MARSBUGS: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 9, Number 11, 18 March 2002. Editors: Dr. David J. Thomas, 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 monthly 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. Information concerning the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available from the Marsbugs web page at http://welcome.to/marsbugs or http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/marsbugs/marsbugs.html. _____________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) A DARN SITE BETTER By Seth Shostak 2) MARTIAN SURFACE FEATURES WERE ERODED BY LIQUID CARBON DIOXIDE, NOT RUNNING WATER, RESEARCHERS SAY American Geophysical Union release 02-09 3) ONCE UPON A WATER PLANET By Trudy E. Bell and Tony Phillips 4) NASA SELECTS PURDUE TEAM TO HELP DEVELOP LIFE-SUPPORTING ECOSYSTEM IN SPACE NASA release 02-48 5) TRANSLIFE MISSION TEAMS HOLD DESIGN REVIEW Mars Society release 6) MARTIAN SPOTS WARRANT A CLOSE LOOK From ESA Science News 7) LIVE FROM MARS 2002: "LIVE FROM MARS" TO CLASSROOMS ACROSS AMERICA! Passport to Knowledge release 8) CALTECH ASTRONOMER TO DISCUSS THE SEARCH FOR PLANETS OUTSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM California Institute of Technology release 9) INTERSTELLAR TRAVELERS WILL HAVE TO WATCH THEIR LANGUAGE By Leonard David 10) UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON GEOLOGIST RECREATES "LIFE ON MARS" EVIDENCE IN HER LABORATORY University of Dayton release 11) POPULAR SCIENCE CALLS FOR HUMANS TO MARS Mars Society release 12) GRAVITY IN THE BRAIN By Karen Miller 13) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 14) CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 15) INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS NASA/JSC release 16) MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 17) STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release _____________________________________________________________________ A DARN SITE BETTER By Seth Shostak From Space.com 10 March 2002 "One-site observing is like banging your head against a wall," intones Project Phoenix software manager Jane Jordan. "I look forward to some relief when it stops." Project Phoenix is definitely in one-site mode. Our second telescope at Jodrell Bank--just south of Manchester, England--sprung a busted wheel girder about a week ago, and is laid up for repairs. Bad news. But while having this second instrument is extraordinarily valuable, it’s not quite essential. Jane gestures casually toward the glowing Phoenix work stations, carpeted with data. "When we designed this stuff, a decade ago, everyone thought the universe would be quiet. To find extraterrestrial transmissions, all we had to do was point the telescope at likely stars and search the spectrum for narrow-band signals. Just like in the movies." In fact, the universe is quiet, especially at the microwave frequencies used for SETI. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico isn’t. This isn’t a slam against the Isle of Enchantment. No place on Earth is free of man-made interference. No place. Even if you’re in a deep valley curtained by mountains, noisy satellites will sail overhead, raining radio signals on your head and your antenna. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_diary2_020310.html. _____________________________________________________________________ MARTIAN SURFACE FEATURES WERE ERODED BY LIQUID CARBON DIOXIDE, NOT RUNNING WATER, RESEARCHERS SAY American Geophysical Union release 02-09 12 March 2002 Scientists have provided new evidence that liquid carbon dioxide, not running water, may have been the primary cause of erosional features such as gullies, valley networks, and channels that cover the surface of Mars. Research suggesting that condensed carbon dioxide found in Martian crust carved these features is reported by Kenneth L. Tanaka and colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, and the University of Melbourne, Australia, will appear this month in Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union. Using Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) data, Tanaka and his colleagues constructed elevation profiles of the Hellas basin, which, at 2000 kilometers wide and nine kilometers deep, is the largest well-preserved impact basin on Mars. By examination of digitally created elevation profiles with 500-meter resolution, they found that the volcanic regions of Malea and Hesperia Plana, along the rim of the Hellas basin, are several hundred meters lower than adjacent rim sectors. Additionally, these areas lack the prominent triangular peaks, called massifs, that are common in nearby areas. Along the inner slopes of these regions, the researchers found, however, evidence of old massifs covered by volcanic rocks. They are too low to be covered, if there were volcanic activity today. The researchers suggest as an explanation that prior to volcanic activity, these regions along the rim of the basin resembled nearby areas, but were eroded to their present-day elevations following the emplacement of the volcanic rocks. Tanaka and his colleagues propose a "magmatic erosion model" to explain the features of the volcanic areas of Malea and Hesperia Plana, suggesting that they underwent catastrophic erosion associated with explosive eruptions of molten rock. They suggest that liquid in the Martian crust was heated when molten rock, or magma, rose to the surface. As the liquid was heated, it expanded, until the pressure of overlying material was too great, and an explosive eruption occurred, shattering overlying rock, and causing it to move with the magma in an erosive debris flow. The authors believe that the fluid in the crust along this area of the rim