MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 6, Number 19, 20 July 1999. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, Biology and Chemistry Division, Lyon College, Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. Marsbugs@aol.com or dthomas@lyon.edu Dr. Julian A. Hiscox, School of Animal and Microbial Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AJ, United Kingdom. J.A.Hiscox@reading.ac.uk 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. While we cannot copyright our mailing list, our readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing list. The editors do not condone "spamming" of our subscribers. Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editors. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting either of the editors. Article 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 and Adobe Acrobat PDF files suitable for printing may be obtained via anonymous FTP at ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs or at the official Marsbugs web page at http://members.aol.com/marsbugs/marsbugs.html. 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. Astrobiology 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 and astrobiology (life on other planets), the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis and terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and human habitation of space and other planets. ---------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS 1) MARS EXPRESS LAUNCH CONTRACT SIGNED AT LE BOURGET From ESA Science News 2) COULD HUMANS LIVE ON MARS? GEOLOGISTS TO DISCUSS MISSION LANDING SITES THAT MIGHT HAVE ANSWERS State University of New York-Buffalo release 3) EVIDENCE FOR LIFE ON MARS REMAINS WEAK, LIKELY TO JOIN SCIENTIFIC "DISCOVERIES" THAT FIZZLED LIST, SAYS UCLA SCIENTIST University of California-Los Angelese release 4) NEW DATES SET FOR ASSEMBLY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ESA release 28-99 5) LIFE ON THE EDGE UPDATE: SCIENCE@NASA SLED DOGS BRAVE SPRING STORMS AND WILY MARMOTS TO RECOVER MICROBES FROM CALIFORNIA'S WHITE MOUNTAINS By Tony Philips and John M. Horak 6) MANY LIFE-BEARING PLANETS COULD EXIST IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE, ACCORDING TO CALTECH PLANETARY SCIENCE PROFESSOR California Institute of Technology release 7) A CLOSER ENCOUNTER WITH MARS JPL release 8) SCIENTISTS DISCOVER THAT MOST OF THE ASTEROID THAT FORMED METEOR CRATER WAS SHOCK MELTED University of Arizona News Services release 9) CU-BOULDER TO SEND EXPERIMENTS RANGING FROM LADYBUGS TO WATER QUALITY ON NASA SHUTTLE University of Colorado release 10) POSSIBLE PLAYER IN ORIGINS OF LIFE? UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII RESEARCHER FINDS A NEW FORM OF PURE CARBON IN A MEXICAN METEORITE University of Hawaii release 11) MARS SURVEYOR 98 MISSION STATUS REPORTS JPL releases 12) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORTS JPL releases 13) NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke ---------------------------------------------------------------- MARS EXPRESS LAUNCH CONTRACT SIGNED AT LE BOURGET From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 15 June 1999 At the Paris Air Show yesterday the contract for the launch of ESA's Mars Express by the Euro-Russian Starsem was signed by Roger Bonnet, ESA's Director of the Scientific Programme and Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of Starsem. With the signing of this launch contract the major constituents of Europe's first mission to Mars are in place. "...I'm very happy to sign this contract with Starsem and to have a launcher for Mars Express, the first European mission to the red planet", said Roger Bonnet. Mars Express will be launched by the Soyuz-Fregat launcher in June 2003 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch window opens on 1 June and lasts until 11 June 2003, maximising use of the favourable positioning of Earth with relation to Mars at that time. When it arrives at the red planet six months later, it will begin to map the planet, to study the crust and to search for water. Seven instruments, provided by space research institutes throughout Europe, will make observations from the main spacecraft as it orbits the planet. Just before the spacecraft arrives, it will release a small lander, Beagle II that will journey on to the surface to look for signs of life. This is the second launch contract awarded by ESA to Starsem, the first being for the launch of the four Cluster II satellites, in two pairs by Soyuz-Fregat vehicles, in summer 2000. The partners in the joint European-Russian Company Starsem, founded in 1996 to perform the launch services of the Soyuz launcher family, are Aerospatiale, Arianespace, the Russian Space Agency (RKA) and the Samara Space Centre. Useful links for this story ? More about Mars Express-- http://www.estec.esa.nl/spdwww/mars/html/moreabout.html ? The journey to Mars-- http://www.estec.esa.nl/spdwww/mars/html/marsjourney.html ? The search for water and life-- http://www.estec.esa.nl/spdwww/mars/html/mex-info-2903.htm ? Starsem homepage--http://www.starsem.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- COULD HUMANS LIVE ON MARS? GEOLOGISTS TO DISCUSS MISSION LANDING SITES THAT MIGHT HAVE ANSWERS State University of New York-Buffalo release 18 June 1999 You think finding a place to park down here is hard. Try finding a place to land on Mars. That's what a group of leading planetary geologists will try to decide June 22-23 when they meet at the University at Buffalo for the Mars Surveyor 2001 Landing Site Workshop. The workshop will be held in conjunction with the 1999 Planetary Geological Mappers meeting, also to be held at UB. The Surveyor mission, expected to be launched in the Fall of 2001, will carry experiments designed to demonstrate technologies needed to support eventual human colonization of Mars, according to Tracy Gregg, Ph.D., UB assistant professor of geology and a member of the workshop organizing committee. "For example, will we be able to extract useful materials, such as construction supplies and metal ores, from martian rocks?" she asked. "And can we extract oxygen from the soils?" The mission also will include experiments to help determine the composition of martian rocks, the results of which will assist scientists in understanding the evolution of Mars, as well as determine if there are useful materials that can be mined to support communities on the planet. Studded with giant craters and huge volcanoes--including the largest one in the solar system--the surface of Mars is a tough place to land anything, especially a remote-controlled vehicle equipped with tens of millions of dollars of equipment and exquisitely sensitive scientific instruments. Gregg noted that while searching for evidence of life on Mars is always important, the Surveyor, which has a range of about 2 miles or 3 kilometers, can land safely only in certain places. "Most of the places available for safe landings are not optimum places to search for martian life," she explained. "Instead, we are trying to maximize the science return; in other words, to find a place that will give us the greatest access to the widest variety of different types of rocks in a small space." Candidate sites are those near flood plains, which are similar to those sites where previous missions have landed, as well as places that are home to many different types of rocks, such as the point at which a volcanic plain intersects an ancient crater. At the meeting, Gregg and volcanologist Mark Bulmer of the Smithsonian Institution will give a presentation on how their experience exploring undersea volcanoes using a remote- controlled vehicle may be relevant to missions on Mars. The 1999 Planetary Geological Mappers meeting will include presentations of geological mapping studies and discussion of planetary geological- mapping procedures and issues. Once the conference presentations are done, scientists will continue their work by donning hiking books and embarking on field trips in and around Western New York, courtesy of their UB hosts. "The reason for the field trips is that there is some controversy over whether or not glaciers may have existed in the past on Mars," Gregg explained. "So we'll be showing these geologists who specialize in Mars what glaciated terrain and glacial deposits really look like." The field trips will showcase the most fascinating features of Western New York's large-scale glacial geology, including Niagara Falls, the Niagara Gorge, the shorelines of the glacial Great Lakes and other geological features, such as drumlins, eskers, moraines and the Finger Lakes. ---------------------------------------------------------------- EVIDENCE FOR LIFE ON MARS REMAINS WEAK, LIKELY TO JOIN SCIENTIFIC "DISCOVERIES" THAT FIZZLED LIST, SAYS UCLA SCIENTIST University of California-Los Angelese release 22 June 1999 For all its achievements, science has also been spectacularly wrong, UCLA paleobiologist J. William Schopf shows in his new book, Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils (Princeton University Press). Facts always prevail eventually-- but sometimes they don't emerge for decades. "Cradle of Life" recounts the discovery over the last three decades of a vast, ancient fossil record, unknown and thought to be unknowable. This immense fossil record fills in gaping holes in our knowledge of the earliest 85 percent of the history of life on Earth, and changes our understanding of how evolution works. In addition to writing about this remarkable success story, however, Schopf also details two of science's stunning failures. Schopf, director of UCLA's Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life, cites the "discovery" in the early 1700s of a skeleton of a human said to have drowned in Noah's flood-- taken for many decades as proof of Biblical truth. Dr. Johann Jacob Scheuchzer, a highly respected Swiss physician and naturalist made the claim. In 1725, Scheuchzer uncovered the partial skeleton of a large vertebrate animal in limestone, and dubbed the specimen Homo diluvii testis--"Man, a witness of the