MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 7, Number 22, 12 June 2000. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, Biology and Chemistry Division, Lyon College, Batesville, AR 72503-2317, USA. 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 from the official Marsbugs web page at http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/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 from 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) ASTEROID TRACKERS PLAN TO AVERT ARMAGADDEON By Robin McKie 2) NEW THEORY ON THE MYSTERY OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE PROPOSED BY WEIZMANN INSTITUTE SCIENTISTS Weizmann Institute release 3) TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS USE MATH AND SCIENCE SKILLS TO DESIGN MARS MISSION NASA JSC release J00-35 4) ASTRONAUT PHOTOGRAPHS FROM SPACE SHED LIGHT ON CHANGES ON EARTH NASA JSC release J00-37 5) PROTOTYPE SETI ANTENNA ARRAY WILL HELP RADIO ASTRONOMERS TOO By Pam Frost 6) THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 7) ISS STATUS REPORT NASA JSC release 8) STARDUST STATUS REPORT JPL release --------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTEROID TRACKERS PLAN TO AVERT ARMAGADDEON By Robin McKie From The Observer, UK News 28 May 2000 One did for the dinosaurs. Another flattened a large part of Siberia 90 years ago. And one day, Britain--not to mention Europe and the rest of the world--may suffer a similar fate. Armageddon--triggered by an asteroid hurtling into our planet--is a genuine risk. Now some scientists are pressing the European Space Agency (ESA) to construct a satellite called Gaia, which could pinpoint errant chunks of rock that threaten Earth. The probe--the most accurate telescope ever built--would track objects a kilometer or more in diameter, allowing scientists to predict their path years before their collision with our planet. Rocket-born nuclear bombs could then be launched to nudge them from their deadly paths. Get the full story at http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,319399,00.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW THEORY ON THE MYSTERY OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE PROPOSED BY WEIZMANN INSTITUTE SCIENTISTS Weizmann Institute release http://wis- wander.weizmann.ac.il/weizmann/doa_iis.dll/Serve/item/English/1.200.6 .14.html 5 June 2000 One of the greatest mysteries, which continuously fascinates many scientists worldwide, concerns the way by which life emerged on primeval Earth. The accepted notion is that prior to the appearance of living organisms, there was a stage of chemical evolution, which involved selection within inanimate chemical mixtures. This is thought to have eventually led to the crucial moment, when self- replicating molecules arose. As self-replication is a most fundamental characteristic of living entities, such an event is often defined as the birth of life. Self-replication of molecular systems is often viewed in the context of information content. Many scientists believe that life began with the spontaneous emergence of biopolymers, such as proteins or RNA, where information is stored in the sequence of chemical units. Experiments mimicking the conditions on Earth billions of years ago have shown how such chemical units, e.g. some of the building blocks of proteins and RNA, could appear spontaneously. Yet, the emergence of proteins or self-replicating RNA molecules remained enigmatic. This started Professor Doron Lancet of the Crown Human Genome Center in the Weizmann Institute of Science, and his students, Daniel Segre and Dafna Ben-Eli, on a journey leading to alternatives to proteins and RNA. They have developed a model, suggesting a new route for the origin of life, based on lipid molecules. This model is described in an article published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA. Lipids are oily substances, known as chief ingredients of the cell's membranes. Lipids have two different aspects: one hydrophilic (water-attracting), and the other hydrophobic (water-repelling). They get readily synthesized under simulated prebiological conditions, and because of their bipartite nature, have the tendency to spontaneously form supramolecular structures made of thousands of molecular units. This is exemplified in lipid assemblies (micelles), which have even been shown to be capable of growing and splitting in a fashion reminiscent of cell replication. Yet a critical question was left unanswered: how could lipid assemblies carry and propagate information? The model proposed by Lancet and colleagues offers a solution. They surmise that early on, lipid-like compounds existed in a very large diversity of shapes and forms. They show mathematically that under such conditions, lipid assemblies could contain almost as much information as an RNA strand or a protein chain. Information would be stored in the assembly's composition, i.e. in the exact amount of each of its compounds, rather than in a