of the Hellas basin was mainly liquid carbon dioxide. A debris flow dominated by carbon dioxide would flow faster and farther than a water-based flow, they say. Also, carbon dioxide is more volatile than water at lower temperatures, and the cold temperatures found on Mars would mean that less carbon dioxide-based magma would be required to produce the observed erosion than magma containing mainly water. The researchers suggest that this mechanism of erosion can also explain collapse features and channels elsewhere on Mars. They also note, however, that their model is based on a variety of assumptions that must be further tested. Contact: Harvey Leifert Phone: 202-777-7507 E-mail: hleifert@agu.org _____________________________________________________________________ ONCE UPON A WATER PLANET By Trudy E. Bell and Tony Phillips From NASA Science News 12 March 2002 Today the Red Planet is dry and barren, but what about tomorrow? New data suggest that the long story of water on Mars isn't over yet. When Orson Welles broadcast "The War of the Worlds" in 1938, many listeners were ready to believe in Martians. After all, astronomers had long debated markings on the Red Planet that might be aquaducts or fields of vegetation; why not warlike aliens as well? Among laypeople (and some scientists) the notion that Mars was Earth- like--warm, wet and verdant--persisted for decades, until the first spacecraft visited the Red Planet. The Mariner missions of the late 1960's revealed the real Mars: heavily cratered, dotted with extinct volcanoes, colder than Antarctica and drier than the Sahara desert. There were no trees, no canals, no Martians--and very little atmosphere! "The War of the Worlds" was a fantasy after all. Subsequent missions mostly confirmed a new paradigm: Mars was once wet, but now it is dry. Spacecraft photos of Mars reveal signs of ancient rivers, lakes and maybe even an ocean. They might have been filled with water billions of years ago, but something happened--no one knows what--and the planet became a global desert. Wherever the moisture went, new data suggest it might not be gone for good. Indeed, water may have flowed on Mars literally as recent as "yesterday or last year," declares James Garvin, Chief Scientist for Mars exploration at NASA headquarters. Evidence is mounting that water lies beneath the Martian terrain, he says. Furthermore, every few centuries weather conditions might become clement enough for that water to "come and go" on the surface as well. The first hints of water near Mars' surface came in 2000 when the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on board NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft spotted hundreds of delicately filigreed gully systems. Individual gullies are just 10 meters wide (earlier missions couldn't photograph such small features) and a whole system might cover only a dozen city blocks. Their sculpted terrain, cut-bank patterns, and fan-shaped accumulations of debris look hauntingly similar to flash- flood gully washes in deserts on Earth. Dozens of the gully systems appear on the shaded sides of hills facing the polar ice caps. Their geometry suggests that "swimming- pool volumes of water could be entombed underground until suddenly it's warm enough for an ice plug to burst, letting all the water rush down the slopes," Garvin said. Many of the gully systems look extraordinarily recent--sharply carved and crossing older, wind-scoured features. Their appearance is so fresh, in fact, that it has excited planetary geologists such as MOC designer Mike Malin to think that Mars "may have experienced massive, short-term climate changes, where water could come and go in hundreds of years." Indeed, Garvin said, scientists wonder whether liquid water might exist on Mars now, buried in some areas perhaps 500 meters underground, and that "there might be a dynamic cycling of the atmosphere going on even today." MOC's findings are corroborated by data from another instrument on the spacecraft, the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). For 27 months--longer than a Martian year (one Martian year is 687 Earth days)--MOLA gauged the daily height of the Red Planet's polar icecaps, meticulously recording how much frozen material accumulated in winter and eroded (sublimed or evaporated) in summer in each hemisphere. MOLA documented that each ice cap has a volume as great as the Greenland ice cap on Earth. Although the upper crust of frost is clearly carbon dioxide, scientists are now convinced that much of both caps' supporting mass must be frozen water--structurally, "dry ice can't stand up two miles high," Garvin remarked. MOLA and MOC measured how the polar caps shrink in each hemisphere's summer. They shrink so much, in fact, that if the observed trends were continued for just a few centuries, nearly a third of each polar cap could evaporate into Mars's atmosphere. That would pump the atmospheric pressure up from 6 millibars to 30 or 40 mb (the Earth's atmospheric pressure is about 1000 mb)--high enough pressure for liquid water to be stable on the planet's surface under certain temperature conditions. Thus, perhaps as recently as just a century or two ago, Mars might have been "clement enough for ponds of water" to have dotted its surface like desert oases, Garvin said--and current trends suggest it might become so again. All these observations reopen a venerable question: was there--or is there--life on Mars? "Following the water makes sense if you're prospecting for biology," Garvin declared. "If we could find evidence of preserved liquid water on Mars, that would be the Holy Grail." Looking for water is in fact a prime mission of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, whose high-gain antenna