Deluge." Hailed as irrefutable evidence of Noah's flood, it was shown--almost a century later--to be a misidentified huge fossil salamander. Another distinguished scientist from the early 1700s, Johann Bartholomew Adam Beringer, reported the discovery of "perfect" fossils of many animals, Including butterflies, birds with freshly laid eggs, spiders with webs, and "fossilized imprints" of the moon, sun and stars. However, Beringer was duped into falling for a hoax; the stones had been carved, hidden, and dug up--a plot to disgrace Beringer by scholars who despised him. "Beringer thought he had discovered a Rosetta stone, and Scheuchzer was certain he had unearthed a Rosetta stone," Schopf says. "Yet who are we to smugly sit in judgment? Though it is now harder to be fooled since so much more is known, it's a sure bet that some of what passes as 'known' today will eventually turn to dust. Like Beringer's and Scheuchzer's, our most glaring errors will also be cast aside." Following his account of Scheuchzer and Beringer, Schopf concludes with a chapter on the NASA scientists who claimed in 1996 that they had found evidence of life on Mars in a meteorite (ALH84001) that landed in Antarctica 13,000 years ago. His implication is that these respected scientists may be modern successors to Scheuchzer and Beringer. Evidence for life on Mars is "inconclusive, overblown" Schopf, who first assessed the evidence for life on Mars a year and a half before the 1996 press conference produced worldwide headlines, offers this judgment: "The evidence was (and still is) inconclusive." Analyzing the three kinds of evidence presented, he says, "The minerals can't prove it. The PAHs (organic compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) can't, either. The 'fossils' could--but they don't, and there are good reasons to question whether they are in any way related to life." "I want there to be life on Mars more than anyone else--but it doesn't matter what I want!" Schopf says. "The evidence isn't there. Possibly, perhaps, maybe are not good enough." In "Cradle of Life," Schopf recounts his involvement in evaluating the evidence for life on Mars, and the events that led to the life on Mars NASA press conference. NASA administrators asked him in January 1995 to assess what geologists at the Johnson Spacecraft Center (JSC) in Houston believed might be microfossils in a chunk of a meteorite thought to have come from Mars. The focus was on tiny, orange pancake- shaped globules of carbonate material. The scientists thought these globules might be martian "protozoans," but Schopf's analysis showed that their guess was wrong. "Many of the objects merged one into another in a totally nonbiologic way," Schopf says. "Their overall size range also did not fit biology, and they lacked any of the telltale features--pores, tubules, wall layers, spines, chambers, internal structures--that earmark tiny protozoan shells. In addition, the 'lifelike' traits they did possess could be explained by ordinary inorganic processes." "I raised these points with the JSC scientists. They seemed to agree. I thought the matter was closed. But more than a year later, at the August 1996 news conference, the same little pancakes were again proffered as evidence of martian life, this time of bacteria rather than protozoans. Evidently the scientists' minds were set--the facts hadn't changed, only the meaning attached to them." Several weeks before the press conference, NASA again asked Schopf to evaluate the findings. He studied the evidence three times, and was not impressed. "Crucial questions had not been asked," he writes. "Articles published earlier and critically relevant to the authors' contentions had been ignored. More plausible ways to explain the findings were given short shrift. The claim of 'evidence for primitive life on early Mars' seemed overblown, ill- conceived." At the press conference, the JSC scientists presented their findings with the aid of "high-tech cartoon videos," says Schopf, who spoke after them. "I was wearing my best suit--the one I got married in--looking at hundreds of reporters who wanted me to say there was life on Mars," he says. "I had no doubt my words would prove unwelcome. On a scale of one to 10, I gave each piece of their evidence a score. Some, such as the suggested Mars source of the meteorite, I ranked high. But the evidence for life was weak; I gave it a two. A number of scientists later called me to task for being too generous. One Nobel laureate said I should have ranked the evidence zero! "This attempt failed to find life at Mars. That does not mean Mars contained no life--just that these scientists didn't find any." How do respected scientists, from Scheuchzer and Beringer to the JSC team, make such blunders? One answer, Schopf says, is that scientists have the same "strengths, fears and foibles as everyone" and are not so different from our neighbors. They have great successes and, sometimes, great failures. Mostly, Cradle of Life addresses one of science's great successes. Immense fossil record fills in 85 percent of our history As an honors student at Oberlin College in Ohio in the 1960s, Schopf learned in great detail about the most recent 500 million years of the planet's history. But geologic time covers more than 4.5 billion years, and Schopf's textbooks and professors taught virtually nothing about the Earth's first four billion years. The reason this period was neglected, Schopf learned, was that nobody knew much about it. He vowed to fill that black hole of knowledge, and he explains in "Cradle of Life" how he and other scientists succeeded in doing so. What significant events occurred in that first 85 percent of the Earth's history? Among other things, the first living organisms, the modern food chain, photosynthesis, the ability to breathe oxygen, the development of the atmosphere and oceans, various types of cell division, and sexual reproduction all date from this enormously long period of time, Schopf says. What if U.S. history began in 1963? "Think how extraordinary it is that the earliest 85 percent of life's history has until now remained a mystery," Schopf says. "What would it be like if more than four-fifths of America's past were unknown? Imagine if history professors said that 'a pre-1963 historical record ought to exist, but there are no facts to go on. No one knows what happened, or why the record's been wiped out.' And then imagine if researchers discovered conclusive evidence of the earliest 85 percent of U.S. history: a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Lincoln, a Civil War, electricity, telephones, radio, television, a Great Depression, World War I, World War II, the nuclear age. Astounding!" In "Cradle of Life," Schopf tells an "even more mind-boggling tale," scaled in millions and billions of years, dealing with "all of life, over all of time, over the entire globe"--a tale that reveals "where we have come from and who we are." The tracing of life's earliest history is an acrimonious story of false starts, embarrassing mistakes, and ultimately, dogged persistence and remarkable success. Schopf shows why it took so long for the hidden record to emerge. The early fossil record is richly complex and full of surprises. One such surprise: evolution itself evolved. "Everyone had expected early organisms would be smaller, simpler, perhaps less varied, but they were universally thought to have evolved in the same way and at the same pace as later life," Schopf writes. "This turned out not to be true. That evolution itself evolved is a new insight." The pivotal point in evolution's own evolution turned out to be the advent of sex about 1.1 billion years ago. The origin of sex caused monumental change. Sex increased variation within species, diversity among species, and the speed of evolution and genesis of new species--and brought not only the rise of organisms specially honed to particular settings, but because of this specialization, the first appearance of life-destroying mass extinctions. The first organisms to engage in sexual activity were single- cell, floating plankton. They started to appear about 1.1 billion years ago with a porelike mechanism that permits the release of sex cells into the environment. Before this time, organisms reproduced by asexual division, as do human body cells. Data from the fossil record clearly show that there appeared many new types of species at about 1.1 billion years ago, evidently when sexual activity first began. "The start of sexuality," Schopf says, "had an enormous effect on the world's biodiversity. The pre-sex world was monotonous, dull, more or less static, but every organism born from sexual reproduction contains a genetic mix that never existed before." Among the lessons Schopf draws is one that might surprise many high school students: "Science is enormous fun, and the greatest adventure ever devised. The past, present, even the future of life, Earth and all beyond are within its scope. There's hardly anything better than having a novel idea and finding that it makes sense." ---------------------------------------------------------------- NEW DATES SET FOR ASSEMBLY OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ESA release 28-99 25 June 1999 New dates were announced for the remaining 43 missions required to build the International Space Station, when the heads of the space agencies representing the project's five international partners met at the European Space Agency's headquarters in Paris on 18 June. The partners are the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe, represented by ESA. Two elements of the Station--the Russian-built Zarya module and the US's Unity module--are already in orbit. The third element, the Russian service module named Zvezda ("star" in Russian), will now be launched in November from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. It is currently undergoing testing at the Baikonur cosmodrome. "Zvezda" will serve as the crew living quarters over the next four years while the Station is being assembled. The module will be equipped with the first piece of European hardware