sequence of molecular "beads" on a string. A useful analogy would be that of perfume: the information--the scent as discerned by receptors in the nose--depends on each ingredient's proportion in the mixture, but the order in which aromas are added is unimportant. Thus, the authors argue, heterogeneous lipid assemblies may be thought of as having a "compositional genome". They further demonstrate how a droplet-like lipid assembly, when growing and splitting, could manifest a form of inheritance. Their computer simulations show how a compositional genome would be handed down with some fidelity to the offspring assemblies. A crucial aspect of the model is how such molecular inheritance is made possible. In present-day cells, protein enzyme catalysts facilitate the replication of information-containing DNA. In the early prebiological era, the same lipid-like substances that carry the information could perform catalysis. Molecules already present inside a droplet would function as a molecular selection committee, enhancing the rate of entry for some, and rejecting others. Lancet, Segre, and Ben-Eli designed a computerized simulation that shows how, based solely on physiochemical principles, lipid droplets with idiosyncratic compositions accrete, grow, split, self-replicate, accumulate compositional mutations, and get involved in a complex evolutionary game. Importantly, it is entire assemblies, with their complex mixtures of relatively small molecules that are replicated. This differs from the older models, in which a single, long RNA polymer is what gets copied. The scientists' model makes very few chemical assumptions and derives a rich molecular behavior reminiscent of life processes. It therefore has the potential of constituting the long-sought bridge leading from the inanimate world to that of living organisms. This research has already attracted considerable interest, and was quoted in the recently published new edition of the classic book Origins of Life by Freeman Dyson from the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study. The next important question to be answered: how could lipid droplets undergo the numerous transitions needed to lead to living cells as we now know them? In this sense, the study marks the first footfall in a long journey to come. Professor Lancet holds the Ralph and Lois Silver Professorial Chair in Neurogenomics. Professor Lancet's research is supported by The Ebner Family Biomedical Research Foundation, Israel; The Henri and Francoise Glasberg Foundation, France; The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung, Germany; La Foundation Raphael et Regina Levy, France; Dr. Ernst Nathan Fund for Biomedical Research, USA; The Kalman and Ida Wolens Foundation, Corsicana, Texas and The Wolfson Family Charitable Trust, England. --------------------------------------------------------------------- TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS USE MATH AND SCIENCE SKILLS TO DESIGN MARS MISSION NASA JSC release J00-35 6 June 2000 Twenty-five Texas high school students from throughout the State are spending the week at the Johnson Space Center in Houston participating in a unique educational program designed to sharpen their math and science skills. The students will form three teams, each looking at a different aspect of a human mission to Mars. Teams will explore how humans will get to Mars, and then live and work on the planet's surface. Through a series of classroom sessions, field trips, hands-on projects, and assistance from JSC employee-mentors, the students will gain invaluable insight into the challenges of an engineering career. The Texas Aerospace Scholars Program is the result of a unique partnership between NASA - JSC and the State of Texas to encourage students to pursue engineering options in school. Legislators nominate students from their districts to participate in the program, which begins with distance- and web-based learning experiences and culminates in a one-week long trip to JSC. Beginning June 5 through the end of July, eight different groups of students will visit JSC as part of this program. For additional information on the Texas Aerospace Scholars Program, visit the web site at http://aerospacescholars.jsc.nasa.gov/. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTRONAUT PHOTOGRAPHS FROM SPACE SHED LIGHT ON CHANGES ON EARTH NASA JSC release J00-37 7 June 2000 Like photo-hungry tourists, the astronauts and cosmonauts who spent time on the Russian space station Mir took along cameras and lots of film to record their observations. Their photographs are providing important new insights into how nature and humans are changing planet Earth. Some of these photographs will be published this month as part of a new book of the results of imagery analysis in such areas as urban growth, El Niņo impacts, and changes in sea levels, coastal vegetation and land use. A collaborative effort between NASA and Russian Aviation and Space Agency Earth observation experts, Dynamic