unfurled on February 6, 2002, and whose instruments began mapping Mars at the end of that month. Odyssey's multispectral camera is imaging Mars simultaneously at numerous infrared wavelengths (from 8 to 20 micrometers) with unprecedented football-field resolution, seeking thermal and mineral "fingerprints" hinting of seeps, volcanic vents, or underground reservoirs. Initial science data released March 1 is already tantalizing scientists. Within its first week, Odyssey's gamma-ray spectrometer has detected significant amounts of hydrogen in Mars's south polar regions--possibly indicating the presence of frozen water in the upper few feet of the Martian soil. "These preliminary Odyssey observations are the 'tip of the iceberg'," Garvin concluded. Perhaps he was speaking quite literally! Additional information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/12mar_waterplanet.htm. _____________________________________________________________________ NASA SELECTS PURDUE TEAM TO HELP DEVELOP LIFE-SUPPORTING ECOSYSTEM IN SPACE NASA release 02-48 12 March 2002 NASA's Office of Biological and Physical Research has selected Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, for a five-year grant totaling $10 million to lead a NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training (NSCORT) for Advanced Life Support (ALS) that will develop technologies to enable long-duration planetary missions and sustain human space colonies. This ALS NSCORT will consist of a consortium of institutions that includes Purdue and two historically black universities, Alabama A&M University in Normal, Alabama, and Howard University in Washington, DC. Scientists and engineers from all three institutions will work together to conduct research on a number of self-sustaining technologies required for long-duration space missions, including solid-waste processing, water recovery and air revitalization, and food processing and food safety. "I'm very pleased with the outstanding proposal received from Purdue and look forward to a rich and productive scientific return that can help substantially reduce the cost of supporting humans on future long-duration space missions," said Dr. Guy Fogleman, Acting Director for the Bioastronautics Research Division and lead for the Advanced Human Support Technology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The team of investigators will work to design a self-sustaining environment for future space colonies where the inhabitants will live inside fully enclosed structures; grow their own food; and constantly process, recycle and purify all wastes. Plants will provide a source of food and oxygen, microbes will be used to break down wastes, and other technologies will be needed to remove impurities from the air and water. The ALS NSCORT was established to advance fundamental knowledge in life-support technologies with the ultimate application of enabling human space flight and long-term planetary missions. This NSCORT is expected to enhance NASA's base of scholarship, skills and performance in space biological and biomedical sciences and related technological areas. The effort also will expand the pool of research scientists and engineers trained to meet the challenges ahead as NASA prepares for human space exploration missions. NASA received four proposals from universities in response to the research solicitation released in July 2001. Proposals were peer- reviewed by scientific and technical experts from academia and government before a selection was made. Evaluation of proposals also included review by NASA program scientists and managers for programmatic relevance and cost. Additional information about the NASA Office of Biological and Physical Research is available on the Internet at http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov/. Contact: Dwayne C. Brown Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1726 An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/food-02a.html. _____________________________________________________________________ TRANSLIFE MISSION TEAMS HOLD DESIGN REVIEW Mars Society release 12 March 2002 Four university-based teams competing for the honor of building the Mars Society's Translife mission met for a design review Feb 28 at NASA Ames Research Center. The Translife mission will test the effect of Mars gravity by flying a group of mice for 50 days in a rotating spacecraft in low Earth orbit. The mice will be allowed to reproduce and the young to grow up in 3/8 g. the experiment will thus provide the first data on both the effect of Martian gravity on mammals born and raised on Earth and those born and raised on Mars. This information is key for planning future human Mars exploration missions and for determining the prospects for the settlement of Mars with higher life from Earth. The four teams competing were MIT, the University of Colorado, the University of Washington, and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University. A down-select to a team or set of teams to do the mission is expected within 2 weeks. The summary design reports submitted by the teams may be accessed through the links at www.marssociety.org. A complete report on the progress of the Translife Mission will be presented at the 5th International Mars Society Convention. You can register for it now at www.marssociety.org. _____________________________________________________________________ MARTIAN SPOTS WARRANT A CLOSE LOOK From ESA Science News http://sci.esa.int 13 March 2002 Are dark spots that appear near the south pole of Mars in early spring, a sign of life on the Red Planet? No one can say for sure, according to a group of scientists who met at ESTEC, ESA's technical center in the Netherlands. But the spots are certainly