on the Station, an ESA-developed onboard computer that will act as Zvezda's "brain". Zvezda will also carry the antenna for the European Global Time System, the first experiment on the Station. It will broadcast experimental chronometric signals whose proposed uses range from automatic adjustment of clocks and watches between time zones to remote immobilization of stolen vehicles. In total, Europe will deliver hardware for 20 of the 46 missions needed to fully assemble the Station. All elements are already under development and are expected to be ready according to the previous assembly schedule. The Columbus laboratory, Europe's main contribution to the Station, is now scheduled for launch on board the US Space Shuttle in February 2004, although the international partners are studying earlier launch dates. Work on the laboratory, however, is proceeding as planned, with the first system test well underway. Another key European system, the European Robotic Arm, built for the Russian Science and Power Platform, will be launched in November 2001. The 10-meter arm will be used to assemble the Russian segment of the Station. It is currently undergoing flight qualification. The first European, ESA astronaut Umberto Guidoni, is now scheduled to set foot on the Station in June 2000. His Space Shuttle crew will deliver up to 10 tons of equipment, experiments and supplies to the Station, transporting the material in a multipurpose logistics module developed by the Italian space agency ASI. In the meantime, ESA is making preparations for the scientific and technical utilization of the Station. It has selected the first experiments that will be attached to structures on the outside of the Station and exposed directly to space's unique environment. They range from a special infrared sensor to detect and monitor "hot spots" on the Earth, such as volcano eruptions and forest fires, to an atomic clock that will be 10 to 100 times more accurate than the most accurate clock on Earth, and even include experiments looking at life in outer space. The new assembly sequence can be viewed at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/assembly/flights/chron.html For further information on: ? Europe and the International Space Station, see http://www.estec.esa.int/spaceflight ? European Space Agency (ESA), see http://www.esa.int For further information, please contact: ESA Public Relations Division Tel: +33(0)1.53.69.7155 Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690 ---------------------------------------------------------------- LIFE ON THE EDGE UPDATE: SCIENCE@NASA SLED DOGS BRAVE SPRING STORMS AND WILY MARMOTS TO RECOVER MICROBES FROM CALIFORNIA'S WHITE MOUNTAINS By Tony Philips and John M. Horak From NASA Space Science News 29 June 1999 On May 26, 1999, astronomer Tony Phillips and his team of Siberian Huskies successfully mushed to the top of California's White Mountains to retrieve yeast and other microorganisms left there earlier this year as part of NASA/Marshall's Life on the Edge education initiative. The yeast packets are now on their way to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for testing and distribution to classrooms around the world. Life on the Edge is a program that aims to teach grade school students about one of the newest, exciting disciplines in modern science--astrobiology and the study of life in extreme environments. During the past 20 years, scientists have come to realize that life can exist in remarkable places such as scalding hot geothermal vents, Antarctic ice, and even inside a nuclear reactor! The discovery of "extremophiles," or microbes that thrive in extreme environments, here on Earth has convinced many scientists that simple forms of life might one day be found on other planets in our Solar System that were previously thought to be too hostile for life as we know it. Many of these exciting developments in astrobiology are relatively unknown in public schools. Life on the Edge is intended to remedy that. The basic idea of the program is to expose a variety of interesting, but benign microbes to real- life harsh environments on Earth, to retrieve the microbes after a suitable period of exposure, and finally to distribute them to grade school classrooms. Students can then perform original experiments on their microorganisms to evaluate how well they survived their "ordeal" and to explore which environmental factors were most important to the health (or demise) of the samples. "We want the students to be exposed to NASA research, and to think about issues related to life in extreme environments that might not otherwise come to light," says Dr. John Horack, who leads Science Communications at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center and is an Associate Director for the Science Directorate. "One example might be the role of water in supporting life. Liquid water is very important to life forms on Earth, but it isn't equally abundant on every other planet in the solar system--if it's even there at all." Microbes can remain viable in the absence of water (the Surveyor 3 microbes on the Moon are a good example) but do they mate, divide, and metabolize? Are they really and truly engaged in the business of "life?" What kinds of other environments can they survive? "These are the kinds of questions we want kids to think about and work through in their own minds," Horack noted. "And simple dried yeast is an excellent and very safe organism for these kids to work with and explore." The program began In January 1999 when 50 pounds of yeast were delivered to a summit in California's White Mountains. Conditions there present severe challenges for most forms of life, so it is a good place to test the responses of microbes to extreme environments. "Life on the Edge is just getting started," continued Horack. "This year we field-tested some of our ideas in the White Mountains. We had to answer questions like 'Does the yeast canister really establish thermal contact between the microbes and the ambient environment?' And 'Can we design a vessel that exposed the microbes to a fuller range of environmental factors [like wind, humidity, and competition with local life forms] without the yeast blowing away?'" "Our preliminary feedback from students has been exceptional, and I expect we'll continue to work in the Whites for years to come," he continued, "but we'd also like to expand Life on the Edge to include other places like the Alaskan tundra, Mono Lake, and even the South Galaxies in Pole." When the yeast packets were conveyed to the White Mountains in early 1999, it was bitterly cold and the snow line was near 9000 feet elevation. When Phillips and his team returned in late May, a warm La Nina-driven spring had raised the snow line all the way up to 12,000 feet. "Spring sledding can be really challenging," said Tony Phillips. "For one thing, it's warm. Up in the Whites that means the thermometer's hovering around freezing and it's only snowing a little bit. Huskies love to pull when the temperature is about 30 degrees below zero, so a 2000 or 3000 ft ascent in freezing (32°F) weather was hot work for them." "The only time they pulled with their usual energy was when they smelled a marmot. Yellow-bellied marmots are small (15 - 24 inches long) furry mammals that live in the mountains all over Central California. They usually hibernate from early fall until March, then they disappear again in June to sleep away the hottest summer months. Of course, there are no marmots at the 14,000-foot summit, but we saw dozens at lower elevations. To be absolutely truthful, I should say that the dogs saw them. I only knew when we passed one because the dogs would suddenly veer off the trail and send the sled catapulting over the big rocks that were beginning to emerge from the melting snow. On one occasion they left me behind, flat on my back. The only reason I caught the team was that they had cornered a marmot under a rock and were fighting over who got to go in after it. They never caught a single marmot but they nearly killed me." "Honestly, the best part of Life on the Edge is that it's so much fun," concluded Phillips. White Mountain yeast packets will be distributed to participating educators during the summer of 1999 in time for the 1999-2000 school year. [For more information on this article, see http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast29jun99_1.htm] ---------------------------------------------------------------- MANY LIFE-BEARING PLANETS COULD EXIST IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE, ACCORDING TO CALTECH PLANETARY SCIENCE PROFESSOR California Institute of Technology release 30 June 1999 Long ago in a solar system not at all far away, there could have existed about five to 10 Earth-like planets in Jupiter-crossing orbits. These planets today could harbor life somewhere in interstellar space, according to a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology. In the July 1 issue of the journal Nature, Caltech professor Dave Stevenson says in a new study that such objects could be life-sustaining due especially to the molecular hydrogen they accreted when the solar system formed long ago. Called "interstellar planets" because they would exist between the stars but no longer in orbit around an original parent star, they have never been directly observed or proved to even exist. But based on what scientists know about the way matter should fall together in forming a solar system, such Earth- like planets could definitely have been formed. Over a period of several million years, one of two things happened to these planets: either they slammed into Jupiter and made it even bigger, or else they came so close to Jupiter that they were catapulted by gravity completely out of the solar system, never to return. Because these bodies formed when the solar system was permeated with hydrogen gas, they retained a dense atmosphere of hydrogen, allowing them to have surfaces with temperatures not too different from Earth, and possibly water oceans. Stevenson writes that in the absence of sunlight, the natural radioactivity inside an