MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 7, Number 49, 22 December 2000. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, Math and Science 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://welcome.to/marsbugs. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of information for scientists, educators and other persons interested in exobiology and related fields. This newsletter is not intended to replace peer- reviewed journals, but to supplement them. We, the editors, envision Marsbugs as a medium in which people can informally present ideas for investigation, questions about exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events. 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) ANDROMEDA UNVEILED: THE ARKANSAS-OKLAHOMA CENTER FOR SPACE AND PLANETARY SCIENCES FORMAL OPENING AND WORKSHOP By Melissa Blouin 2) MARS REFERENCE MISSION: CONCEPTS DEVELOPED FOR LONG-TERM HABITATION OF MARS FOR NASA By Niki Himmer 3) DESPITE PERIODIC PUMMELING, CONDITIONS ON EARLY EARTH WERE RIPE FOR LIFE University of Rochester release 4) SOLAR SYSTEM'S LARGEST MOON LIKELY HAS A HIDDEN OCEAN NASA/JPL release 5) DISCOVERIES ABOUT LIFE ON EARTH INSPIRE BEAGLE 2 From ESA Science News 6) THE CHICXULUB CRATER DIG: DRILLING FOR SOLUTIONS TO THE MYSTERY By Andrew Bridges 7) NASA SPACE TECHNOLOGY SHINES NEW LIGHT ON HEALING NASA release 00-197 8) LIFE FOUND IN METEORITE, SAYS US SCIENTIST From SpaceDaily 9) LIFE: HERE? THERE? EVERYWHERE? By Edna DeVore 10) BEAGLE 2 LANDING SITE SELECTED From ESA Science News 11) MARTIAN MICRO-MAGNETS By Patrick L. Barry 12) ASTEROID SAMPLE RETURN OBJECT OF SPACE MISSION PROPOSED BY UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS RESEARCHER By Melissa Blouin 13) TITANIC MOON: PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY FROM SATURNIAN TURN From the NASA Astrobiology Institute web site 14) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY, EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS AND TERRAFORMATION INDEX By David J. Thomas 15) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS JPL releases 16) CASSINI MISSION STATUS JPL releases 17) CHRISTMAS ON GALILEO JPL release 18) ISS STATUS REPORT NASA/JSC release 19) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release 20) STARDUST STATUS REPORT JPL release --------------------------------------------------------------------- ANDROMEDA UNVEILED: THE ARKANSAS-OKLAHOMA CENTER FOR SPACE AND PLANETARY SCIENCES FORMAL OPENING AND WORKSHOP By Melissa Blouin University of Arkansas release 9 December 2000 Outer space will come to earth today with the formal opening of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences on the University of Arkansas campus with facilities that will allow scientists to simulate conditions found on other planets and in space. The University of Arkansas and Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK, officially opened the center, today (December 9). Andromeda, a planetary environmental chamber, is the centerpiece for the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, and will allow researchers to simulate conditions on planetary bodies- which include comets, asteroids and planetary surfaces. The Andromeda chamber was previously housed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, where researchers used it for comet simulations and Mars surface simulations. JPL donated the chamber to Sears' group based on the scope and focus of the research done by its members. The center and the chamber bring together a critical mass of researchers and state-of-the-art facilities to help facilitate robotic exploration of the solar system. "The center will be an interface between university researchers and scientists who put together space missions," said Derek Sears, professor of chemistry and biochemistry and director of the center. The official launching of the center coincides with an on-site meeting of the external advisory board to the center. The board includes Carle Pieters, of Brown University; Walter Huebner, of the Southwest Research Institute; Hermann Kochan, of the German Space Agency, Ben Clark, of Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Steve Saunders, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Chris McKay of NASA Ames Research Center. The advisory board and the researchers from Arkansas and Oklahoma will spend the day meeting to discuss projects that will utilize the Andromeda chamber. When the researchers work with the planetary environmental chamber, they can vary the ultraviolet radiation, temperature and pressure inside the chamber and leak gases into its interior through a series of tubes to simulate conditions on different planets, comets and asteroids. Several different projects have already been planned for the chamber. * Sears and McKeever use techniques called thermoluminescence and optically simulated luminscence to determine the radiation histories and chemical properties of meteorites. They plan to use Andromeda to create miniaturized equipment that can survive martian surface conditions, and bring back data on sediment ages if sent to Mars. * Tim Kral, associate professor of biological sciences, will work with methanogens, anaerobic microorganisms found in deep sea vents and cow guts, to see if they can survive under some of the conditions found in a Mars-like environment. * Wes Stites, associate professor of chemistry, plans to place biological molecules-like nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and other molecules-in Mars soil simulant within the machine, then expose them to Mars-like conditions of atmosphere, temperature, UV exposure and pressure. Afterwards, he will examine the degradation products, searching for patterns that may one day tell us if Mars historically had life on or below its surface. * Sears studies the composition, formation and impacts of asteroids and comets. He plans to simulate a comet's approach to the sun and study what happens to the comet's minerals during such an event. He also plans to study the changes that take place on a planet's surface after a simulated comet or asteroid impact, which will be accomplished using a giant jackhammer located under the planetary environmental chamber. These results can be compared to meteorites and asteroid craters. * Larry Roe, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, seeks to create inflatable structures that one day may be used on robotic missions to Mars. The Andromeda chamber will provide him with a test environment for his technologies. The U of A and OSU each have one new faculty member who will specialize in planetary and space science. The U of A has hired Pamela Jansma, a geochemist with expertise in remote sensing, and OSU has hired Deba Banerjee, a radiation physicist with expertise in environmental radiations. Glenn Mattioli, a geochemist at the University of Puerto Rico, will also work with the group. The center has seven industrial partners, including Barringer Crater Co., Nomadics, Inc., Nextep Technologies, SpaceWorks, Inc., Hastings Chariots, Combustion Science and Engineering, Eril Research and Bioengineering Resources, Inc. For more information please see http://www.uark.edu/csaps. Contacts: Derek Sears, professor, chemistry and biochemistry Director, Center for Space and Planetary Sciences Phone: 501-575-5204 dsears@uark.edu Melissa Blouin, science and research communications manager Phone: 501-575-5555 blouin@uark.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS REFERENCE MISSION: CONCEPTS DEVELOPED FOR LONG-TERM HABITATION OF MARS FOR NASA By Niki Himmer University of Arkansas release 12 December 2000 University of Arkansas School of Architecture researchers and students, in cooperation with NASA, have developed concepts for long- term habitation of Mars in response to the Mars Reference Mission, developed at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Ted Krueger, assistant professor of architecture, Jerry Wall, professor of architecture and David J. Fitts, B. Arch. '80, Flight Crew Support Division of NASA, asked students to design living and working conditions for the Mars surface. The students addressed issues related to the interior design of capsules for Mars, types of living quarters on the planet's surface, the design of rovers or jeeps for ground transportation on the planet and ultimately, the formation of a larger outpost to sustain a permanent human presence on the planet. This is the second School of Architecture studio undertaken in consultation with NASA and Fitts. The students had to address conditions on the Red Planet that do not exist on Earth. The climate on Mars is generally very cold (the average daily temperature is minus 81 degrees Fahrenheit) and can vary significantly daily. Low atmospheric pressure, varied terrain, limited mobility and reduced gravity also affect habitability. This all translates into a need to protect the crew members from Mars' harsh environment and design large, habitable spaces that provide room for living quarters, personal space, a comfortable work environment, medical and research space and recreational space. The students focused on various approaches to make life on Mars simpler for NASA crewmembers. The habitation proposals were intended to comfortably include six crewmembers that eventually will stay on Mars for up to approximately 500 days at a time. One team analyzed ways to enclose the maximum amount of interior space on the planet surface in order to support long-term habitation. The team suggested utilizing natural resources on Mars and extremely lightweight material from Earth to aid in construction of a habitat. This would reduce transportation costs and allow for construction of a larger habitat. A larger habitat would also help improve the morale of the crew, which is critical for a long-term mission of this nature. Another team suggested that a cylindrical habitation module with views from each level would improve spatial depth in the limited Mars environment. This aerospace habitat would also accommodate the physical and psychological needs of crewmembers and help simulate the