Earth Environments: New Observations from Shuttle-Mir Missions, will include 16 pages of color photographs taken by astronauts and cosmonauts on Mir between March 1996 and June 1998. "One advantage of the long-duration program on Mir is that crews could observe and record a continuum of changes on the Earth, including changes from season to season," said Kamlesh Lulla, PhD, chief of the Office of Earth Sciences at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. By observing and documenting surface dynamics and processes over time, scientists can gain a better understanding of the forces--both natural and human-induced--that change the Earth. Some of the 22,000 photographs taken by the Mir astronauts capture natural phenomena for the first time, such as lakes in the Andes Mountains drying up. "Our primary goal was to use photographs taken from space to document environmental changes and dynamic Earth processes such as flooding, droughts and urban growth around the world," Lulla added. Other areas of interest included events related to short-lived phenomena such as tropical storms, large fires and volcanic eruptions that otherwise might have gone undocumented. A second major objective was to use the experience gained during actual space flight to develop approaches and tools for the next generation of Earth observations from the International Space Station (ISS). "The Shuttle-Mir missions served us well in preparing the NASA Earth sciences program for long-duration scientific investigations from the ISS," Lulla said. He cited a variety of benefits from the operational experience provided by the Mir flights, including the development and testing of interactive electronic training and reference software, an interactive map, and evaluation of the long-term impact of on-orbit film reloading, data recording and camera maintenance. "Most importantly," Lulla added, "we learned to plan and communicate effectively from remote centers with an international crew." Astronauts Shannon Lucid, John Blaha, Jerry Linenger, Michael Foale, David Wolf and Andrew Thomas, and their Russian crewmates, used hand- held 35 mm and 70 mm cameras equipped with a variety of lenses. They were able to record long-term and seasonal changes in agricultural and other land-use patterns, changes in atmospheric conditions, and ecological changes such as global deforestation. "A key factor in the success of the Mir Earth observations research was crew initiative," Lulla said. "Some of the best and most interesting phenomena cannot be anticipated, but they can be documented by well-trained astronaut observers." Before each flight, scientists from various Earth science disciplines trained the crewmembers in recognition of Earth features and processes. Russian and American scientists then created a list of desired sites and requested photography of the sites when conditions permitted. "A relatively new focus of investigation was on the production of aerosols such as dust, smog and smoke around the world," Lulla said. Such data are becoming increasingly important in climate-change modeling, material transport and land-use change. Other targets of interest were sites with short-term natural dynamics, such as plankton blooms in oceans, as well as active and rapidly changing volcanic regions. The focus and extent of photography varied from crew to crew, Lulla said. For example, Lucid and her Russian crewmates documented the transition from winter to spring to summer in the Northern Hemisphere. Foale and his colleagues on Mir recorded key atmospheric changes related to the developing 1997 El Niņo event, which formed an important baseline for tracking the impact of El Niņo during subsequent flights. Thomas completed documentation of El Niņo during the final U.S. flight on Mir. Lulla said the book is aimed at a very broad audience, not just researchers in the Earth science disciplines. "The photographs contain valuable and easily understood information about regional occurrences and duration of hard-to-measure events," Lulla said. "Students of the Earth of all levels should find this book of value." The book should be available at large booksellers and libraries, as well as through academic bookstores. Astronaut photographs of Earth certainly are not unusual. NASA's collection, which dates from the early days of the American space program nearly 40 years ago, numbers some 400,000 images. The images taken during the Shuttle-Mir program have been added to the larger database of photographs taken by astronauts and cosmonauts during flights around the Earth and to the Moon. "This imagery provides us with a global perspective on the rhythms and spatial scale of important natural and human-induced events taking place on the Earth's surface," Lulla said. "If the experiences of the Shuttle-Mir crews are typical, Earth observations by crewmembers on the International Space Station will greatly improve both our database and our understanding of processes and changes on the Earth," he