Earth-like planet would only be sufficient to raise the radiating temperature of the body to 30 degrees above absolute zero (that's about minus 400 Fahrenheit). But the expected dense hydrogen atmosphere would prevent the surface from radiating effectively--just like the greenhouse effect on Earth, but more so. As a result, the surface could have a similar temperature to the current Earth surface, allowing water oceans and a surface pressure similar to that at the bottom of Earth's oceans. For this to happen, the interstellar planet would probably need to be at least half Earth's mass. Therefore, the energy source would be much the same as that which drives geothermal energy and plate tectonics on Earth. It is not known whether geothermal heat alone is sufficient to allow life to originate, and the amount of energy is small compared to sunlight, suggesting that the amount of biological activity would also be small. But the existence of life in such an environment would be of great interest even if the mass of living matter were small. The heat energy, and especially variations in temperature, could potentially allow life to get going, Stevenson says. "I'm not saying that these objects have life, but everyone agrees that life requires disequilibrium," he says. "So there has to be a way to get free energy, because that's what drives biochemical processes. "These objects could have weather, variations in clouds, oceans... even lightning." If life exists on such objects, an open question is how complex it could be, Stevenson says. "I don't think anyone knows what is required to drive biological evolution from simple to very complex systems." These interstellar wanderers could also have arisen as a natural outcome of the formation of stars, and not just during the formation of the system we live in. In either case, such planets cannot be seen with present technology because they are so dark and cold-at least from Earth's vantage point. Although these bodies may have warm surfaces, they would appear to us as very weak emitters of long-wavelength infrared radiation, much below current detection limits. The best bet for even demonstrating that interstellar planets exist is to have some programmed search for occultations, he says. In other words, the object might pass occasionally in the direct line of sight between Earth and a star, and if instruments were watching, the light of the star might dim or even flicker out for a time. Programs like this are already advocated for the purpose of looking for planets in orbit around other stars. But looking for interstellar planets would be even harder. "All I'm saying is that, among the places you might want to consider for sustainable life, you might eventually want to look at these objects. They could be the most common location for life in the universe." Related links ? Dr. David J. Stevenson-- http://www.gps.caltech.edu/faculty/stevenson/ ? The Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech-- http://www.gps.caltech.edu/ ? Nature--http://www.nature.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- A CLOSER ENCOUNTER WITH MARS JPL release 1 July 1999 Taking advantage of Mars's closest approach to Earth in eight years, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have taken the space-based observatory's sharpest views yet of the Red Planet. NASA is releasing these images to commemorate the second anniversary of the Mars Pathfinder landing. The lander and its rover, Sojourner, touched down on the Red Planet's rolling hills on July 4, 1997, embarking on an historic three- month mission to gather information on the planet's atmosphere, climate, and geology. The telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 snapped these images between April 27 and May 6, when Mars was 54 million miles (87 million kilometers) from Earth. From this distance the telescope could see martian features as small as 12 miles (19 kilometers) wide. The telescope obtained four images, which, together, show the entire planet. Each view depicts the planet as it completes one quarter of its daily rotation. In these views the north polar cap is tilted toward the Earth and is visible prominently at the top of each picture. The images were taken in the middle of the martian northern summer, when the polar cap had shrunk to its smallest size. During this season the Sun shines continuously on the polar cap. Previous telescopic and spacecraft observations have shown that this summertime "residual" polar cap is composed of water ice, just like Earth's polar caps. These Hubble telescope snapshots reveal that substantial changes in the bright and dark markings on Mars have occurred in the 20 years since the NASA Viking spacecraft missions first mapped the planet. The martian surface is dynamic and ever changing. Some regions that were dark 20 years ago are now bright red; some areas that were bright red are now dark. Winds move sand and dust from region to region, often in spectacular dust storms. Over long timescales many of the larger bright and dark markings remain stable, but smaller details come and go as they are covered and then uncovered by sand and dust. The upper-left image is centered near the location of the Pathfinder landing site. Dark sand dunes that surround the polar cap merge into a large, dark region called Acidalia. This area, as shown by images from the Hubble telescope and other spacecraft, is composed of dark, sand-sized grains of pulverized volcanic rock. Below and to the left of Acidalia are the massive martian canyon systems of Valles Marineris, some of which form long linear markings that were once thought by some to be canals. Early morning clouds can be seen along the left limb of the planet, and a large cyclonic storm composed of water ice is churning near the polar cap. The upper-right image is centered on the region of the planet known as Tharsis, home of the largest volcanoes in the solar system. The bright, ring-like feature just to the left of center is the volcano Olympus Mons, which is more than 340 miles (550 kilometers) across and 17 miles (27 kilometers) high. Thick deposits of fine-grained, windblown dust cover most of this hemisphere. The colors indicate that the dust is heavily oxidized ("rusted"), and millions (or perhaps billions) of years of dust storms have homogenized its composition. Prominent late afternoon clouds along the right limb of the planet can be seen. The lower-left image is centered near another volcanic region known as Elysium. This area shows many small, dark markings that have been observed by the Hubble telescope and other spacecraft to change as a result of the movement of sand and dust across the martian surface. In the upper left of this image, at high northern latitudes, a large chevron-shaped area of water ice clouds mark a storm front. Along the right limb, a large cloud system has formed around the Olympus Mons volcano. The lower-right image is centered on the dark feature known as Syrtis Major, first seen telescopically by the astronomer Christiaan Huygens in the 17th century. Many small, dark, circular impact craters can be seen in this region, attesting to the Hubble telescope's ability to reveal fine detail on the planet's surface. To the south of Syrtis is a large circular feature called Hellas. Viking and more recently Mars Global Surveyor have revealed that Hellas is a large and deep impact crater. These Hubble telescope pictures show it to be filled with surface frost and water ice clouds. Along the right limb, late afternoon clouds have formed around the volcano Elysium. Shown here are color composites generated from data using three filters: blue (410 nanometers), green (502 nanometers), and red (673 nanometers). A total of 12 color filters, spanning ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths, were used in the observation. Photo credits: Steve Lee (University of Colorado), Jim Bell (Cornell University), Mike Wolff (Space Science Institute), and NASA. Other researchers involved in the collection and analysis of these Hubble telescope data are R. Todd Clancy (Space Science Institute), Philip James (University of Toledo), and Michael Ravine (Malin Space Science Systems, Inc.). The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. for NASA, under contract with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Image files are available on the Internet at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/27 or via links in http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html and http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html Higher resolution digital versions (300 dpi JPEG and TIFF) of the release photo are available at http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/27/pr-photos.