comforts of life on Earth. An inflatable habitat that includes areas for research, medical and work areas was also recommended. This type of habitat is more easily transported to Mars and allows for minimal construction set up and maintenance, thereby allowing crew members to avoid the dangerous Mars atmosphere and improve crew safety. The interior of each habitat includes crew quarters, bathrooms, a medical station, exercise area, lab/work area, galley, wardroom and a reading room to allow for additional individual privacy. In this interior format, crewmembers sleep on the top level of the habitat in private chambers. Conferences and experiments are conducted on the second floor. In order to maintain a balance between work and individual time, the workstations and living quarters are separate. The transportation group provided suggestions for long-range exploration, unpressurized exploration rovers and reconnaissance vehicles to improve mobility on the planet. This suite of vehicles would be used to explore the Mars surface. Each of these concepts could be integrated into the development of an outpost suitable for a sustained human presence on Mars. One team investigated design strategies that linked several enclosed spaces so that crewmembers have improved mobility. In this larger outpost, which would be created over time, the assets of several missions would be combined to create a larger community for crewmembers. As part of the initial research, the students visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston where they consulted NASA's technical and design staff, learned about the issues affecting long-term habitation of Mars, the requirements of the Mars mission and the life of the astronauts on the mission. Initial design projects included designing a coffeemaker for use in zero gravity as well as developing methods of vertical travel in a martian structure. For the students, the studio provided an opportunity to propose suggestions that may eventually be applied to future NASA efforts. It also allowed them to improve their problem- solving skills and gain a greater understanding of how to design for elemental human needs, needs that are taken for granted on Earth. Contacts: Ted Krueger, research assistant professor School of Architecture Director of information technology Phone: 501-575-7101 tkrueger@uark.edu Niki Himmer, communications coordinator School of Architecture Phone: 501-575-4704 hhimmer@uark.edu An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-general-00s.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- DESPITE PERIODIC PUMMELING, CONDITIONS ON EARLY EARTH WERE RIPE FOR LIFE University of Rochester release 15 December 2000 Even during an extraordinarily violent era in Earth's early history, when our young planet was being whacked by asteroids and comets so frequently that scientists refer to it as "Late Heavy Bombardment," conditions most of the time at the Earth's surface were quite hospitable for the microbes that lived here, according to research being presented in an invited talk this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The work has also been accepted by the Journal of Geophysical Research. By making fine measurements of a kind of stardust carried to Earth by asteroids and comets some four billion years ago, a team of scientists led by University of Rochester geochemist Ariel Anbar has determined that only rarely-perhaps once every 30 to 100 million years-was the bombardment from the skies so severe that microbes would have had a difficult time surviving at the Earth's surface. Even in such instances, scientists say that hardy bacteria and viruses could have found sheltered places, such as beneath the Earth's crust, deep in the ocean near thermal vents, and other hiding spots, to ride out the storm. Many scientists have assumed that no life could have survived the Late Heavy Bombardment period, but the team's research indicates that most of the time, conditions on Earth during this time weren't so bad. The work makes it feasible that life on Earth's surface existed earlier than scientists have considered. "It's been the conventional wisdom that with all this bombardment, life should be very hard to maintain, and some scientists have argued that the Earth's surface wasn't habitable," says Anbar, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences and of chemistry. "It was a violent period in Earth history. Sure, every 30 million years or so, life would have been really challenging. But if microbes could find places to ride out the big impacts, there is no reason that they wouldn't be able to repopulate the surface and flourish. We're continually finding that life is incredibly hardy and adaptable, and it's plausible that bacteria could have survived these high-impact environments." Anbar's team included Rochester graduate student Gail Arnold, who made sensitive measurements of the metal iridium, which is rare on Earth but abundant in space-borne objects; Kevin Zahnle of the NASA Ames Research Center in Palo Alto, CA, who developed a computer model to simulate Earth under bombardment; and Steve Mojzsis of the University of California at Los Angeles. Mojzsis had previously discovered evidence of ancient microbial life in the oldest sediments ever found on Earth-3.85 billion years old-from Akilia Island in southern Greenland. He and Anbar decided to study the same sediments for signs of bombardment. In several rocks from Akilia Island Arnold measured the level of iridium. If asteroids and comets struck the Earth continually, the sediments should have shown high levels of iridium. Instead, the rocks contained little iridium, indicating a break in the bombardment. "We looked in these sediments fully expecting to find high levels of iridium. If Earth was getting pummeled, we thought we should see it. But these rocks were quite clean of iridium," says Anbar. Since other evidence that Earth was heavily bombarded during this time is very strong, the finding initially puzzled the researchers. The team decided to carefully estimate the rate of bombardment at that time. Their estimates showed that during most of the bombardment period, large asteroid or comet impacts would have been rare enough that their traces wouldn't be seen in sediments like the ones they studied. They estimate that every several hundred thousand years or so, an asteroid a few miles wide-the size of the object that likely wiped out the dinosaurs-would have plunked into Earth. They say that much larger objects, those capable of killing off most microbial life on Earth, slammed into Earth much less frequently, probably only once every 30 to 100 million years. The most severe bombardment happened in very distinct episodes, with conditions in between quite livable for microbes. "Sure, conditions at this time were nastier than today, with objects constantly hitting the Earth, but it was really quite rare for an object big enough to vaporize the upper part of the ocean and do a tremendous amount of damage to hit the Earth," says Anbar, whose work is funded by NASA's Astrobiology Institute and the National Science Foundation. "It's been estimated that it would only take a few tens of thousands of years for the planet to recover from such an event. So it would be just very short periods of time millions of years apart when it would have been difficult to maintain life." Contact: Tom Rickey Office of Public Relations University of Rochester Rochester, New York Phone: 716-275-7954 --------------------------------------------------------------------- SOLAR SYSTEM'S LARGEST MOON LIKELY HAS A HIDDEN OCEAN NASA/JPL release 16 December 2000 Add Jupiter's moon Ganymede, which is bigger than two of the solar system's nine planets, to the growing list of worlds with evidence of liquid water under the surface. A thick layer of melted, salty water somewhere beneath Ganymede's icy crust would be the best way to explain some of the magnetic readings taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during close approaches to Ganymede in May 2000 and earlier, according to one new report. In addition, the types of minerals on parts of Ganymede's surface suggest that, in the past, salty water may have emerged from below or melted at the surface, according to a study of infrared reflectance measured by Galileo. Third, new Galileo images of Ganymede hint how the water or slushy ice may have surfaced through the fractured crust, reminiscent of linear features on Europa, a neighboring moon believed likely to have a deep ocean beneath its ice. Several of the new images, prepared by researchers at Brown University, Providence, RI, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany, are available from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/pictures/jovianmoons. They include the most detailed photos ever taken of Ganymede and an animated virtual flyover of an area where a smooth, bright swath resembling parts of Europa cuts across older, more heavily cratered terrain. The new information about Ganymede is being presented at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, beginning today (December 15) in San Francisco. Ganymede is the biggest moon in the solar system and bigger than the planets Mercury and Pluto. It was named for a boy in Greek mythology who was so beautiful that Jupiter, king of the gods, had him brought to Olympus by an eagle. The magnetic clues to a possible saltwater layer at Ganymede are more complicated than earlier magnetic evidence of hidden oceans on two other moons of Jupiter, Europa and Callisto, said Dr. Margaret Kivelson, a planetary scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and principal investigator for Galileo's magnetometer instrument. That's because Ganymede has a strong magnetic field of its own, instead of just a secondary field induced by Jupiter's magnetism. But the indications of an induced field at Ganymede are "highly suggestive" of a salty ocean on Ganymede, too, Kivelson said. "It would need to be something more electrically conductive than solid ice," she said. A melted layer several kilometers or miles