added. In keeping with the international nature of the book, astronaut Frank Culbertson and cosmonaut Valery Ryumin--managers of the Shuttle-Mir program--provided the foreword. The volume also has both an American and a Russian editor. Editing duties were shared by Lulla and by Lev Desinov, PhD, of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Associate editors were Cindy Evans, Julie Robinson and Pat Dickerson, senior scientists in JSC's Office of Earth Sciences. An on-line database of astronaut photographs from space is available at the following web sites: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov http://images.jsc.nasa.gov --------------------------------------------------------------------- PROTOTYPE SETI ANTENNA ARRAY WILL HELP RADIO ASTRONOMERS TOO By Pam Frost 9 June 2000 Engineers at Ohio State University are building a new kind of radio antenna array for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Because of interference from local radio and television stations, the array probably won't be listening for signals from space in Columbus. It will serve as a prototype for a larger, more sensitive system elsewhere in the world. But astronomers who use traditional dish-shaped radio telescopes will also benefit when the 64-antenna array goes on-line in the fall of 2000. That's because the array will be able to track earth-orbiting satellites that interfere with radio telescope signals, said Steven Ellingson, senior research associate at Ohio State's ElectroScience Laboratory. The array will also alert astronomers to brief cosmic events such as supernovas. The new system will also serve as a testbed for the development of radio telescopes that will use similar technology, such as the Square Kilometer Array of telescopes currently being planned by a consortium of universities and observatories around the world, of which Ohio State is a member. Ultimately, Ellingson and his colleagues may most assist astronomers by finding ways to counteract the radio frequency interference that will plague the antenna in Columbus. Local FM radio and TV stations make urban areas such as Columbus among the worst places in the world to build a radio telescope, Ellingson said- -but one of the best places to study radio interference. "We may not be able to do front-line radio astronomy here, but we're very interested in engineering ways to clean up radio telescope data," he said. The current incarnation of the array features eight flat spiral- shaped antennas on the roof of a building behind the laboratory. Ellingson and Brian Baertlein, a research scientist at the ElectroScience Lab, designed the small antennas to view the entire sky all at once, from horizon to horizon. Large dish- shaped antennas can only focus on one small portion of the sky at a time. Robert Dixon, director of the array project, named the array Argus after Argus Panoptes, the mythological Greek hero with 100 eyes. Dixon is also a senior research engineer in Ohio State's Office of the Chief Information Officer. The spiral antennas detect a broad range of frequencies, from 400 to 2,000 megahertz--roughly the range from two-way radios to military and weather satellites, with TV signals in-between. While commercial FM radio stations broadcast at only 100 megahertz, the harmonics generated by those signals reach Argus's range of sensitivity, Ellingson said. The researchers developed a new kind of digital receiver to handle that wide tuning range. They also developed computer algorithms for calibrating the antenna system, as well as algorithms for detecting and suppressing interference. For example, they were able to remove interference from the Russian GLONASS satellite from astronomical observations taken at the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) in Narrabri, New South Wales. Ellingson explained how Argus is able to take a radio "picture" of the entire sky at once. The small antennae work together to form one large image, he said, like the light sensors in the human eye. Software processes the image. "The brain doesn't scan an image like a TV to form a picture--it sees an image all at once and makes sense out of it. That's akin to what we're trying to do," Ellingson said. Taking such a large picture has its drawbacks, however. When completed, Argus's 64 antennas will generate 2.56 gigabytes of data-- the equivalent of 4 CD-ROMs--per second, and there's no economical physical connection that can carry that much data for any great distance, Ellingson said. So the engineers will process all the data just as it emerges from Argus, and throw away all but the most important signals. Ellingson's team of graduate students is building a mini- supercomputer out of PCs to process the data. Ellingson maintains that the radio interference in Columbus will prevent Argus from ever being a front-line SETI instrument. The SETI Institute is funding the project because it hopes the array will pave the way for similar telescopes in more remote parts of the