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- SCIENTISTS DISCOVER THAT MOST OF THE ASTEROID THAT FORMED METEOR CRATER WAS SHOCK MELTED University of Arizona News Services release 1 July 1999 Most of the asteroid that blasted Meteor Crater out of the Colorado Plateau melted, according to new evidence released today by an international team of scientists. This new finding contradicts a previously held theory that the Canyon Diablo meteor vaporized and gives a glimpse of what happens when similar-sized meteors slam into Earth every 6,000 years or so. Meteor Crater, near Winslow, Ariz., the best-preserved impact crater in the world, was formed 50,000 years ago--just yesterday on the geological time scale. Although modest by geological standards--the equivalent of a 20-to-40 megaton bomb--it grabs our attention because of its close proximity to our own time and for the story it tells about what could happen again. The bowl- shaped depression measures 1.2 kilometers (four-fifths of a mile) wide and 180 meters (570 feet) deep and scientists say events like this occur every 1,600 years, with a Canyon-Diablo- sized meteor slamming into a land mass every 6,000 years. In research published today (July 2) in Science, scientists conclude that more than four-fifths of the Earth-crossing asteroid completely melted and spread over the Four Corners Region where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah meet. Most of the iron asteroid, which was 30 meters (100 feet) or more in diameter, spread as an enormous expansion plume produced by gases released from Colorado Plateau limestone. A fraction of the melted material survived to form sand-grain-sized particles called "spheroids." By using complex measurements of radioactive nickel 59 and computer modeling, the researchers determined the probable depth within the asteroid at which these spheroids were formed. Their experimental measurements and modeling results indicate that Canyon Diablo was travelling faster on impact that previously believed. The scientists include faculty members from Rutgers University, The University of Arizona in Tucson, Australian National University, University of Rhode Island and University of California-Berkeley. Keith Fifield of the Australian National University, led the team in systematically measuring long-lived radioisotope nickel 59 in Canyon Diablo meteorites and spheroids. Nickel 59 is a "cosmogenic nuclide" produced in space when cosmic rays penetrate objects containing nickel 58. Nickel 58 changes to nickel 59 by absorbing an extra neutron from cosmic radiation. Fifield used accelerator mass spectrometry to make the measurements. Canyon Diablo meteorites contain seven times more nickel 59 than do recovered spheroids, meaning they had come from the surface or outer shell of the asteroid, where exposure to cosmic radiation is greatest, said Greg Herzog of Rutgers University. Scientists find nickel 59 to be a far more useful cosmogenic nuclide for such analysis than some more commonly used ones. That's because of the mechanism by which it forms, its long half-life (76,000 years), its low volatility and its resistance to weathering, team members add. Elisabetta Pierazzo, a post-doctoral researcher at the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, used numerical models to simulate the impact. The simulation, based on models developed at Sandia National Laboratories, factored in the size and composition of Canyon Diablo and its target. Pierazzo determined which parts of the Earth-smashing asteroid remained solid and which melted and became spheroids. This was done by using experimentally measured shock pressure values for melting iron/nickel alloys. The composition of these alloys is close to that of meteorites. The team concludes that the precursor material of the spheroids probably came from depths of 1.3 to 1.6 meters (four to five feet) beneath the surface of the meteor before it entered Earth's atmosphere. Pierazzo says that only about 15 percent of the rear, outer part of the asteroid remained solid after impact and that the other 85 percent of the projectile melted. She bases this conclusion on combined observational, experimental and theoretical evidence. Impact velocities by Earth-crossing asteroids average around 15 to 20 kilometers per second. The 20 km/s velocity--or 45,000 mph--would produce a melting profile that agrees with the experimental measurements, she said. At lower velocities, a much larger fraction of the projectile would have remained solid, leaving behind far more meteorites. "The model really makes sense when you match it with the hard evidence," Pierazzo said. "The modeling confirms the experimental results that say the Canyon Diablo meteorites came from the outer part of the projectile, and the spheroids from a depth of 1.5 to 2 meters below the surface. "I feel confident that this impact was at higher velocity than many people have believed it to be," she added. "This work gives no evidence for vaporization. From what we know about shock pressure, melting and vaporization of iron, the model indicates little or no vaporization of the impact." Related links http://www.lpl.arizona.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------- CU-BOULDER TO SEND EXPERIMENTS RANGING FROM LADYBUGS TO WATER QUALITY ON NASA SHUTTLE University of Colorado release 13 July 1999 The University of Colorado at Boulder-based BioServe Space Technologies Center will be flying experiments ranging from ladybugs and butterflies to biomedicine and water purification on a space shuttle slated for launch July 20. Scheduled for launch from Cape Kennedy, Fla., the five-day flight of NASA's space shuttle Columbia may be the last of BioServe's 13 microgravity space shuttle missions prior to the center's first International Space Station mission in July 2000. Founded by NASA in 1987, BioServe is a joint venture of CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering department, Kansas State University and industry sponsors. BioServe will fly three bioprocessing payloads on Columbia, which provide thermally controlled environments and automated processing of biological samples in space. One payload will carry experiments for BioServe's industrial sponsors and another involves a National Institutes of Health experiment, said David Klaus, BioServe's mission manager for the space shuttle launch. A third payload involving K-12 student outreach is being flown for the first time under NASA's new Space Technology And Research for Students, or STARS program, said Klaus. "One of the most intriguing STARS experiments was developed by the all-girl Javiera High School in Santiago, Chile," said BioServe Associate Director Louis Stodieck, principal investigator on the STARS program. Since space station astronauts will grow plants for food, the Chilean students proposed a test involving the behavior of ladybugs and their primary prey, aphids, in low gravity. The objective will be to document the movements of ladybugs, which hunt upward on wheat stalks, and aphids, which jump down to escape. High-powered cameras will download images and post them on the Web for use by other students at http://eol5a.erim- int.com/CMAT/RE_ladybugs/FlightData/DataIndex.html. Similar ground experiments will be conducted simultaneously at Baseline Middle School in Boulder as well as middle schools and high schools in Michigan, Texas, Florida, Ohio and Santiago. Another STARS program experiment involves students observing the effects of cocoon development and wing formation in the painted lady butterfly, said Stodieck. Both outreach projects will include developing curriculum teaching aids on the Internet to stimulate math and science interest in K-12 students. BioServe also will fly an experiment for Water Technologies Corporation of Minneapolis in hopes of developing a new generation of water purification resins that can be used to produce improved agents for use in air and water purifiers. Another industry experiment being flown for Allied Signal Aerospace of Torrance, CA, was designed to improve methods for the biological remediation of wastewater. "Both of these experiments are based on the premise that bacteria growth is more difficult to control in zero gravity," said Klaus. "The tests have implications ranging from new wastewater treatments and remediation of biologically hazardous sites to providing safer water for backpackers," said Klaus. "The key is successfully manipulating the bacteria in the space testbed under very trying conditions." BioServe also will fly a new device for NIH, NASA Ames and Yale University to determine the effects of spaceflight on the development of the nervous and muscular systems in fruit fly larvae. Another experiment sponsored by LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals of Bozeman, MT, will test how reduced gravity and varying red blood cell densities affect the adhesion of white blood cells to infection sites. The results could help improve techniques used to evaluate the effectiveness of pharmaceutical compounds on diseases like stress-induced immune system deficiencies and E. coli poisoning, said Klaus. Additionally, BioServe will fly a protein crystal experiment sponsored by BioSpace International of College Park, MD, in hopes of improving drug design based on higher resolutions of three-dimensional molecular structures. ---------------------------------------------------------------- POSSIBLE PLAYER IN ORIGINS OF LIFE? UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII RESEARCHER FINDS A NEW FORM OF PURE CARBON IN A MEXICAN METEORITE University of Hawaii release 14 July 1999 A University of Hawaii researcher and her colleagues from the NASA Space Science Division have confirmed that a new form of carbon previously made in the laboratory also exists in nature. The finding indicates that the pure carbon molecules known as fullerenes could have been a factor in the early history of Earth and might even have played a role in the origin of life. University of Hawaii at Manoa organic geochemist Luann Becker and NASA colleagues Theodore E. Bunch and Louis J. Allamandola discovered the presence of fullerene carbon molecules in the 4.6-billion-year-old Allende meteorite, which has been of interest to scientists since it landed in Mexico three decades ago. The scientists' report will appear in the July 15 issue of the British journal Nature. Becker shared their findings with fellow scientists during the triennial meeting of the International Society on the Origins of Life this week in San Diego, CA. "It's not every day that you discover a new carbon molecule in nature; that's what makes this interesting," Becker says. "If it played a role in how the earth evolved, that would be important." Fullerenes are soccer-ball shaped molecules (hence their name, which honors geodesic-dome designer Buckminster Fuller) of 60 or more carbon atoms. Their discovery in 1985 as only the third form of pure carbon (along with diamonds and graphite) earned U.S. scientists Robert F. Curl Jr. and Richard E. Smalley and British researcher Harold Kroto the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The trio accidentally synthesized these three- dimensional forms of carbon molecules in the laboratory while trying to simulate the high-temperature, high-pressure conditions in which stars form. Scientists hypothesized that fullerenes also exist naturally in the universe. Becker, who earlier discovered the presence of fullerenes in deposits at the site of the Sudbury impact