thick, beginning within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of Ganymede's surface would fit the data if it were about as salty as Earth's oceans, Kivelson said. Ganymede is covered with lots of ice and frost, both in the older, dark terrains and younger, bright terrains, said Dr. Thomas McCord, a geophysicist at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, who has been using Galileo's infrared spectrometer instrument to identify surface materials on Ganymede. Portions of the moon appear to have types of salt minerals that would have been left behind by exposure of salty water near or onto the surface, he said. "They are similar to the hydrated salt minerals we see on Europa, possibly the result of brine making its way to the surface by eruptions or through cracks," McCord said. The infrared evidence does not indicate whether or not an ocean persists at Ganymede today, he said. Photos that Galileo took as it passed within 809 kilometers (503 miles) of Ganymede on May 20 display details of a tumultuous past, according to Drs. James Head III and Robert Pappalardo, planetary scientists at Brown. "Bright broken swaths, disrupted dark plains and the astounding Arbela Sulcus suggest Ganymede may be more similar to Europa than previously believed," Pappalardo said. Arbela Sulcus is a relatively smooth, bright band interrupting a more cratered, older landscape. The new images show subtle striations along its length. "It is possible that Arbela Sulcus has formed by complete separation of Ganymede's icy crust, like bands on Europa, but unusual for Ganymede," he said. Natural radioactivity in Ganymede's rocky interior should provide enough heating to maintain a stable layer of liquid water between two layers of ice, about 150 to 200 kilometers (90 to 120 miles) below the surface, said Dr. Dave Stevenson, planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. That's a difference from Europa, where interior flexing from tidal effects of Jupiter's gravity provides much of the internal heat, he said. "I would have been surprised if Ganymede had not had an ocean, but the issue of whether it's there is different than the issue of whether you can expect to see it clearly in the data," Stevenson said. Galileo has been orbiting Jupiter since December 7, 1995. It will fly past Ganymede again on December 28, but will not come as close as it did in May. Additional information on Galileo is available at http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov. The Galileo mission is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC, by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1074000/1074692.stm http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/17ganymedeocean/ http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/12/17/space.ganymede.reut/index.ht ml http://www.space.com/searchforlife/ganymede_ocean_001215.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/galileo-00r.html Contact: Guy Webster, JPL Phone: 818-354-6278 --------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCOVERIES ABOUT LIFE ON EARTH INSPIRE BEAGLE 2 From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 15 December 2000 The nineteenth century spirit of discovery is inspiring the effort to land the first probe on Mars in the twenty first century. Last week, as if to give the inspiration a boost, the largely-British team building the Beagle 2 lander for Mars Express held the second meeting for "adjunct" scientists in one of the finest nineteenth century monuments to discoveries about life on Earth-the Natural History Museum in London. Beagle 2 is named after the ship in which the illustrious nineteenth century scientist, Charles Darwin sailed when he developed his ideas about evolution and made some of mankind's most significant discoveries about life on Earth. The tiny probe's quest is to find evidence for past or present life on Mars and so make similarly significant discoveries about the possibility of life beyond Earth. No other mission to Mars planned for at least the next decade has exobiology so central to its mission. Almost within sight of the giant skeleton of Diplodocus in the Natural History Museum's august entrance hall, the discussion turned to the experiments on board Beagle 2, the environment on Mars, and the chance of finding evidence for past and present life. As Earth and Mars experienced similar early histories, the chances of primitive life (though nothing so advanced as Diplodocus) on early Mars are good, said André Brack from the Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire, France and chairman of the adjunct scientists group. Beagle 2 will fulfil all the requirements necessary to search for life: it will land in a sedminetary region where fossils could have been preserved, examine sub-surface samples protected from oxidation at the surface, measure the isotopic ratio of organics and minerals, look for visual and chemical evidence of water, and generally monitor the local environment. All these tasks must be accomplished in just 180 sols (martian days, which are almost the same length as an Earth day). The first few days will be spent running pre-programmed sequences, imaging the site and running the environmental sensors, Mark Sims, Beagle 2 project manager from Leicester University told the meeting. Only after about a month will the lander be ready to start doing detailed rock and soil analysis. "It'll take quite a bit of time before we're ready to pick up the first rock, but sometimes slow operations are good operations," said Sims. Any space probe that lands on another solar system body has to meet standards of cleanliness laid down in international law. In Beagle 2's case, this is 300,000 spores in total, Judith Pillinger from the Open University said. The plan is to use "clean" manufacturing methods, sterilization of some parts and cleaning protocols that will get rid of dead spores as well as live ones. "We don't want to scupper our experiments by taking our own life there, dead or alive," says Pillinger. Beagle 2 will use various levels of protection to maintain its cleanliness including the heat shield to protect the lander when it travels through the martian atmosphere and internal bioshields and bioseals. The adjunct scientists are a gathering of people interested in the science Beagle 2 will do, but with no formal status on the project. "The group is open to all comers," Colin Pillinger, Beagle 2 Consortium Leader from the Open University said in a plea for more members, especially from Europe. "We want to increase the pool from which the instruments providers can recruit collaborators," he said. The frequency of meetings is expected to increase in the run up to launch in June 2003. For further information on the adjunct scientists' group contact André Brack, e-mail: brack@cnrs-orleans.fr. Useful links for this story * Beagle 2 homepage http://www.beagle2.com/ * Mars Express homepage http://sci.esa.int/marsexpress Image captions Image 1: [http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12 &ooid=25572] The Beagle 2 adjunct scientists group during their second meeting at the Natural History Museum in London. Image 2: [http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12 &ooid=25559] The giant Diplodocus skeleton at the Natural History Museum's Central Hall in London. --------------------------------------------------------------------- THE CHICXULUB CRATER DIG: DRILLING FOR SOLUTIONS TO THE MYSTERY By Andrew Bridges From Space.com 18 December 2000 Plans to drill deep into the Chicxulub crater in Mexico next summer will allow scientists to further characterize how an asteroid impact 65 million years ago killed 75 percent of all living species, including the dinosaurs. An asteroid, perhaps as large as 9 miles (15 kilometers) across, slammed into the Earth to create the 120-mile (200-kilometer) diameter crater. The crater is well preserved, but lies buried under hundreds of feet (meters) of sediments where it straddles the coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula. The violence of the impact extended deep into Earth's crust. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/chicxulub_crater_00 1219.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NASA SPACE TECHNOLOGY SHINES NEW LIGHT ON HEALING NASA release 00-197 18 December 2000 Doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee have discovered the healing power of light with the help of technology developed for NASA's space shuttle. Using powerful light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, originally designed for commercial plant-growth research in space, scientists have found a way to help patients here on Earth. Doctors are examining how this special lighting technology helps hard-to-heal wounds, such as diabetic skin ulcers, serious burns, and severe oral sores caused by chemotherapy and radiation. The project, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and funded by a NASA Small Business Innovation Research contract through the Technology Transfer Department at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, includes laboratory and human trials. "So far, what we've seen in patients and what we've seen in laboratory cell cultures, all point to one conclusion," said Dr. Harry Whelan, professor of pediatric neurology and director of hyperbaric medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "The near- infrared light emitted by these LEDs seems to be perfect for increasing energy inside cells. This means whether you're on Earth in a hospital, working in a submarine under the sea or on your way to Mars inside a spaceship, the LEDs boost energy to the cells and accelerate healing." Dr. Whelan's findings will be summarized in upcoming issues of Space Technology and Applications International Forum 2001 and in The Journal of Clinical Laser Medicine and Surgery. Other related peer- reviewed journals have published articles on Whelan's medical research with light-emitting diodes. Dr. Whelan's NASA-funded research has already seen remarkable results using the light-emitting diodes to promote healing of painful