fascinating, the meeting agreed, and well worth a detailed look by Mars Express, the European Space Agency's Mars mission, when it goes into orbit around the Red Planet in late 2003. Agustin Chicarro, ESA project scientist for Mars Express, called the meeting after the spots began fuelling controversy here on Earth last summer. "As a geologist, I found the spots quite perplexing and very exciting. I wanted to tap a broad spectrum of expert opinion to decide whether they warrant closer examination by Mars Express," he said. The controversy began when András Horváth, Tibor Gánti and Eörs Szathmáry from the Planetarium and the Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest, suggested that the spots could be colonies of Martian microbes which wax and wane with the season. Michael Malin and Kenneth Edgett, designers of the Mars Orbital Camera on board NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which recorded the images of the spots, had previously suggested an explanation involving evaporation and re-freezing of predominantly carbon dioxide ice. The meeting considered these and other possibilities. Spots appear in Spring, disappear in Summer The spots appear on dunes found on the floors of craters in the south and north polar regions. The Hungarian team has examined the southern spots in detail. "They appear in late winter and by summer they have disappeared. They appear first at the margins of the dune fields and rarely appear on the ridges of dunes," Szathmary told the meeting. Their location (which is independent of the elevation of the land) and shape (which is circular on flat surfaces but elongated on slopes) seem to be at odds with a physical explanation alone, say the Hungarian scientists who have proposed a biological explanation instead. The spots are colonies of photosynthetic Martian microorganisms, they hypothesize, which over-winter beneath the ice cap. As the Sun returns to the pole during early spring, light penetrates the ice, the microorganisms photosynthesize and heat their immediate surroundings. A pocket of water, which would normally evaporate instantly in the thin Martian atmosphere, is trapped around them by the overlying ice. As this ice layer thins, the microorganisms show through gray. When it has completely melted, they rapidly desiccate and turn black. This explains why many dark dune spots have a black center surrounded by a gray aureole, say the Hungarian scientists. Although there are several examples of black microorganisms growing in hostile environments on Earth, there could be a non-biological explanation for the dark color of the spots on Mars, Marcello Coradini, ESA's Solar System Missions coordinator, told the meeting. "Images taken by the Giotto spacecraft showed that the black color of cometary nuclei is formed when a mixture of carbon and water ice is exposed to ultraviolet radiation," he said. Experiments on board Mars Express could help to determine whether the same had happened on Mars. Life at the extreme on Earth The meeting heard that microorganisms have been found living in water pockets trapped within the ice cover of very salty lakes in Antarctic dry valleys. However, this environment, although hostile, is far more benign than that found in the Martian dune spots region, David Wynn-Williams from the British Antarctic Survey told the meeting. Temperatures at the Martian south pole reach -126 degrees Celsius compared with -70 degrees Celsius in Antarctica. The thin Martian atmosphere also transmits far more damaging UV radiation than even the ozone-depleted atmosphere above the Antarctic. Nobody knows just how tolerant life can be to these and other environmental stresses. On Earth, cyanobacteria, for example, come with a very efficient UV filter, said Wynn-Williams. "We are going to put some Antarctic microbes into space on the International Space Station to find out just how much UV they can take," he said. A dearth of water, however, could be the biggest problem for Martian microorganisms. Martian south polar ice is thought to consist mainly of carbon dioxide and there may be insufficient water ice to sustain even the hardiest of microbes. GianGabriele Ori from the Gabriele D'Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy, doubted whether there is any ice at all over the dunes in question. "The dunes appear very distinct in the images," he said. "If there is a covering of ice, it must be very thin." Physical explanations Nonetheless, Ori did not rule out a biological explanation for the spots. "There could be a geological process which is supporting biological activity," he said. One possibility is the gradual release of gas including water vapor from below the Martian crust. "Such gas release could be responsible for the spots without biological activity. But the gas could also fuel biological activity," he said. John Bridges from the Natural History Museum in London argued for an investigation of similar spots found in the northern polar region, pointing out that wind blown dust could have a role in their formation. Rock weathering, though, was dismissed as a cause "because the spots turn from black to white to black again--and you can't reverse weathering," said Ori. The meeting agreed, however, that other geological explanations could not be ruled out. "The biological explanation is by far the most complex and is much less likely than a physical or chemical explanation," according to Wynn-Williams. "What we need to settle this is ground truth. We have to go there," said Ori. Mars Express could take a look No lander is presently planned to visit the dark dune spot areas. The Mars Express lander, Beagle 2, will touch down on Isidis Planitia, a large plain just north of the equator, at the end of 