crater in Ontario, Canada, and her colleagues were able to document naturally occurring fullerenes by exploiting a unique property characteristic of organic molecules. Unlike their pure-carbon cousins, which maintain a solid state, fullerenes can be extracted in an organic solvent. Becker crushed a piece of the Allende meteorite, demineralized the sample with acids, and used the organic solvent to extract fullerenes from the residue. The scientists found not only the C60 and C70 molecules believed to be most prevalent, but also significant quantities of C100 to C400 molecules. This is the first discovery of higher fullerenes in a natural sample. Because the multiple atoms in the molecule form a hollow, closed cage that can trap gasses inside, they may have delivered from their stellar birthplace both the carbon that is an essential element to life and the volatiles that contributed to the planetary atmospheres needed for the origin of life. At the very least, the molecules and their contents will tell scientists more about the early solar nebula or presolar dust existing when meteorites like Allende were formed. The research is supported by a grant from the NASA Cosmochemistry Program. ---------------------------------------------------------------- MARS SURVEYOR 98 MISSION STATUS REPORTS JPL releases 17 June 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) In-flight checkout of the "all-stellar" attitude determination and control system is now complete! The all-stellar attitude determination software was successfully exercised last Friday (June 11) onboard the spacecraft, with the full flight team monitoring the vehicle's performance on the ground. On Wednesday, June 16, the final step in the checkout process was conducted, in which the orbiter's autopilot was allowed to control the spacecraft using outputs from the all-stellar system. The autopilot's performance equalled or exceeded expectations in all respects. Mars Polar Lander (MPL) Last week the flight team successfully completed the "end-to- end" test of the early surface mission through the second martian day following landing (dubbed "Sol 1") using both the MPL and MCO simulators. The team is now preparing a simulator test of the Entry/Descent/Landing (EDL) master sequence early next week; the master sequence performs all of the tasks needed to configure the spacecraft for entry, finishing with the commands which activite the onboard guidance system that controls the spacecraft from several minutes prior to entry through touchdown. 24 June 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) Yesterday the MCO spacecraft was successfully commanded into "All-Stellar" mode following the completion of the in-flight checkout and demonstration events during the previous two weeks. After verification that the spacecraft's autopilot was performing properly, the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), housing the orbiter's ring-laser gyroscope assembly, was powered off in order to preserve the unit's operating life for future use during aerobraking and mapping. With this event all of the engineering objectives for the cruise phase of the mission are complete. MCO is now 90 days from Mars Orbit Insertion. Mars Polar Lander (MPL) The master command sequence for controlling the MPL spacecraft during the critical Entry/Descent/Landing (EDL) phase was tested in the MPL simulator facility on June 21 & 22. This sequence was developed during the past three weeks from the test sequence used to check out the spacecraft prior to launch, and now includes all of the features (beyond its predecessor's use for system testing) needed for flight use. This was a significant test that was largely successful, although there were some minor problems identified that are being corrected. The flight team is now busy preparing for its first EDL operational readiness test, to be conducted on June 28-30, which will make use of the updated master sequence to practice all of the activities leading up to landing. 29 June 1999 Late last week, flight controllers for NASA's Mars Climate Orbiter commanded the spacecraft to begin flying in an "all- stellar" mode. This configuration means that the spacecraft's auto-pilot is operating by only using star sightings from its star camera, allowing its gyroscopes to be turned off so that their operating life can be preserved for future uses. With this transition to "all-stellar" mode, all of the engineering objectives for the phase of the mission during cruise from Earth to Mars are complete. Mars Climate Orbiter is now 90 days from Mars arrival on September 23. Today, the spacecraft is 95.6 million kilometers (59.4 million miles) from Earth and 24.6 million kilometers (15.3 million miles) from Mars, approaching the planet at a speed of 13,933 kilometers per hour (8,658 miles per hour). Meanwhile the other Mars '98 spacecraft, Mars Polar Lander, is undergoing preparation for its landing December 3. The master sequence of computer commands that will control the spacecraft during its critical entry, descent and landing was tested last week in a simulator facility at Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO. The test was largely successful and identified a few minor issues that are being worked this week. The flight team is now conducting its first operational readiness test for entry, descent and landing. In this readiness test, the team uses the updated sequence of computer commands to practice all activities leading up to landing. The Mars Polar Lander team will spend the summer poring over the latest images of the south pole taken by the currently orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft in order to fine-tune the landing site selection. Final selection of Mars Polar Lander's landing site will take place later this summer. The lander is now is 74.3 million kilometers (46.2 million miles) from Earth and 48.6 million kilometers (30.2 million miles) away from Mars, traveling at a speed of 5,384 kilometers per hour (3,346 miles per hour). 1 July 1999 Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) The MCO spacecraft experienced a quiet week of cruise operation, as the bulk of the flight team was involved in the first MPL Operational Readiness Test. The all-stellar attitude determination and control system continues to perform well since its activation last week. Mars Polar Lander (MPL) Yesterday, the flight team successfully executed its first Operational Readiness Test (ORT) for the critical Entry/Descent/Landing (EDL) phase. The MPL simulator executed the proto-flight EDL master sequence over a 29 hour run spanning Tuesday (June 29) and Wednesday (June 30), reaching a soft landing at approximately 14:35 PDT, with the flight team following the simulator's progress as it approached Mars and sending planned commands to the simulator at the appropriate times. The exercise concluded with the initial post-landed tracking pass and spacecraft checkout, which completed successfully 45 minutes after the simulated landing. Next week the team begins preparations for its second ORT, which will cover MPL, MCO, DS2 microprobes, and Mars Global Surveyor activities during the first few days of the lander's surface mission. 14 July 1999 During the past week the Mars Surveyor '98 team lost a valiant colleague and friend, Mr. Paul Sutton, formerly the Mars Polar Lander Spacecraft Manager. After nearly a four year battle with cancer, lasting all the way through the development and launch of both Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander, Paul passed away last Friday (July 9) at his home in San Gabriel, California. He was intimately involved in the development of Mars Surveyor '98 from its beginnings as a pre-project study effort in January 1994, devoting most of his life to the mission over the last five years. His leadership, engineering skill and discipline, and perhaps most of all his strong drive and determination were instrumental in the success of Mars Surveyor '98 to date. Paul exemplified in many ways the best qualities of the Mars Surveyor '98 team, and we shall miss him very much. Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) The MCO spacecraft continues to perform well, under the control of its 8th housekeeping command sequence, designated cc009. Back on Earth, the MCO simulator has been running continuously since early morning on Monday, July 12 as part of the Mars Polar Lander early surface phase operational readiness test running this week. The MCO and MPL simulators together have conducted eight relay contact sessions between the UHF radio systems situated in each simulator. With the exception of some early problems due to timing synchronization between the two simulators, the relay link is working exceptionally well. Mars Polar Lander (MPL) This week the flight team is attempting its most ambitious and complex system test and training exercise since Mars Polar Lander was launched six months ago. Thus far the MPL simulator has executed all commands and functions beginning three hours prior to atmospheric entry through the evening of the lander's third day on Mars (called Sol-2), including all science instrument activities and UHF radio contacts with the MCO simulator. The lander payload team has been working two shifts for both monitoring of the ongoing simulation run and practicing the development of new instrument command sequences, in conjunction with other elements of the flight team. While numerous minor problems have been identified with both the spacecraft sequences and team procedures, this test is proving to be highly successful in preparing the team for its second and final phase of test and training, beginning in October of this year. On Thursday, July 8, the lander payload team hosted another MPL Landing Site evaluation workshop at its UCLA facility. Six candidate sites have been identified within the martian south polar region for further detailed evaluation, prior to the MPL Site Certification Review, scheduled for August 4. For more information on the Mars Surveyor 98 mission, please visit our web site