mouth ulcers caused by cancer therapies such as radiation and chemotherapy. The treatment is quick and painless. The wound-healing device is a small, 3.5-inch by 4.5-inch (89- millimeter by 114-millimeter), portable, flat array of LEDs, arranged in rows on the top of a small box. A nurse practitioner places the box of LEDs on the outside of the patient's cheek about one minute each day. The red light penetrates to the inside of the mouth, where it seems to promote wound healing and prevent further sores in the patient's mouth. "Some children who probably would have had to be fed intravenously because of the severe sores in their mouths have been able to eat solid food, " said Dr. David Margolis, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin and an oncologist at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Dr. Margolis continued, "Preventing oral mucositis improves the patients' ability to eat and drink and also may reduce the risk of infections in patients with compromised immune systems." Dr. Whelan's collaboration with NASA began when Ronald Ignatius, owner of Quantum Devices Inc. in Barneveld, WI, learned about Dr. Whelan's brain cancer surgery technique using drugs stimulated by laser lights. Laser-light surgical probes are costly and cumbersome in the operating room because they are heavy, with refrigerator-size optical, electrical and cooling systems. Ignatius originally designed the lights for plant growth experiments through the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics, a NASA commercial space center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "The LEDs needed to grow plants in space produced the same wavelengths of light the doctor needed to remove brain tumors," said Ignatius. "Plus, when we developed the LEDs for NASA, they had to be lightweight to fly aboard the shuttle and have small cooling systems. These traits make the LED surgery probes easier to use in the operating room and thousands of dollars cheaper than laser systems." Quantum Devices altered the surgical probe to emit longer wavelengths of red light that stimulate a photodynamic drug called benzoporphyrin derivative. Doctors at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin recently completed the first-ever surgery with the improved probe and medicine. The drug also has fewer side effects after surgery. The ongoing brain surgery study is described in a 1999 peer-reviewed journal article in Pediatric Neurosurgery. The LED research project will continue for the next 18 months, with doctors studying 100 patients at two major teaching affiliates of the Medical College of Wisconsin. Researchers will continue to examine the influence of LEDs on cells grown in the laboratory, and will explore the benefits that LEDs might provide to counteract possible cell damage caused by exposure to harmful radiation and weightlessness during long space missions. Contacts: Michael Braukus Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1979 Jerry Berg Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL Phone: 205-544-0034 Toranj A. Marphetia Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI Phone: 414-456-4700 --------------------------------------------------------------------- LIFE FOUND IN METEORITE, SAYS US SCIENTIST From SpaceDaily 18 December 2000 Fossilized microorganisms have been found inside a meteorite that crashed to earth in Australia 30 years ago, a NASA scientist has claimed here. New technology was used to discover the fossilized alien life forms, which were found inside a 4.6 billion-year-old meteorite that landed near the Victorian town of Murchison in 1969, local media reported Monday. The head of NASA's astrobiology unit at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Professor Richard Hoover, told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper that he believed the organisms were bacteria capable of surviving in extreme environments. Get the full story at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/001218015706.c4nptis9.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- LIFE: HERE? THERE? EVERYWHERE? By Edna DeVore From Space.com 19 December 2000 Does life exist beyond our small planet, Earth? This fundamental question drives scientists to search near and far. Using astronomical tools, SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) researchers seek the telltale sign of distant technological civilizations by listening for faint signals emitted by alien transmitters in planetary systems orbiting distant suns. These SETI scientists employ the largest ears on Earth-giant radio telescopes-to seek faint signals amidst the general noise of the universe. So far, a signal from ET has not been detected and the search continues. Stay tuned! Closer by, we search other planets and moons in our own solar system for signs of life. We have detailed photographs of the surfaces of all but Pluto and parts of Mercury-hostile places to live. No cities, vast roadway systems or great walls to keep out enemies have been found. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/devore_seti_001219.html. --------------------------------------------------------------------- BEAGLE 2 LANDING SITE SELECTED From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 20 December 2000 The Mars Express lander, Beagle 2, will land on Isidis Planitia, a large flat region that overlies the boundary between the ancient highlands and the northern plains. The choice of site was announced last week at a meeting of the Mars Express science working team in ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The region appears to be a sedimentary basin where traces of life could have been preserved, if primitive life really did exist at some time on Mars. "This is the best site given the landing constraints and scientific aims of Beagle 2," said John Bridges from the Natural History Museum, London, who has been assessing several sites on behalf of the project. Isidis Planitia lies between 5 degrees and 20 degrees north. The specific site chosen lies close to 10 degrees north, which is the maximum latitude for a site to be warm enough for Beagle 2 to function properly during early spring, the season at which it is due to land on Mars. The number of rocks on the surface seems to be about right-not too many to threaten a safe landing, but enough to provide an interesting landscape for the experiments. The site is also at a low enough elevation to allow the parachutes sufficient atmosphere to brake the lander's descent, has few steep slopes down which the tiny probe may have to bounce as it lands, and doesn't seem to be too dusty. Sites previously under consideration include the Chryse Planitia, Candor Chasma and the Elysium plains. Further studies, however, showed that the probe would be unable to function properly at these sites because their latitudes make them too cold in early spring. One channel south of Chryse, Simud Valles, would have been warm enough, but it is too narrow to ensure a safe landing. Another possibility might have been areas of the layered terrain imaged by the camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and made public earlier this month. The layering, which is extensive, especially in low-lying areas around the equator, was most likely formed by sediment deposited at the bottom of long-standing lakes or seas, an ideal environment for preserving traces of life. "Unfortunately, this layered terrain is revealed in steep, narrow canyons which are unsuitable because of the landing ellipse size," Bridges told the meeting. The landing ellipse is an area up to about 500 km long by 100 km wide in which Beagle 2 will land. The size of the ellipse will depend on the angle at which the probe enters the martian atmosphere, which has yet to be determined: the steeper the angle, the smaller the ellipse. However, a landing site must be chosen to accommodate the maximum likely ellipse size, and that rules out the bottom of many valleys. When Beagle 2 has landed, its precise position will need to be measured. One way of doing this will be to time the movement of the shadow of Mars's tiny moon, Phobos, as it passes over the lander during a partial eclipse of the Sun. "In February 2004, the Sun will have a partial eclipse by Phobos. By timing the eclipse, we will be able to pinpoint the lander's position quite accurately," said Tom Duxbury from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, USA, who is helping to characterize the landing site using MGS data. The timing of the landing site decision has been determined by the need of ESA's Mars Express and Starsem's launcher teams to work out a trajectory to enable the spacecraft to deliver Beagle 2 to the desired site. However, further detailed characterization of the site will continue as new data become available from MGS. Useful links for this story * Mars Lander Beagle 2 http://sci.esa.int/content/doc/cc/19660_.htm * Beagle 2 homepage http://www.beagle2.com/ * The Mars science articles http://sci.esa.int/structure/content/index.cfm?aid=9&cid=2839 Image captions Image 1: [http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12 &ooid=25650] Isidis Planitia. Image 2: [http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12 &ooid=25651] Beagle 2 landing site map. For more information on this article, see http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=32& ooid=25650. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1079000/1079916.stm http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/12/20/beagle.landing.site/index.ht ml --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARTIAN MICRO-MAGNETS By Patrick L. Barry From NASA Space Science News 20 December 2000 The case for ancient life on Mars looks better than ever after scientists announced last week that they had discovered magnetic crystals inside a martian meteorite-crystals that, here on Earth, are produced only by microscopic life forms. The magnetic compound, called magnetite or Fe3O4, is common enough on our planet. It is present, for example, in household video and audio tapes. But only certain types of terrestrial bacteria, which can assemble the crystals atom by atom, produce magnetite structures that are chemically pure and free from defects. Scientists studying the Allan Hills meteorite, a 4-billion-year-old rock from Mars that landed in Antarctica about 13,000 years ago, found just such crystals deep inside the space rock. "Finding this type of magnetic crystal in any material from another planet is an amazing and important finding," said Dr. Dennis Bazylinski, a geobiologist at Iowa State University. Bazylinski leads one of the few labs capable of culturing these magnet-producing bacteria, which are common in many freshwater and marine environments on Earth. Bazylinski was one of nine researchers conducting the four-year investigation, which was funded by NASA's Astrobiology Institute. A report of their research is in the December issue of the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. "We're not claiming that this is proof of life on Mars," said Dr. Everett Gibson, an astrobiologist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, who also participated in the study. "What we're claiming is that these magnetites (from the meteorite) are basically indistinguishable from certain biogenic (i.e., biologically-produced) magnetites on Earth. And furthermore, we know of no other mechanism to make them, either on Earth or Mars," Gibson said. The scientists believe that these crystals traveled from Mars in the meteorite, rather than being produced on Earth by bacteria that contaminated the meteorite after it arrived in Antarctica. "That was a real concern-whether (the magnetite crystals) could be terrestrial contamination," Gibson said. But several facts support a martian origin, including the deep embedding of the crystals in the carbonate material of the meteorite and the preference of the magnetite-producing bacteria for low-oxygen environments, making it unlikely that such bacteria would live where the meteorite was found. "We looked at it very carefully and convinced ourselves that the magnetite had to be from Mars," Gibson said. "No one (in the scientific community) is really questioning that." This meteorite-called the Allan Hills meteorite after the Antarctic ice sheet where it was found-is the same one that caused a stir in 1996 by providing the first potential evidence of bacteria-like life on Mars. These magnetite crystals were one of the four pieces of evidence from the meteorite that supported the '96 announcement. But little was known about the specific traits of bacteria-produced magnetite then. "At that point, we just knew that there were tiny magnetite crystals made by bacteria, and we didn't know much about them," Gibson said. "And we now have studied (the crystals) in detail, and ones known to be made by bacteria have the same properties (as those from the meteorite)." Crystals made by magnetite-producing bacteria are chemically pure and free from defects in the crystalline structure. They are slightly elongated along a particular crystalline axis, and they range in size from 35 to 120 nanometers (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter). They also show a particular pattern of faceting-like a cut diamond. These properties are so unusual that they have only been seen in magnetite crystals produced by biological processes. The researchers discovered that about one-fourth of the magnetite crystals in the meteorite have these exact properties. The other three-fourths of the crystals are assumed to have formed geologically, researchers said. Bacteria are able to make such precise crystals because they control the construction of the crystal at an atomic level. "The magnetites are grown atom by atom inside the bacteria. The bacteria form a little membrane around the crystal that controls the growth of the magnetite, and then they pump iron atoms into that membrane and form these crystals (which consist of iron and oxygen atoms). By carefully controlling crystal growth with the membrane, the bacteria keep the crystals from growing in one direction and allow them to grow in another," Gibson said. The direction in which the bacteria elongate the crystals maximizes the magnetic strength of the magnetite. The bacteria, which are mostly from the Magnetospirillum genus, then line up several of these crystals to collectively act as a bar magnet, which allows the bacteria to align itself with Earth's magnetic field. Why would a bacterium want to line up with our planet's magnetic field? It turns out that such behavior can help an aqueous microbe find water with the right mix of oxygen. Generally, differing concentrations of oxygen in a body of water are arranged in horizontal layers, like the floors of a building. Earth's magnetic field lines, in addition to pointing toward the pole, also make a vertical angle with the ground. These lines provide a sort of slanted "elevator shaft" that help the bacteria search the "building's floors," which can be more efficient than an aimless search. But such an internal compass would be of no use to a martian bacterium unless Mars had a natural magnetic field like Earth does. "When we first wrote the original paper in '96, it was thought that Mars had never had much of a magnetic field," Gibson said. "But then the Mars Global Surveyer detected a very strong remnant magnetism in some of the rocks in the crust of Mars... So it's clear that early on, Mars had a strong magnetic field, and that's about the time we think these magnetites were formed: about 3.9 billion years ago." In contrast, the earliest well-documented life on Earth dates back to between 3.6 and 3.7 billion years ago, Gibson said. Both planets formed about 4.5 billion years ago. "Now we are trying to answer the question of whether (magnetite- producing) bacteria could have actually lived on Mars," Bazylinski said. "And we have found certain aspects of their metabolism which suggest that they might have been able to do so." The journal Science recently published research showing evidence of widespread sediment layers on Mars, which the researchers interpreted to be the product of ancient lakes that once dotted Mars's surface. Because these lakes may have provided a habitat for bacteria, this finding supports the possibility that the bacteria may have existed on Mars, Bazylinski said. Though the new evidence from the Allan Hills meteorite does not prove that life once existed on Mars, Gibson said that, "We think it's evidence that is hard to explain by any other hypothesis." For more information on this article, see http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast20dec_1.htm?list52260. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTEROID SAMPLE RETURN OBJECT OF SPACE MISSION PROPOSED BY UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS RESEARCHER By Melissa Blouin University of Arkansas release 21 December 2000 In the wake of NASA's successful Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous space mission, a University of Arkansas researcher is putting together a team of scientists to take asteroid research to the next level- bringing asteroid samples back to Earth. Derek Sears, professor of chemistry and director of the Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, has proposed a mission called Hera that will visit three near-Earth asteroids, obtain samples from them and return the samples to Earth. The project is named for Hera, a Greek goddess and mother of the three graces, joyfulness, bloom and brightness. The Arkansas- Oklahoma center will provide the infrastructure and support required to produce the mission. Such a mission has only recently become possible, according to Sears. But with the advent of new engines for driving interplanetary spacecraft, the NEAR spacecraft completing a successful mission, and the discovery of 1,000 or more near-Earth asteroids in the past two years, the mission has become feasible. "We have the right engines, another space craft doing a dry run, and we have plenty of targets," Sears said. According to current plans, the spacecraft will feature a touch-and- go sampler designed by Steven Gorevan and Shaheed Rafeek of Honeybee Robotics, Inc. The sampler will hover above the asteroids and extend a high-speed drill into the surface. The probe will capture fragments from the drilling and store them in containers aboard the spacecraft. The craft will also contain cameras, spectrometers and other scientific equipment that will record information about the asteroids. Sears and his colleagues recently gathered at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston to discuss various aspects of the mission. They talked about the scientific case for sample return, spacecraft maneuvers in the vicinity of small asteroids, sample collection devices and planetary protection issues, and the implications for resource utilization, impact hazard mitigation and human exploration and development of space. The mission will address some of the most fundamental questions in science as defined by NASA's Space Science Enterprise Plan in 1997. Hera addresses seven of the 11 goals set by NASA in the plan, including: * Information on the formation of the solar system * Stellar evolution and the relationship between stars and planet formation * The origin of molecules necessary for life on Earth * The possibilities of life on other planets. * A record of solar activity * Prediction and possible deflection of Earth-bound objects * A precursor to human exploration and colonization of space Researchers at NASA's Glenn Research Center determined the mission trajectory. Hera would launch in January 2006, reaching the first asteroid, 1999 AO10, after eight months. It would spend about 99 days at the first two asteroids, AO10 and 2000AG6, and 205 days at the third, 1989 UQ, returning to earth in November 2010. The current team of researchers planning project Hera includes: Sears, Don Brownlee of the University of Washington, Carle Pieters of Brown University, M. Lindstrom of the University of Tennessee, D. Britt of Johnson Space Center, B. C. Clark of Lockheed Martin Astronautics, L. Gefert of Glenn Research