2003. However, several instruments on the Mars Express orbiter can observe selected areas of the Martian surface at very high resolution. "If the dark dune spots are selected as targets for analysis, many outstanding questions about the spots could be answered," said Chicarro. OMEGA, the infrared mapping spectrometer, for example, could determine the mineral composition of the spots, allowing some hypotheses to be eliminated. PFS, the planetary Fourier spectrometer, could measure the amount of carbon dioxide and water ice present, the temperature of the spots compared with their surroundings and the pressure of the local atmosphere. MARSIS, the radar sounder, could determine the thickness of the ice and the HRSC, the camera, could take high-resolution, 3D, full-color images of the spots. Images and data from orbit may eliminate some hypotheses, but proof of life on Mars will require landers and possibly humans to see the evidence firsthand. A future Mars lander could carry a Raman spectrometer capable of detecting the sorts of pigments used by microbes on Earth to harness solar energy for photosynthesis and to protect them from UV, Wynn-Williams told the meeting. Opportunities to fly this and other innovative instruments to Mars could be provided by Aurora, ESA's program of planetary exploration currently under discussion. Malcolm Fridlund, project scientist for Darwin, an ESA mission to search for life on extrasolar planets, however, ended the meeting on a philosophical note which expressed an understandable sentiment. "I find it hard to believe," he said "that Martian life, the last vestiges of a fertile time 3.5 billion years ago, has hung on by a thread for all this time until humans have developed the technology to find it." Several papers on dark dune spots on Mars will be presented at the European Geophysical Society annual conference in Nice, France, 22-26 April 2002. * More about Mars Express http://sci.esa.int/marsexpress * Life in the Universe http://sci2.esa.int/specialevents/lifeinuniverse/ [Image 1: http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12& oid=29618&ooid=29675] Are dark spots on Mars a sign of life? Images from the Mars Orbital Camera on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor appear to show dark spots which appear near the south pole of Mars in early spring ('slice' on left). According to a group of Hungarian scientists these spots may be a sign of life on Mars. (This composite image shows a Mars Orbital Camera image superimposed on a Hubble image of Mars. It is intended to be illustrative rather than scientifically accurate.) [Image 2: http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12& oid=29618&ooid=29585] Spots appear in Spring, disappear in Summer. (A) Late springtime frost disappears from the dunes and they become dark. (B) Early spring spots appear on the bright frosted surface of the dune field. Mars Orbiter Camera image processed by Malin Space Science Systems. [Image 3: http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12& oid=29618&ooid=29587] The location and shape of the spots is at odds with a physical explanation. (A) Spots develop on the dark dunes rather than on the stony soil nearby. (B) Spots are also ellipsoid in shape or even (C) fan-shaped. Mars Orbiter Camera image processed by Malin Space Science Systems. [Image 4: http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=9&cid=12& oid=29618&ooid=29640] Instruments on the Mars Express orbiter can observe selected areas of the Martian surface. Instruments on the Mars Express orbiter: 1. MARSIS 2. HRSC 3. OMEGA 4. SPICAM 5. PFS 6. ASPERA 7. MaRS (no corresponding hardware) 8. Beagle 2 An additional article on this subject is available at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0203/14marsspots/. _____________________________________________________________________ LIVE FROM MARS 2002: "LIVE FROM MARS" TO CLASSROOMS ACROSS AMERICA! Passport to Knowledge release http://passporttoknowledge.com/mars/broadcast.html 14 March 2002 With Mars in the news, students interact with NASA researchers and find out how they can target a camera aboard the "Mars Odyssey" spacecraft! Out-of-this-world interactive learning adventure debuts live at 13:00-14:00 Eastern, Tuesday March 19, 2002 on participating public television stations and educational networks. (Check local listings) Mars, the Red Planet, has always fascinated humans. Just last week, America Online showcased news of ancient Martian floods on its "Welcome" screen. Newspapers across the nation made the first discoveries from NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey mission front page news: lots of water ice found on the planet! Now students watching via public television and NASA-TV, and connecting over the Internet, can interact with some of the same researchers who made those headlines. They'll also have the opportunity to explore Mars for themselves, through some of the amazing images recently sent back to Earth. LIVE FROM MARS 2002 originates live from the Mars Student Imaging Facility, at Arizona State University, where Phil Christensen, who heads up the visible and infrared camera team for Odyssey, will unveil some images "just in" from Mars. Heather Enos from the Gamma Ray Spectrometer Team (GRS) at the University of Arizona, Tucson, will present some of the fundamental science behind the initial discoveries. Bill Feldman, from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, will use billiard balls and jars of water to explain how Odyssey's sophisticated instruments can tell the composition of Mars from high in orbit round the planet. Bill Boynton, head of the GRS team, describes their surprise at finding such large amounts of hydrogen, evidence of water ice, so early in