completed today and tomorrow, with radio transmission of a software "patch" to change the lander's software scheduled for Saturday, Muirhead said. Overnight, the Pathfinder team received all of the planned 58 megabits of data expected from the lander, along with the first of eight image sectors that will be combined to create a so- called "super-pan" high-resolution color panorama of the Martian terrain surrounding the spacecraft. The rest of the images will be transmitted back to Earth over the next several days. A new "rover movie" created from time-lapse images taken by the lander was returned overnight. It shows Sojourner moving 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) and closing in on the whitish rock dubbed Scooby Doo. During the next Martian day, Sol 14, Rover drivers at JPL will bring the vehicle closer to the rock so Sojourner's alpha proton X-ray spectrometer can be placed against the rock. On this Martian Day, Sol 13, Earth rise was at 5:27 p.m. yesterday, sunrise was at 9:35 p.m., Earth set was at 7:06 a.m. and sunset was at 9:33 a.m. July 18, 1997 10:15 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time The Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover concluded their 14th successful day of operations on the surface of Mars today, JPL engineers reported. Highlights of the scientific data returned overnight include a series of images that show Sojourner approaching the white rock Scooby Doo and deploying the rover's X-ray spectrometer instrument to study the rock's surface. Imaging data from the lander's camera also included a high-resolution view of the northernmost of the Twin Peaks seen on the horizon from the landing site. Pathfinder engineers said all subsystems on both the lander and rover performed flawlessly and that no resets of the lander's computer were detected. On this Martian Day, Sol 14, Earth rise was at 6:07 p.m. PDT yesterday, sunrise was at 9:15 p.m. PDT, Earth set was at 7:46 a.m. PDT and sunset was at 10:12 a.m. PDT. The day's total data return from the Mars station was 58 megabits. July 19, 1997 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time Last night's receipt of scientific data from Mars Pathfinder was delayed until tonight due to minor ground station problems that interfered with capturing all of Pathfinder's radio transmissions, mission engineers said today. A short downlink opportunity and a problem with ground station computers combined to prevent most of Pathfinder's scientific data from being received last night. But engineering data from the rover and lander show that both remain in excellent health as they completed the first day of their third week on the surface of Mars. "All the telemetry from the lander and rover continue to show that we have two very healthy spacecraft," said project manager Brian Muirhead. "We successfully completed the rover's seven-day prime mission and have finished the first week of its extended mission, and we are half-way through the lander's 30-day prime mission. Everything looks good for continued operations with outstanding science return from both lander and rover," he said. Last night's scheduled science data return will be retransmitted during the next Mars day, Sol 16, which begins tonight. Engineers also plan to send a new software patch to remove the software bug that had caused the lander's computer to reset itself earlier in the mission. The next downlink session is scheduled to include images of the Martian moon Phobos, along with observations of early morning fog, measurements of the rock Scoobie Doo and images of various features around the lander. Mission engineers said that overnight, Sojourner had successfully executed commands to move its wheels to scrape off the top layer of dust from the rock Scoobie Doo. The rover's spectrometer was to have then repositioned its sensor to measure the newly revealed surface of the rock. The extended sensor head, however, apparently overshot the edge of the rock and did not make contact. Engineers will analyze data on the position of the rover and its spectrometer and plan to reposition the instrument tonight. On this Martian Day, Sol 15, Earth rise was at 6:07 p.m. PDT yesterday, sunrise was at 9:55 p.m. PDT, Earth set was at 8:25 a.m. PDT and sunset was at 10:51 a.m. PDT. The day's total data return from the Mars station was 2 megabits. July 20, 1997 1 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time The Pathfinder mission operations team commanded the lander early this morning and did obtain a carrier signal over the high-gain antenna starting at 3:14 a.m. PDT for the normal period of about 66 minutes, but the signal strength was below expected levels and no scientific data was received. "This told us that the spacecraft was basically healthy but that there was a problem with the telecommunications link," said Project Manager Brian Muirhead. A later attempt to communicate with the lander through its high-gain antenna from 7:03 to 7:27 a.m. PDT was not successful. "The flight team is assessing the possible causes of the communication problem, said Muirhead. "This morning's problem may be related to some extent to configuration problems between the spacecraft and the Deep Space Network, but more data is needed to fully assess the problem. We are trying to troubleshoot a problem with very little information," he said. The flight team is preparing sequences for a low-gain antenna communications session for about midnight tonight (July 20, Pacific Time). A communications session with the high-gain antenna is planned for about 3:30 a.m. PDT tomorrow, July 21. "Since we have only limited windows to communicate with the spacecraft we must wait patiently for our next opportunity, Muirhead said. "We will go through the usual steps that have worked for us before, and then we will get to the bottom of the problem as we have before." The telecommunications problem is not thought to be related to the reset problem previously experienced by the lander's computer. The rover remains safely at the rock called Scooby Doo. Earth will rise over the Sagan Memorial Station at 8:07 p.m. PDT today July 20, and sunrise will be at 11:15 p.m. Earth set is at 9:45 a.m. July 21. An audio update on Pathfinder's status can be heard by calling 1- 800-391-6654. For further information, please visit our website at http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov. ----------------------------------------------------------------- MARS PATHFINDER MIRROR SITES Choose the location nearest you Corporate Mirror Sites: Site Site Address Capacity (Mega-Hits/Day) Silicon Graphics, Inc. http://mars.sgi.com 15 CompuServe http://mars.compuserve.com 10 SUN Microsystems, Inc. http://www.sun.com/mars 6 Mirroring the JPL Mars Pathfinder site is open to all U.S. firms that qualify. Public Sector Mirror Sites: Location Site Address Capacity (Mega-Hits/Day) NASA, AMES http://mpfwww.arc.nasa.gov 5 NASA, JPL http://mpfwww.jpl.nasa.gov 5 NCSA - National Center for Supercomputer Applications http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/mars 4 Cornell Theory Center http://mars.tc.cornell.edu 4 National Center for Atmospheric Research #1 http://www.mars.ucar.edu 4 San Diego Supercomputer Center http://mars.sdsc.edu 4 NASA, KSC http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/mars 2 NASA, JPL http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mpfmir 1 National Center for Atmospheric Research #2 http://mars.nlanr.net 1 Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center http://www.psc.edu/Mars 0.75 NASA, Lewis Research Center http://marsmirror.lerc.nasa.gov0.5 Hawaii Institute for Geophysics and Planetology http://mars.pgd.hawaii.edu 0.5 The Catlin Gabel School http://mars.catlin.edu 0.5 International Mirror Sites: Location Site Address Capacity (Mega-Hits/Day) ESO http://mars.eso.org 3 NASDA http://mars.tksc.nasda.go.jp/JPL 2 Web2Mil http://web2mil.intercanal.com/mars 2 Aalborg University http://sunsite.auc.dk/mars 1.5 Visuanet http://www.visuanet.com/jpl 1.5 CNES http://www-mars.cnes.fr 1 CSIRO http://sparkli.tip.csiro.au/mars 1 CDSCC/JPL http://tid.cdscc.nasa.gov/mars 0.5 IKI http://www.iki.rssi.ru/jplmirror/mars 0.25 ----------------------------------------------------------------- End Marsbugs, Vol. 4, No. 12