Center, S. Gorevan of Honeybee Robotics and J. C. Preble of SpaceWorks, Inc. For more information see http://www.uark.edu/hera. Contacts: Derek Sears, professor, chemistry Director, Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences Phone: 501-575-5204 dsears@uark.edu Melissa Blouin, science and research communications manager Phone: 501-575-5555 blouin@uark.edu --------------------------------------------------------------------- TITANIC MOON: PREBIOTIC CHEMISTRY FROM SATURNIAN TURN From the NASA Astrobiology Institute web site http://nai.arc.nasa.gov/index.cfm?page=titanicmoon 21 December 2000 Titan is Saturn's biggest moon. A little larger than the planet Mercury, it is also one of the biggest moons in the solar system (only Jupiter's moon Ganymede is larger). The astronomer Carl Sagan described Titan as, "one of the most fascinating and instructive worlds illustrating prebiological organic chemistry." Sagan stated that, on Titan, we could see the synthesis of complex organic molecules happening right before our eyes. That's because the orange haze that completely surrounds Titan is an organic chemistry experiment in action. Cosmic rays, ultraviolet light from the sun, and charged particles trapped by Saturn's magnetic field all initiate chemical reactions in Titan's atmosphere, causing chains of hydrocarbons to form. Titan's atmosphere very much resembles the oxygen-free, primordial atmosphere of early Earth. Titan's atmosphere is about "95% nitrogen, 5% methane with traces of other hydrocarbons, hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and other cyano-compounds," said Dr. Robert Minard, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry at Penn State University. Minard, and his collaborators with the Astrobiology Institute and Penn State, have recently developed a new diagnostic method that has improved our understanding of Titan's atmospheric chemistry. To probe for carbon and hydrogen in more complex hydrocarbons on Titan, the technique employed a combined thermal and chemical analysis, called GC-MS. The term GC-MS refers to gas chromatography (GC)-to separate various components like ammonia or cyanide-and mass spectroscopy (MS)-to understand their various identifying mass and molecular weights. GC-MS is a powerful analytical tool to probe gaseous elements and ions. It renders a kind of chemical fingerprint of what conditions might be like in the atmosphere. It has allowed the researchers to demonstrate that Titan's atmosphere contains elements that are similar to the degradation products from a polymer of hydrogen cyanide (HCN). HCN polymer is a black solid believed to have played a major role in the emergence of life on the earth 4 billion years ago. HCN plays a crucial role in primordial organic synthesis, for it is a building block of such basic elements of life as amino acids and purines (parts of nucleic acids like DNA; specifically, adenine and guanine). This analytical method provides strong evidence that HCN chemistry is an important aspect of Titan's atmosphere, and that HCN polymer is a major component of the orange colored haze. In an experiment designed to simulate the chemistry going on in Titan's atmosphere, degradation/GC-MS analysis was also carried out on HCN polymer and on a reddish brown polymer created by heating an 80:20 mixture of nitrogen and methane. "The similarity of the products from both materials demonstrated that Titan's brown haze is probably a hydrocarbon/HCN polymer composite," said Dr. Minard. Titan's atmosphere has intrigued astronomers for years. When Voyager I passed by Titan in November 1980, scientists were hoping to get a close look at what they believed to be a complex and intriguing world. What they saw instead was a moon completely enveloped in an orange-colored smog thick enough to prevent them from seeing the moon's surface. Titan's atmosphere is five times as dense as the Earth's. Only recently have we been able to peer through the orange mist and see the surface below. In October 1994, astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe Titan in the near infrared wavelengths. Looking at Titan in that part of the electromagnetic spectrum allowed the astronomers to observe a bright, Australian-sized area on Titan's surface. One theory about this bright region is that it is a mountainous continent entirely composed of water ice. "We don't know what this region is," said Ralph Lorenz, who is now doing further research into Titan at the University of Arizona, "but one explanation is that rain falling on high ground is washing the area clean of dark sludge." The existence of life on Titan is not likely, even though almost all the elements necessary for life-energy, hydrocarbons, an atmosphere and water-are present there. Because of its distance from the Sun, Titan receives only one percent of the Earth's sunlight. This results in a surface temperature of about 90 degrees Kelvin (minus 180 degrees Celsius or minus 297 degrees Fahrenheit). At that frigid temperature, the water is frozen as hard as granite. Without liquid water, the hydrocarbons in Titan's atmosphere cannot develop into amino acids. But even without substantial sunlight, Titan may have had some liquid water during its early history, when meteor impacts were more frequent. In 1992, Carl Sagan and his colleague Reid Thompson at Cornell University, New York, suggested that meteor impacts could melt Titan's icy crust and allow organic molecules from the atmosphere to react with oxygen in liquid water. So even if Saturn's moon lacked sunlight, Titan could still receive energy inputs from incoming meteor strikes. Sagan and Thompson calculated that organics in the crust around impact sites might have been exposed to oxygen for anything up to 2 million years-enough time perhaps for simple amino acids to form. The kinetic energy from these impacts would have generated enough heat to melt frozen water. Even when the surrounding icy water in those meteor-rich areas solidified, deposits of liquid water may have persisted for thousands of years on Titan before finally freezing. This Sagan-Thompson scenario speculates an alternative possibility of amino acids forming without significant solar energy, but with hot materials bombarding Titan. In the rare chance, prebiotic chemistry takes hold when water, heat and organics get sufficient time to brew their primordial soup. In October 1997, the Cassini spacecraft was launched for a rendezvous with Saturn in June 2004. Cassini will have more than 30 encounters with Titan, enabling it to map the moon's surface. In November 2004, Cassini will release the European-built Huygens probe for a descent through Titan's atmosphere. The probe will land on the western edge of the bright, Australian-sized feature discovered in 1994. --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY, EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS AND TERRAFORMATION INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 21 December 2000 Articles about astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html A. Bridges, 2000. Ocean lurks deep in Ganymede, Galileo finds. Space.com. E. DeVore, 2000. Life: Here? There? Everywhere? Space.com. SpaceDaily, 2000. Ganymede may harbour ocean. SpaceDaily. SpaceDaily, 2000. Life found in meteorite, says US scientist. SpaceDaily. Spaceflight Now, 2000. Ocean believed hidden on solar system's largest moon. Spaceflight Now. Articles about human space exploration and the microgravity environment http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html SpaceDaily, 2000. Arkansas outlines long-term habitation of Mars. SpaceDaily. Articles about primordial evolution and prebiotic chemistry http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html A. Bridges, 2000. The Chicxulub Crater dig: drilling for solutions to the mystery. Space.com. Astrobiology and extreme environments book list http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology_b ooks.html Iberoamerican School of Astrobiology, 2000. Astrobiology: Origins from the Big-Bang to Civilization. Kluwer Academic Press, Boston. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS JPL releases 7-13 December 2000 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, December 13th. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. Activities this week included the completion of the Phase C partial template for Jupiter observations. During the current period (Jupiter -25 days to Jupiter -10 days) instrument activity begins to vary from a repeating template to more individualized observations as Cassini nears closest approach. Activities include the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) 2x2 movie, Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) North/South scans, Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) Baseline Test, Coordinated CAPS / Hubble Space Telescope observation #1, Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) atmospheric cyclic observations, Jupiter Ring Movie, and Europa Observations. Instrument Operations (IO) and the Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) produced and delivered 1897 ISS images and 32 VIMS cubes this week bringing the totals for Jupiter Encounter to date up to 13029 images and 115 cubes. The Spacecraft Office (SCO) held a Flight Software/Critical Sequence Management Review this week. Good progress is being made in assigning and closing out the Action Items from the critical sequence reviews held in the fall. Also of note was the fact the Attitude Control Software will be using the latest version of the TLD compiler for their next release. The Science Planning Team (SPVT) activity for the C25 cruise sequence completed with the handoff of the final product to the Sequence Team (SVT). This now concludes the SPVT development activities for the Jupiter flyby. Sequence generation has begun with the C25 kickoff meeting and the release of stripped subsequences for SVT members to populate with commands. Consolidated Space Operations Contract (CSOC) personnel within Deep Space Mission Services (DSMS) delivered a preliminary set of new configuration