at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/. ---------------------------------------------------------------- MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORTS JPL releases 15 July 1999 Last Orbit Covered by this Report = 1575 Total Orbits = 3257 Total Mapping Orbits = 1575 Recent events The mm005 sequence continues execution in performing the mapping sequence data collection and return. The mz0011 mini-sequence to perform the TES Solar Array tracking test successfully executed July 7. The TES team reported that the noise in their data decreased significantly when the SA stopped auto-tracking and decreased even further during the period of several minutes when the HGA was additionally commanded to stop auto-tracking. Based on the results from this test, the TES team is requesting that we stop SA auto-tracking and go to a full time implementation of the test sequence, where the solar arrays are commanded to fixed positions at three different points in the orbit. A 0.24°/sec SA rate would be utilized for the commanded "catch up" periods. The other instruments believe that they should be minimally impacted by the changes. This solar array motion strategy would work through July 2000, when power collection requirements would force us to return to SA auto-tracking. The TES team will submit a formal change request Tuesday July 20. The mz009 mini-sequence executed July 14 to perform an MR checkout in preparation for support of the DS2 microprobes in December. The MR powered on successfully, and then appeared to cycle through several relay modes before powering off on schedule two orbits later. A debrief is scheduled for 7/16 to verify the proper interface between the MR and MOC in transferring MR housekeeping packets. Additionally Stanford will report whether they were able to hear the UHF signal during the test. Work continues on the MOLA North/South Pole off-nadir observation sequence scheduled to execute July 28 and 29. HGA anomaly The HGA gimbal is currently operational with full redundancy on side-A. The fault protection threshold for HGA stuck gimbal is at 25 seconds (50 counts). Spacecraft health All subsystems continue to report nominal status. Uplinks There have been 9 uplinks to the spacecraft during the last week, including new star catalog and ephemeris files, and instrument command loads. Total command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch is 3790. Upcoming events 1) MOLA North and South Pole off-nadir observations on July 28 and 29. 2) Kickoff meeting for mm006 sequence development on July 20. The mm005 sequence executes through July 28. 24 June 1999 Last Orbit Covered by this Report = 1318 Total Orbits = 3000 Total Mapping Orbits = 1318 Recent events The mm004 sequence is still active and will control nominal mapping operations through June 30. The mm005 sequence is currently in development and will execute from July 1 through July 28. The project approved a request by the MOLA team to perform off- nadir observations of the South Pole as the primary objective and the North Pole as a secondary objective, during the last week in July, in order to fill in coverage gaps. This was previously performed for the North Pole region during the period of Science Phasing Orbit observations during the aerobraking hiatus during the summer of 1998. The project also approved a request to checkout the Mars Relay (MR) to verify functionality and return of MR house keeping telemetry via the MOC. The MR will be used to relay the data from the DS2 Mars microprobes. The checkout will occur the week of July 12. HGA anomaly The HGA gimbal is currently operational with full redundancy on side-A. The fault protection threshold for HGA stuck gimbal is at 25 seconds (50 counts). Spacecraft health All subsystems are reporting nominal status. Uplinks There have been 12 uplinks to the spacecraft during the last week, including new star catalog and ephemeris files, and instrument command loads. Total command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch is 3749. Upcoming events 1) MR checkout during week of July 12. 2) MOLA South Pole off-nadir observations during last week in July. ---------------------------------------------------------------- NEW MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES By Ron Baalke 17 & 25 June 1999 1 & 8 July 1999 The following new images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available: ? From Mars, With Love (Heart-Shaped Graben) ? Cracks in Utopia ? MOC Providing Clues For Future Landing Site Selection ? Ganges Chasma in 3-D ? martian Mystery: Do Some Materials Flow Uphill? ? Large martian Dust Devils Caught in the Act ? New Cydonia Pictures The images reside on the Mars Global Surveyor web site at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/index.html The image captions are appended below. 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. From Mars, With Love MGS MOC Release #MOC2-135, 17 June 1999 First, Mars seemed to be greeting Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) with a Happy Face. Now, it seems as if the planet is sending its love with the latest picture (above, left) from MGS's Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC). This valentine from Mars (above, left) is actually a pit formed by collapse within a straight-walled trough known in geological terms as a graben. Graben are formed along fault lines by expansion of the bedrock terrain (see "Chain of Pits on Pavonis Mons" for more information). The graben in which the pit formed can be seen in the full MOC image, depicted on the right (above). The heart-shaped pit is about 2.3 kilometers (1.4 miles) at its widest. The image was targeted by the MOC team in order to examine the relationship between a lava flow (margins indicated by white arrows, above right) and the graben and pits that disrupted and cut across the flow. The graben, pit, and lava flow are located on the east flank of the Alba Patera volcano in northern Tharsis. The MOC images are illuminated from the left. Cracks in Utopia MGS MOC Release #MOC2-136, 17 June 1999 Many of the craters found on the northern plains of Mars have been partly filled or buried by some material (possibly sediment). The Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image presented here (MOC2-136b, above right) shows a high-resolution view of a tiny portion of the floor of one of these northern plains craters. The crater, located in Utopia Planitia at 44°N, 258°W, is shown on the left (MOC2-136a) with a small white box to indicate the location of the MOC image. The MOC image reveals that the material covering the floor of this crater is cracked and pitted. The origin and source of material that has been deposited in this crater is unknown. The MOC image was acquired in June 1999 and covers an area only 1.1 kilometers (0.7 miles) wide at a resolution of 1.8 meters (6 feet) per pixel. The context picture is a mosaic of Viking 2 orbiter images 010B53 and 010B55, taken in 1976. Both images are illuminated from the left. MOC Providing Clues For Future Landing Site Selection MGS MOC Release #MOC2-137 and MOC2-138, 25 June 1999 One of the original objectives of the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) when it was proposed to NASA in 1985 was to take pictures that would be used to assess future spacecraft landing sites. Images obtained by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) MOC since March 1999 provide the highest resolution views (1.5 to 4.5 meters (5-15 ft) per pixel) of the planet ever seen. Over the past several months, MOC science personnel have been examining these new data to develop a general view of what Mars is like at the meter- scale within the general latitude and elevation range that will be accessible to the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander. (i.e., about 5°N to 15°S latitude and lower than 2.5 km (1.6 mi) elevation). Because MOC images only cover a tiny fraction of one percent of the surface of Mars, we have been seeking general correlations that exist between what is seen in a MOC high-resolution image and what can be seen in the lower-resolution Viking and Mariner 9 images taken in 1972 and 1976-1980. The most important results thus far are illustrated in the four pictures above. Nearly 70% of the terrain examined follows two very simple, but unexpected "rules"--(1) If the terrain appears rugged at the hundreds of meters to kilometers scale in a Viking or Mariner image, then it will appear smooth at the meter-scale in a MOC image. (2) If the terrain appears to be smooth in the Viking or Mariner image, it will be rough in the meter-scale MOC image. The first pair of pictures above illustrates the first "rule." MOC2-137a (top, left) shows a rugged plain in the martian southern cratered highlands near the Nepenthes Mensae. The small white box indicates the location of the MOC image, which is on the top right (MOC2-137b). The MOC image reveals that while the terrain is rough at the large scale, it is quite smooth at the meter-scale. The second pair of images illustrates the second "rule." Areas that appear to be smooth in the Viking and Mariner images--as in MOC2-138a (bottom, left)--tend to look quite rough at the meter scale in MOC images like MOC2-138b (bottom, right). The rough texture in this particular case was probably cause by wind erosion. Both Viking images shown here are illuminated from the upper right, while the MOC images are illuminated from the upper left. The MOC images were taken in April 1999, while the Viking images were obtained in the late 1970s. More details about this work are provided in an extended abstract (in Acrobat(r) PDF format) by M. C. Malin, K. S. Edgett, and T. J. Parker, "Characterization of terrain in the Mars Surveyor 2001 landing site latitude and elevation region using Mapping Phase Mars Global Surveyor MOC images," presented at the Second Mars Surveyor Landing Site Workshop, held June 22-23, 1999, in Buffalo, New York. Ganges Chasma in 3-D MGS MOC Release #MOC2-139, 25 June 1999 Ganges Chasma is part of the Valles Marineris trough system that stretches nearly 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) across the western