the mission. On location at the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater, viewers discover how Earth and Mars are both alike and also very different in geology and surface features, atmosphere and "weather", and explore the role of water in shaping the Martian landscape, and the possibility of past or present life. One of the most unique aspects of the program will be an explanation of how students can now actually apply to target the THEMIS camera for themselves! The new Mars Student Imaging Facility, supported by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, opened on February 22nd, just a few days after the first Odyssey science images arrived. MSIP Director Sheri Klug and colleagues explain the process of applying for on-site "missions," or connecting remotely via the Internet. The first group of on-site "Student Interns", from the Olympia school district, IL, explain what they've learned about image processing, and what features on Mars they've selected for the very first student target. Middle and High School students in Nogales, AZ, are seen getting ready for their own participation. Demonstrating more of what the Internet now makes possible, classrooms in Green Valley, close to Tucson; Chehalis, WA; Silverton, OR, and Pennsylvania, collaborate via videoconference on a hands-on activity building lava layers like those seen on Mars. Some of them interact with Phil Christensen and other members of the enthusiastic THEMIS team, and ask questions about the recent discoveries. Via videoconference and documentary sequences Odyssey scientists and engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory update us on the status of the spacecraft. Arizona student participation on site at MSIP and across the state is being supported by ASSET, Arizona School Services through Educational Technology, which will make the entire program accessible as an indexed video archive after the initial live program. Viewers of this broadcast can do lots more than just sit back and watch: during the program, and for one hour afterwards, any student, anywhere, can use P2K's "ON-AIR" software to send questions to some of the scientists seen on camera, and get back answers in close to real time. After the broadcast, all the question and answer pairs will be archived as a student-generated Mars "FAQ." (Teachers are invited to subscribe to the moderated DISCUSS-MARS mail list to share resources with fellow-educators, and more: for information about how to subscribe, check out the LIVE FROM MARS 2002 section of the PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE web site, http://passporttoknowledge.com) Looking to the future, Francis Cucinotta, Manager for Radiation Health at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, explains what the Martian Radiation Environment Experiment on Odyssey discovered en route to Mars, and how to keep future astronauts safe on the long journey there, and back. But first, in 2003, NASA will launch 2 robotic spacecraft, the Mars Exploration Rovers. Larger and heavier than the only previous rover mission, they're due to land on Mars in early 2004. One of Odyssey's tasks, in fact, is to scout out safe and scientifically interesting landing sites for the rovers. We go behind the scenes of this exciting new mission, seeing airbags being made in Delaware and tested in Ohio, sophisticated rock grinding instruments being manufactured in New York City, and the rovers themselves coming together in clean rooms and software testbeds at JPL. Students meet some of the hundreds of engineers and scientists already involved with the rovers, and find out that as they struggle with tight budgets and even tougher schedules, it's the creativity and persistence of the men and women on the rover team who really make the mission fly. It's a fast-paced hour, formatted to be viewed again and again, and used in short segments, on tape, in class. Major support for LIVE FROM MARS 2002 comes from NASA, through its Office of Space Science. Additional support for the ASU/MSIP uplink comes from ASSET, Arizona School Services through Educational Technology. Additional support for this program has been provided through the cooperation of the Mars Exploration Program at JPL (NASA/Caltech), the ASU Mars K-12 Education Program, Arizona State University, Tempe, and by KAET, Channel 8, Tempe. The remote classroom videoconference has been facilitated by Qwest Communications International, Inc. About "Passport to Knowledge" PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE (P2K), producer of LIVE FROM MARS 2002, is public television's longest-running series of interactive science education projects. P2K's mission is to connect classroom instruction to exciting, current real world science. P2K aligns its materials with the National Academy's Science Education Standards and Project 2061/"Benchmarks." Its web site (passporttoknowledge.com) also provides correlations with all 50 state science standards. To date P2K has created nearly 65 hours of original video programming, supported or complemented by award-winning on-line materials and inquiry-based hands-on activities, featuring world-class research and researchers working for NASA, NSF, NOAA and other leading science agencies. Objective measures show 22% improvements in work embodying the National Science Standards. Many public television stations nationwide now regard the LIVE FROM programs as valuable components of their schedule. Satellite and downlink information The program will be accessible to public television stations on Digicypher Channel 512, one of PBS's digitally-encoded transponders. Please note that there will be no test signal on this transponder; the program begins straight up at 13:00 hours Eastern. Please