codes for the new equipment at the DSS complexes that will be used to support Cruise Radio Science activities, primarily the Gravitational Wave Experiment (GWE). A Delivery Coordination Meeting (DCM) was held to review the testing for Science Opportunity Analyzer (SOA). Installation will begin this week and will take up to 7 days to complete. Cassini Information Management System (CIMS) developers from JPL and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) met to review the results of completed Beta testing. Clarification of details, and OPNAV and TCM interaction is underway. A Jupiter webcast was held to discuss Jupiter results to date and future Jupiter plans. Participants from various Cassini teams attended. Last week a discussion of the Cassini project, and promotion for an hour-long show to be filmed next week was broadcast live by REAL ORANGE at KOCE-TV in Orange County, and Outreach made a presentation to more than 60 teachers at the southwest regional meeting of the National Science Teachers Association. The Saturn Educator Guide and a postcard commemorating the Jupiter Millennium Flyby are complete and have been delivered to the printer for reproduction. An expanded CD-ROM containing "Ways of Seeing" as well as materials related to the Educator Guide are due back from reproduction this week. 14-19 December 2000 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, December 20. Telemetry obtained from the spacecraft on Sunday, December 17, indicated that on Friday, December 15, at about 5:00 PM Pacific Time, during the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) Hubble Space Telescope (HST) activity #3, the spacecraft transitioned out of Reaction Wheel (RWA) control mode and into Reaction Control Subsystem (RCS) mode due to an unusually high level of friction seen in reaction wheel #2. From that time onwards, the CAPS HST #3 activity as well as the Optical Remote Sensing (ORS) block #4 (Jupiter North/South map and IO eclipse) activities were performed under RCS control. Commands were sent to turn the reaction wheels on and spin them up to 308 rpm, but not to transition to RWA control. Wheel #2 again exhibited a high level of friction up to about 50 rpm. The wheels were turned off and allowed to spin down, and the sequence was allowed to continue in RCS control mode. The speed of the spacecraft can be viewed on the "Present Position" web page at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. The Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) and Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) Instrument Expanded Block (IEB) loads were uplinked as planned and all planned activities executed as scheduled. On Monday, the AACS team presented their analysis of what happened with respect to the RWA anomaly. It was decided to terminate the C23 background sequence due to the excessive use of hydrazine required to support RCS control, and the need for some time to do diagnostic tests to characterize the RWA problem. On Tuesday morning, C23 was deactivated, but with the program remaining on board, the spacecraft was placed on Earth point, and a second RWA friction test was performed. A preliminary analysis of the results from this test does not show any further signs of increased friction levels, but further analysis and characterization activities are planned before consideration of resuming the science sequence. All instruments are currently in a safe configuration and the flight team is working to resolve this issue. Instrument Operations (IO) and the Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) produced and delivered 1583 ISS images and 1213 VIMS cubes this week, bringing the totals for Jupiter Encounter to date up to 14612 images and 1328 cubes. A Rings Working Group teleconference was held this week by Science Planning. Discussion centered on plans for ring observations during the tour in support of development of the Science Operations Plan. Development continues for the Cruise 24 and 25 sequences. The draft version of the C24 Preliminary Sequence Integration & Validation (PSIV) package has been distributed for review. The PSIV meeting will be held on January 2 after the holidays. Stripped subsequences for C25 were released for the Sequence Virtual Team (SVT) to populate with commands. Cassini is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CASSINI MISSION STATUS JPL releases 20 December 2000 The flight team of NASA's Cassini spacecraft is running tests on one of the craft's maneuvering systems to understand a situation that caused the craft to switch automatically to a second system. Cassini had been using a trio of electrically driven reaction wheels for turning itself in different directions to point science instruments. One of those wheels was needing more than the normal amount of force to turn it on December 17, so Cassini's fault-protection switched to a maneuvering system that uses small, hydrazine-burning thrusters. To conserve hydrazine for Cassini's main mission at Saturn, science studies of Jupiter have been suspended, beginning today, for at least a few days while the situation is analyzed. "We are responding cautiously while we test the systems," said Cassini Program Manager Bob Mitchell at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "This might turn out to have no long-term consequences, but we want to better understand what happened before we proceed with using the wheels more." The reaction wheels affect which direction Cassini is facing, but not the direction of its trajectory through space. Cassini continues right on course to pass Jupiter at a distance of about 9.7 million kilometers (6 million miles) on December 30, and with a gravity boost from Jupiter, to reach Saturn in July 2004. Cassini began studying Jupiter in October in collaboration with NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which has been orbiting Jupiter since 1995. Cassini has already returned thousands of images and measurements of Jupiter and its surrounding environment, and scientists are busy studying them. Cassini has four reaction wheel assemblies. Three are mounted mutually perpendicular to each other, and one is a spare. When an electric motor accelerates a wheel, the spacecraft rotates slowly in the opposite direction, obeying the physics law of each action having an opposite reaction. Moving the three wheels in various combinations can point the spacecraft in any desired direction. "The spacecraft did what it was designed to do. It shut off the reaction wheels and began using thrusters instead," Mitchell said. In a diagnostic test on December 18, reaction wheel number two still had higher than normal torque, the amount of force needed to turn it, when it was accelerating to a speed of 50 revolutions per minute, but it spun freely at speeds between 50 and 300 rpm. 21 December 2000 NASA's Cassini spacecraft, approaching Jupiter, will tonight resume use of three electrically powered reaction wheels for controlling its orientation, because of encouraging test results on that system, mission managers decided today. Scientific observations, such as imaging, that require pointing the spacecraft in specific directions remain suspended in order to monitor the reaction-wheel system for a few days while it keeps Cassini's main antenna steadily pointed at Earth. Scientific studies that do not require pointing, such as measurements of magnetic fields, are continuing. An apparent drag on one of the wheels triggered an automatic changeover on December 17 to a different method of controlling the spacecraft's attitude, one that uses small hydrazine-fueled thrusters. Science studies that require pointing were suspended December 19 to conserve hydrazine for Cassini's main mission at Saturn. The craft's four reaction wheels-three mounted mutually perpendicular to each other and one spare-were tested at high speeds December 19 and at slower speeds December 20. "The results were all normal," said Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager at JPL. "If we had just seen results from these tests and nothing earlier, we wouldn't have any concern. It's encouraging, but we need to proceed cautiously." The reaction wheels control the direction Cassini is facing, but not the direction of its trajectory through space. When a motor accelerates a wheel, the spacecraft rotates slowly in the opposite direction. Moving the three wheels in various combinations can point the spacecraft in any desired direction. An increase in wheel number two's torque, or the amount of force needed to turn it, triggered the automatic switch to thrusters and was detected again at low rotation speed, but not at higher speed, in an initial test on December 17. The later tests found no above-normal torque at either high or low speeds. JPL engineers are speculating that a small bit of material, perhaps from one of the motor's magnets, worked its way to a position that caused friction in the motor. "If that's what happened, maybe centrifugal force threw it out or the motor ground it up," Mitchell said. "It doesn't seem to be there now." Another possible cause may be reduced lubrication in the bearings due to prolonged operation at low rotation speed. If this is the cause, then the higher speeds used in the tests appear to have restored the lubrication, and new operating restrictions may need to be implemented about low-speed operation. Cassini will pass Jupiter at a distance of 9.7 million kilometers (6 million miles) on December 30, gaining a boost from its gravity that will allow the spacecraft to reach Saturn in July 2004. The European Space (ESA) this week released new information about the communication link for its Huygens probe carried on the Cassini orbiter. After beginning to orbit Saturn in July 2004, Cassini will release the European-built probe, and the probe will drop down through the thick atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. As previously reported, ESA earlier this year identified a potential problem in the radio link through which the probe will send data to the orbiter, for relaying to Earth. ESA convened an independent