world that aren't besieged with radio interference. Because Argus can watch the entire sky at once, it will provide an early warning system for radio astronomers more interested in scanning the skies for supernovas or other short-lived astronomical events than listening for ET. Ellingson and his staff plan to alert observatories around the world when Argus detects such events, some of which last for only minutes at a time. "By the time astronomers hear about these events, they might already be over with," said Ellingson, "but with Argus we can notify them that something is happening so that they can focus their telescopes on that area of the sky in time." Argus will also assist radio astronomers by tracking the position of earth-orbiting satellites that interfere with telescope signals. Most satellite orbits are publicly known, Ellingson said, but a satellite can change orbit or broadcasting frequency at any time, and new satellites appear constantly. Tracking these satellites isn't just a technical issue, it's economic as well, Ellingson said. Astronomers compete for a limited number of radio telescopes around the world, sometimes paying a great deal of money to use a telescope for only a few days. While astronomers plan their observation time to avoid known sources of interference, one rogue satellite can do a great deal of harm. "When people have to throw away half their data because a satellite was in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's heart-wrenching," he said. If Ellingson's efforts to combat interference from radio and TV stations prove successful, the Argus project may assist astronomers in yet another way. Around the world, as cities fill once-remote areas that are home to radio telescopes, interference is a big problem. Ellingson cited the case of Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Since the telescope's construction, radio and TV stations have sprung up around the island. Now interference blocks many of the signals the telescope could receive when it was built in the 1960's. The mainstream radio astronomy community has become more accepting of SETI, Ellingson said, not in small part because the privately-donated SETI Institute funds now represent a very significant portion of all U.S. funding for radio astronomy, including government sources. Ellingson feels there are strong ties between the SETI and mainstream radio astronomy communities. Many SETI scientists started their careers as mainstream radio astronomers, he said, and many continue to perform basic scientific research. And all radio astronomers will benefit from new technologies to track satellites and erase interference. "It's clear that we all have the same problems. What's good for one of us is good for the other," Ellingson said. Note: For decades, Ohio State University engineers and volunteers conducted the world's longest-running search for extraterrestrial intelligence at its radio observatory north of the Columbus campus. That search was abandoned when the observatory property was sold several years ago. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THIS WEEK ON GALILEO JPL release 5-11 June 2000 Galileo continues to cruise through space on the longest and largest orbit around Jupiter since its arrival at Jupiter in December 1995. The spacecraft's current orbit is 222 days long, and will reach apojove, the farthest point from Jupiter for a given orbit, a distance of 290 Jupiter radii (20.7 million kilometers, or 12.9 million miles) on September 8, 2000. Galileo's second largest orbit followed immediately after arrival when the spacecraft traveled for 203 days before its next encounter. During that orbit, the spacecraft reached an apojove distance of 270 Jupiter radii (19.3 million kilometers, or 12.0 million miles). The Fields and Particles instruments continue their survey of Jupiter's magnetosphere, or magnetic environment, and surrounding solar wind this week. This is the third week of a four-week survey, which is an extension of Galileo's typical surveys of the inner magnetosphere. The extension will allow the Fields and Particles instruments to observe the transitions from Jupiter's inner magnetosphere, through the outer magnetosphere, and into the solar wind. In addition, the survey is part of Galileo's preparation for joint activities with the Cassini spacecraft starting in October of this year. Cassini is en route to an arrival at Saturn in 2004, but will first fly past Jupiter in late December 2000. The flight team turns on the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer (EUV) toward the end of the week to perform remote observations of the Io torus. The torus is a ring-shaped region of intense plasma and radiation activity with its inner edge bounded by Io's orbit. The activity in the Io torus is maintained by Jupiter's strong electric and magnetic fields and Io's constant supply of volcanic particles. The data set obtained by these observations will be the most complete since early in Galileo's