check local listings. The program may also be accessed from a non-encrypted, analog, Ku- band transponder: AMC-3 (formerly GE-3), 87 degrees West, Ku-band, transponder 15, Horizontal polarity, downlink frequency, 12000.000 Mhz, audio on 6.2 and 6.8. A test signal of slate, bars and tone will run from 12:30-13:00 Eastern, followed by the program. This program is free to all PBS stations and non-commercial educational networks upon registration of usage (form online and distributed via e-mail/PBS FirstClass), and may be re-broadcast unlimited times for one year after March 19. Teachers may tape the program off air and use it in class, also for one year after broadcast. In addition, subject to Space Shuttle and International Space Station programming, we expect the programs to be carried live and/or on tape delay on NASA-TV. Please check the NASA-TV schedule on the day of the broadcast for any late pre-emptions. NTV is broadcast on GE-2, transponder 9C, C-Band, located at 85 degrees West longitude. The frequency is 3880.0 MHz. Polarization is vertical and audio is monaural at 6.8 MHz. Running time and technical details 59:29, mono 2-track, not Closed Captioned. Educational support materials and resources LFM2002 relates cutting-edge space research to fundamental science concepts being studied in every course of instruction: light and optics, the spectrum, atoms and elements, weather on Earth and the planets of our solar system, water and life, and many more topics central to the curriculum. Target grades are 5-9, though extension options will easily engage elementary and high school students. Hands-on activities created by NASA, JPL, ASU and others are available online in PDF and html formats, via the Mars Exploration Program and Mars Odyssey web sites (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/classroom/teachers.html). Questions about broadcast information or educational resources Please contact PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE at 973-656-9403 or via ptkinfo@passporttoknowledge.com. About "2001 Mars Odyssey" The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. Investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. Additional science partners are located at the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, which provided the high-energy neutron detector, and at Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico, which provided the neutron spectrometer. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. _____________________________________________________________________ CALTECH ASTRONOMER TO DISCUSS THE SEARCH FOR PLANETS OUTSIDE OUR SOLAR SYSTEM California Institute of Technology release 14 March 2002 Are there Earth-like planets "out there?" The question of whether or not the stars of the night sky are encircled by families of planets similar to our own has intrigued astronomers and the general public alike for centuries. No one knows if there are other planets that resemble the Earth's characteristics, but ongoing searches now deliver newly discovered planets by the dozen, and many of these are far stranger than anyone had imagined. On Wednesday, April 3, 2002, Dr. David Charbonneau, a Millikan Postdoctoral Scholar in Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology, will discuss the direct evidence for planets outside our solar system, evidence that has only come about in the last decade. His talk is part of the ongoing Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series that takes place on the Caltech campus. Charbonneau, a recent import to the Caltech astronomy staff from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is one of the world's leading authorities on the search for "transiting planets," or planets that should be detectable as they pass into the line of sight between their host star and Earth. Indeed, Charbonneau was the first to detect the passage of a planet across its parent star. Last November, Charbonneau and his colleagues made international news when they discovered the first planetary atmosphere outside our own solar system, work done using the Hubble Space Telescope. That work continues using data from the Hubble and from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. He is also leading a team at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to build a new telescope at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California. This instrument will operate as part of a network that searches thousands of Sun-like stars to detect orbiting planets. In his talk, Charbonneau will introduce our neighboring planetary systems and describe how the direct detection of those elusive, small, Earth-like worlds may be much closer than you might think. Caltech has offered the Watson Lecture Series for almost 80 years, since the late Caltech physicist Earnest Watson conceived it as a way to explain science to the local community. Seating is available on a free, no-ticket-required, first-come, first-served basis. The lecture will begin at 8:00 PM in Beckman Auditorium, 332 South Michigan Avenue, on Caltech's campus in Pasadena. For more information, call 1-888-2CALTECH (1-888-222-5832) or 626- 395-4652. Contact: Mark Wheeler Phone: 626-395-8733 E-mail: wheel@caltech.edu _____________________________________________________________________ INTERSTELLAR TRAVELERS WILL HAVE TO WATCH THEIR LANGUAGE By Leonard David From Space.com 14 March 2002 If you speak English, you have a linguistic leg up on becoming an interstellar traveler. But there is a snag. Everybody knows that hopping between stars is tough, no matter how you cut time and distance. Looking at the voyage today, such a trek might take multiple generations. At issue is how will Earthlings communicate with people