inquiry board to assess the status of the Huygens communication link and to recommend ways to assure the return of scientific data from the probe. The board's report is now available at http://sci.esa.int/home/huygens/index.cfm. Additional information about Cassini is available online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini. Cassini is a cooperative mission of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages Cassini for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. --------------------------------------------------------------------- CHRISTMAS ON GALILEO JPL release 18-26 December 2000 During the next nine days, Galileo completes week eight of a 14-week long survey of the Jovian magnetosphere. Past the halfway point of the survey, Galileo also prepares for its next close encounter with the Jupiter system. On Thursday, December 28, the spacecraft will fly just short of 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) from the surface of Ganymede. Preparations for the flyby include a small flight path adjustment performed on Thursday, December 21, and standard maintenance on the spacecraft's onboard tape recorder on Monday, December 25. The December 28 flyby will bring to a close Galileo's longest and largest orbit around Jupiter since arrival at Jupiter in December 1995. Lasting 222 days, the spacecraft's flight path took it to a distance of 290 Jupiter radii (20.7 million kilometers, or 12.9 million miles) from Jupiter on September 8, 2000. Galileo's second largest orbit followed immediately after arrival when the spacecraft traveled for 203 days between encounters and reached a maximum range of 270 Jupiter radii (19.3 million kilometers, or 12.0 million miles). The survey of the Jovian magnetosphere is being performed by Galileo's Fields and Particles instruments, and is part of a joint observation campaign with the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini's flight plan takes it by Jupiter on December 30, en route to Saturn in 2004. Joint Galileo and Cassini observation campaigns are planned during the days and weeks surrounding the dual-spacecraft encounter with Jupiter and its moons. The joint flyby will offer scientists a unique opportunity to examine data describing the Jupiter system as viewed from two different observation platforms, a very rare event. Come back on Wednesday, December 27, for the return of Today on Galileo and the excitement of another Galileo encounter. Until then, the Galileo Project wishes you and yours a very happy holiday season! 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 20 December 2000 Almost two months into their vanguard mission, the Expedition One crew spent the week checking systems on the International Space Station (ISS), conducting biomedical experiments and preparing for the redocking of an unmanned Progress resupply vehicle next week after a break to celebrate Christmas. Commander Bill Shepherd, Pilot Yuri Gidzenko and Flight Engineer Sergei Krikalev spent the last two days updating the Station's computers which keep track of all of the hardware used on board as part of an "inventory management system" designed to maintain files on where all of the crew's equipment is located. Now in their 50th day in space and their 48th day aboard the ISS, Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev also conducted routine maintenance on environmental systems and communications gear as they near the midway point of their planned four-month mission. The Elektron oxygen-generation system, the Vozdukh carbon dioxide removal system and the air conditioning system are all working in excellent shape in the Zvezda living quarters to maintain a comfortable environment for the three crew members. Work is underway to determine how many spare parts for key Station systems will be delivered aboard the Shuttle Atlantis next month on the STS-98 mission to install the U.S. Laboratory Destiny to the ISS. Other spare parts are scheduled to be launched aboard the next Progress resupply ship to the Station, currently targeted for blastoff around February 10th. The Expedition crew plans a quiet Christmas celebration in orbit next Monday, opening presents delivered on the last Progress vehicle and by Endeavour's astronauts earlier this month on the STS-97 mission. They will talk to their families in private conferences and enjoy a dinner of rehydrated turkey. Shepherd said yesterday the crew plans to spend a lot of time on Christmas simply looking out of the ISS windows at the Earth below. This week, U.S. and Russian managers formally approved a plan for the redocking of the second Progress resupply ship to the ISS at around 5:00 AM Central time (1100 GMT) on December 26. The Progress will be manually guided in by Gidzenko for its linkup to the Zarya module's nadir, or downward facing, docking port. Gidzenko will be operating a joystick at the Zvezda module's command post, which is part of the TORU, or telerobotically operated navigation system, as he flies the Progress in for its second docking to the Station. Earlier today, Russian flight controllers executed the first is a series of engine firings on the Progress to begin drawing the vehicle back toward the ISS for its linkup. The firing occurred with the unmanned craft about 2300 kilometers in front of the ISS and was designed to raise the orbit of the Progress so that its closure rate on the Station would slow to about 40 kilometers per orbit, placing the Progress just 600 kilometers in front of the orbiting outpost this weekend. Additional engine firings are planned on Christmas Day and again in the morning on December 26 to refine the Progress' path to the ISS, ultimately placing the craft about 200 meters below the Zarya module's docking port, where Gidzenko will take over manual control of the approach of the Progress. Once docked, the Progress will be used as a trash receptacle by Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev until it is undocked a final time the day after Atlantis' launch on the next Shuttle assembly flight to the ISS. The Progress was launched on November 16th from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and was manually docked to the ISS on November 18th By Gidzenko after its automated navigation system encountered a software problem. The Progress was undocked on December 1st after the launch of Endeavour and was placed in a parking orbit to allow Russian engineers time to devise a software patch to the automatic guidance system which will be tested during next Tuesday's rendezvous and redocking. An Expedition One Mission Status Briefing is scheduled for Thursday, December 21 at 4:00 PM EST at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX to discuss the progress of the flight and upcoming activities for Shepherd, Gidzenko and Krikalev. The briefers will include Lead Expedition One Flight Director Jeff Hanley and ISS Flight Director John Curry, who is overseeing the plans for the Progress redocking. The briefing will include a multicenter question and answer capability and will be broadcast on NASA Television, which can be found on GE-2, Transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, vertical polarization, with a frequency of 3880 Mhz and audio of 6.8 Mhz. The next written Expedition One status report will be issued on Tuesday, December 26 following the Progress redocking, or sooner, if developments warrant. --------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR STATUS REPORT JPL release 13 December 2000 Launch / Days since Launch = November 7, 1996 / 1498 days Start of Mapping / Days since Start of Mapping = April 1, 1999 / 622 days Total Mapping Orbits = 7,902 Total Orbits = 9,505 Recent events The spacecraft continues to operate nominally in performing the beta- supplement daily recording and transmission of science data. The mm094 sequence executed successfully from 00-342 (12/7/00) through 00-344 (12/9/00). The mm095 sequence has performed well since it started on 00-345 (12/10/00). It terminates on 00-348 (12/13/00). The mm096 sequence, successfully uplinked on 00-347 (12/12/00), begins executing on 00-349 (12/14/00). No special science scans were conducted this week. Science Campaign F started on 00-345 (12/10/00) and lasts until 00-356 (12/21/00). MGS is receiving 24-hour/day coverage during the campaign, greatly increasing the amount of high-resolution real-time science data that it transmits to Earth. Spacecraft health All subsystems report nominal health. Uplinks There have been 7 uplinks to the spacecraft during the last week, including instrument command loads and the sequences cited above. There have been 5,007 command files radiated to the spacecraft since launch. Upcoming events The mm097 background sequence will be uplinked on 00-350 (12/15/00). Radio Science Occultation Egress Scans, scheduled for 00-353 (12/18/00) through 00-356 (12/21/00), will be commanded by the mz065, mz066 and mz067 mini-sequences. --------------------------------------------------------------------- STARDUST STATUS REPORT JPL release 15 December 2000 There were eight Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes during the past week. All subsystems onboard the spacecraft are performing normally. The Earth Gravity Assist (EGA) mission event review was held on December 7th. The review resulted in a good discussion of the activities planned for EGA. The planned EGA activities are: January 5 - Trajectory Correction Maneuver #5 (TCM-5) is scheduled for 1000 (MST). January 10 - Transition to a fixed attitude since the angle to Earth will change rapidly as the closest flyby distance approaches. January 14 - Transition to Gyro Based Attitude Determination. January 15 - At approximately 04:13:40 (MST) the closest approach will occur, 6000 km from the earth. February 14 - TCM-6 The navigation camera's CCD heater remains on and will be kept in this configuration until Monday December 18th, when the heater will be turned off. The Stardust Outreach team gave a Stardust talk to Science Teachers at the Maryland Science Center on December 14. 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 49.