equatorial region of Mars. The stereo anaglyph shown here is a composite of two wide-angle MOC images taken during Mars Global Surveyor's Geodesy Campaign in May-June 1999. The stereoscopic effect can be seen by viewing the image through red-blue "3-D" glasses. In this map-projected view, north is up and the sun's illumination is from the left. The center of Ganges Chasma sports a wedding cake-like stack of bright, layered rock. It has been known since the Mariner 9 mission that this bright material is piled nearly as high as the outside rims of the chasm. A smaller outcropping of bright rock is visible toward the lower right. No one yet knows what these layered materials are made of, but speculations over the years have included lake sediments, volcanic ash, and windblown dust. Others have suggested that the bright material is similar to the rock that makes up the walls of the chasm, but that these have been eroded differently or by somewhat different processes. The smooth floor of Ganges Chasma, particularly in the area south and west of the bright stack of layered material, is a thick, relatively flat sheet of dark, windblown sand. The jumbled troughs and depressions that run from the north side of Ganges Chasma toward the upper right corner of the image were caused by the removal of material beneath the surface, followed by collapse. In other words, these features suggest the presence of a large, partially collapsed cavern beneath the surface north of Ganges Chasma. These features might connect further northward with the Shalbatana Vallis outflow channel, but no one knows for sure. The picture covers an area that is 350 km (217 mi) wide. Ganges Chasma is approximately 3 to 5 kilometers (2-3 miles) deep. martian Mystery: Do Some Materials Flow Uphill? MGS MOC Release #MOC2-140, 1 July 1999 Some of the geological features of Mars defy conventional, or simple, explanations. A recent example is on the wall of a 72 kilometer-wide (45 mile-wide) impact crater in Promethei Terra. The crater (above left) is located at 39°S, 247°W. Its inner walls appear in low-resolution images to be deeply gullied. A high resolution Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows that each gully on the crater's inner wall contains a tongue of material that appears to have flowed (to best see this, click on the icon--above right--and examine the full image). Ridges and grooves that converge toward the center of each gully and show a pronounced curvature are oriented in a manner that seems to suggest that material has flowed from the top toward the bottom of the picture. This pattern is not unlike pouring pancake batter into a pan... the viscous fluid will form a steep, lobate margin and spread outward across the pan. The ridges and grooves seen in the image are also more reminiscent of the movement of material out and away from a place of confinement, as opposed to the types of features seen when they flow into a more confined area. Mud- and lava-flows, and even some glaciers, for the most part behave in this manner. From these observations, and based solely on the appearance, one might conclude that the features formed by moving from the top of the image towards the bottom. But this is not the case! The material cannot have flowed from the top towards the bottom of the area seen in the high- resolution image (above, right), because the crater floor (which is the lowest area in the image) is at the top of the picture. The location and correct orientation of the high-resolution image is shown by a white box in the context frame on the left. Since gravity pulls the material in the gullies downhill--not uphill--the pattern of ridges and grooves found on these gully- filling materials is puzzling. An explanation may lie in the nature of the material (e.g., how viscous was the pancake batter-like material?) and how rapidly it moved, but for now this remains an unexplained martian phenomenon. The context image (above, left) was taken by the MOC red wide angle camera at the same time that the MOC narrow angle camera obtained the high resolution view (above, right). Context images such as this provide a simple way to determine the location of each new high-resolution view of the planet. Both images are illuminated from the upper left. The high-resolution image covers an area 3 km (1.9 mi) across. Large martian Dust Devils Caught in the Act MGS MOC Release #MOC2-141, 1 July 1999 MOC2-141c Malin Space Science Systems/NASA What is 8 kilometers (5 miles) high, forms in the mid-afternoon, and cannot be found the next day? A martian dust devil! The arrow in the left image (MOC2-141a, above) points to the tallest (8 km, 5 mi) of several dust devils spied by the Mars Global Surveyor MOC Wide Angle camera during its global geodesy campaign in May. The above two pictures (MOC2-141a and MOC2-141b, top row) are centered near 36°N, 159°W in northern Amazonis Planitia. Each image covers an area 88 kilometers (55 miles) across, and each shows similar features on the ground, such as the two partially- buried craters at the center left. Each image also shows features that are not found in the other image. These are dust devils. Each scene is illuminated by sunlight from the lower left-- thus each towering dust devil casts a long, dark shadow that points toward the right/upper right. The "movie" (lower row, MOC2-141c) shows a comparison of the two images. When viewing the "movie," note that permanent features such as the two partly buried craters do not move, but the dust devils in one image do not appear in the other. Different dust devils are seen in each of the two images. Other variations in apparent surface brightness are also seen when the two images are compared--these are thought to be places where smaller, ground-hugging dust plumes are also being "kicked-up" by the wind. The pictures were taken 2 days apart--the first on May 13, 1999, the second on May 15, 1999. Large dust devils were known to occur in this region because they were seen in Viking images 20 years ago, but the new and repeated coverage by MOC gives more information about the dust devil's shape and occurrence. Dust devils are columnar vortices of wind that move across the landscape, pick up dust, and look somewhat like miniature tornadoes. For more information on dust devils, see MOC image release MOC2-60 from July 1998, "SUV Tracks on Mars? The Devil is in the Details." New Cydonia Picture MGS MOC Release #MOC2-142, 8 July 1999 The Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) onboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) orbiter, was designed specifically to bridge the gap between what can be seen from orbit in typical Mariner 9 and Viking orbiter images, and what can be seen from the ground by landers such as Viking 1 and Mars Pathfinder. The camera, therefore, takes pictures of extremely high resolution. These images are often comparable to aerial photographs used by geologists when they are exploring Earth. The highest resolution images that can be obtained are in the range of 1.4 to 2.0 meters (4.6 to 6.5 feet) per pixel. Last year, several pictures of a portion of the Cydonia region of Mars were photographed at lower resolution than is now possible in the Mapping Phase of the MGS mission. The Cydonia region is perhaps most "famous" for being the location of a feature that--in Viking Orbiter images--seemed to resemble a human face. Nearby buttes and hills were considered by some to represent a "city". The MGS spacecraft flew over the "famous" Cydonia landforms again--for the first time since April 1998--on June 27, 1999, at 10:53 UTC (Greenwich Time Zone). The new MOC images shown here provide the highest resolution view yet obtained of the "Cydonia city" landforms. The picture at the above left (MOC2-142a) shows the regional context. Cydonia constitutes a transition zone between the cratered highlands of Arabia Terra, and the less-cratered lowlands of Acidalia Planitia. This transition zone contains thousands of mesas and buttes--somewhat like the Monument Valley region along the Arizona/Utah border in North America. The white box shows the location of the new high-resolution view of the "city" landforms. The image is a red wide-angle context frame obtained by MOC at the same time that the high resolution view was acquired. The picture is illuminated from the lower left, and north is toward the upper right. The picture in the center is a processed version of the new MOC narrow angle camera image of this portion of Cydonia. You can view either the full-size image (MOC2-142b 100% Size) or a half- size image (MOC2-142b 50% size). We suggest that you first view the half-size image, because the full image will not load on a typical web browser (you will need to "Save this link as..." and then view it with your favorite image viewing/processing software). Like the context image (above left), the high-resolution view (center) is illuminated from the lower left. North is toward the upper right. Boulders can be seen on some of the hillslopes, and the plains between the hills are rough and pitted. To conserve data in order to account for downtrack position uncertainties, only 1/2 of the MOC sensor was used to acquire this picture (allowing the image to be twice the length): it covers an area that is 1.5 km (0.9 mi) wide. The picture at the above right is the unprocessed MOC image. This is what the processed image (center) looked like before it was rotated 180° (so that north is toward the top) and corrected for a 1.5 aspect ratio. The pixel size in the unprocessed image is different in the cross-track (left-right) and down-track (top-bottom) directions, thus making the craters look "squished". The cross-track scale is about 1.5 meters (5 feet) per pixel, while the down-track scale is about 2.25 meters (7.4 feet) per pixel. In the unprocessed image, the illumination is coming from the upper right. You can view this image at full- size (use "Save this link as..." and examine MOC2-142c 100% Size) or see it via your web-browser at half-size (MOC2-142c 50% Size). ---------------------------------------------------------------- End Marsbugs Vol. 6, No. 19