primary mission. It will allow scientists to continue studying the shape and energy output of the torus, and to perform long term comparisons with data obtained over the last 4 years. For more information on the Galileo spacecraft and its mission to Jupiter, please visit the Galileo home page at one of the following URL's: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo --------------------------------------------------------------------- ISS STATUS REPORT NASA JSC release 9 June 2000 Flight controllers in Houston and Moscow are monitoring no problems aboard the International Space Station as it circles the Earth every 92 minutes. Routine battery cycling is the norm as all systems are behaving normally aboard the revitalized complex following the recent visit by Atlantis and the STS-101 crew. This week the manual docking system aboard the Station was tested and, despite what's believed to be a ground problem, the test was completed. Another test will be conducted closer to the arrival of the Zvezda service module, scheduled for launch to the ISS in mid- July. The TORU system, as it's called, would only be used in the event that the automatic docking of the ISS to the Zvezda was not successful. This weeks test was designed to verify the angular rate sensors were reading within specification and that the outside television system was working properly. The automatic docking system, Kurs, is planned to be tested once again next week in preparation for Zvezda's arrival. Week after next, Russian flight controllers will send commands to Zarya's computer to initiate a propellant transfer onboard to ready it for firing of Zarya's attitude control jets that will perform the final rendezvous with Zvezda once it is within close proximity of the Station. Previously, dry-run tests were conducted to ensure the system was working properly to perform the actual propellant transfer. Three of ten smoke detectors inside Zarya remain disconnected after periodically giving false readings at random times. With the other seven detectors working fine, controllers know there is no problem on board and the detectors were powered off to prevent further erroneous messages being sent to the ground. If there were any real smoke on board, the other seven detectors would detect it and alert the ground. Meanwhile at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a Proton launch earlier this week puts the ISS Program one step closer to the launch of the Zvezda service module. This launch was the first of a Proton using modified, or Phase 2, second and third stage engines like those that will lift the service module into space. A second modified Proton launch is scheduled for late this month or early next prior to the planned launch of Zvezda between July 10-12. Zvezda's Proton arrived at Baikonur by railcar late last week. Russian and American ISS managers will meet in Moscow on June 26 to conduct a final General Designer's Review to assess the readiness of Zvezda, the Proton, and flight controllers to support the launch of the Station's early living quarters, life support, and command and control systems. The current orbit of the ISS is 245 by 230 statute miles (394 x 371 kilometers). Its orbit was raised an average of 24 miles (38 kilometers) by the Shuttle during the STS-101 mission. As of today, the Station has circled the Earth more than 8,750 times since November 1998. The next Mission Control Center ISS Status Report regarding on-orbit activities will be issued June 15. For further information, please contact the NASA Public Affairs Office at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, 281-483-5111. --------------------------------------------------------------------- STARDUST STATUS REPORT JPL release 9 June 2000 There were seven Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes during the past week. All subsystems are onboard the spacecraft are performing normally. These DSN passes were used to obtain tracking data for the Navigation Team to reconstruct Trajectory Correction Maneuver 3 (TCM 3) as well as continue to study the small forces acting upon the Stardust spacecraft when the attitude jets fire. During TCM 3, direct data paths from the nominal DSN tracking stations to JPL were not operating properly; therefore Stardust data were routed through the Emergency Control Center (ECC) at Goldstone, the first use of this new facility. Five more Navigation Camera images were downlinked, bringing the total number of images sent to the ground at approximately twenty-six out of the 28. Eight members of the Stardust Project actively supported the JPL Open House this past weekend, describing missions to small bodies to the public, including Stardust. For more information on the Stardust mission--the first ever comet sample return mission--please visit the Stardust home page at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov. --------------------------------------------------------------------- End Marsbugs, Volume 7, Number 22.