returning from a 200-year space excursion? That was one question grappled with during a session on interstellar travel and multi-generational space ships, held last month during an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston, Massachusetts. Get the full story at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/interstellar_eng lish_020314.html. _____________________________________________________________________ UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON GEOLOGIST RECREATES "LIFE ON MARS" EVIDENCE IN HER LABORATORY University of Dayton release 15 March 2002 As NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft begins exploring the planet, particularly looking for signs of water that once could have nourished life, a University of Dayton geologist is disproving what some pointed to as scientific evidence of past life on the Red Planet. A couple of years ago, the scientific community was rocked by evidence that pointed to possible life on Mars. A 4.5-billion-year- old Martian meteorite showed what seemed to be "a trace of biochemistry, chemical compounds from little critters decaying. Not fossils, but decomposed remnants of life," said Andrea Koziol, associate professor of geology at the University of Dayton. In experiments in her Wohlleben Hall basement laboratory, Koziol has proved the "remnants" could have been created by natural Martian processes--lessening the credibility of the theory that Mars once hosted life. Koziol will present "A Non-Biological Origin for the Nanophase Magnetite Grains in ALH001: Experimental Results" at 8:30 AM (CST) Friday, March 15, at the 33rd annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference to be held March 11-15 at the South Shore Harbour Resort and Conference Center in League City, Texas. Scientists began examining the ALH001 meteorite--about the size of a large potato--in 1995 and found carbonates the size of pencil points. "On Mars and other planets, carbonates are pretty unusual," Koziol said. "Geologists see carbonates and think water, not common in the universe. That original group saw possibilities of former life, single-cell bacteria that left the carbonates and magnetite grains behind when they decayed." The theory matched the results of natural processes on Earth, where decaying bacteria leave behind an intact crystal lattice of iron and oxygen atoms from the magnetite. Some scientists argued that only biology could arrange the atoms in such precise lines. Koziol did it with heat. "I had worked on similar carbonates before, and I thought a natural process could have this result," she said. Her co-author for the presentation, Adrian Brearley, had proposed the possibility, and Koziol proved it. She concocted synthetic rock that would mimic the real meteorite, heated it to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for five minutes and then immersed it in water to cool it down. Under heat and pressure, the carbonate synthetic rock showed magnetite and carbon dioxide "which just dribbles out of the rock and it's gone," Koziol said. "We got the same size, same shape, same beveled edges and same lined-up atoms" as appear in the meteorite, she said. A naturally occurring collision on the ancient surface of Mars could have provided the heat and pressure she recreated in her lab, Koziol said. She notes that many scientists attending the conference were doubtful of the meteorite's evidence to begin with. "A lot of other people out there argued against life on Mars from the beginning," she said. "This proves another method could be responsible." Contact: Pam Huber Phone: 937-229-3241 E-mail: huber@picard.admin.udayton.edu _____________________________________________________________________ POPULAR SCIENCE CALLS FOR HUMANS TO MARS Mars Society release 15 March 2002 In a powerful manifesto, the April 2002 issue of Popular Science calls upon NASA Administrator O'Keefe and the U.S. political class to launch a humans to Mars program. The piece, written as an 8-page cover story by the magazine's noted Science Editor, Dawn Stover, identifies a 7-point agenda to revive America's lagging space program. Point number 1 is commit to sending humans to Mars. The full article may be found in Popular Science on the newsstand or on the internet at www.popsci.com. _____________________________________________________________________ GRAVITY IN THE BRAIN By Karen Miller From NASA Science News 18 March 2002 Playing catch is easy. Kids and even their parents can do it. Keep your eyes on the ball and--if you don't think too hard--your hand will grab it in mid-air. It's simple, really. Or is it? In fact, playing catch is more complicated than it appears. Just before the ball arrives, your hand twists slightly. The muscles tense, so your hand isn't knocked away by the force of the blow. The timing is surprisingly exact: the muscles tighten exactly one-tenth of a second before the ball's impact. The brain prepares for the catch even earlier. The hand moves only because the brain tells it to--and it takes two tenths of a second for the brain's commands to travel down to the hand. Such delays require the brain to predict when the ball will arrive--a process made more difficult because, due to gravity, the speed of a soaring ball is always changing. How does your brain do it? According to neuroscientist Joe McIntyre of the College de France, the brain is so accurate because it contains an internal model of gravity. The brain, he says, seems able to anticipate, calculate and compensate for gravitational acceleration--naturally. His conclusions, published recently in the journal Nature Neuroscience, are based on an innovative ball-catching experiment conducted in space: Astronauts on board space shuttle Columbia caught balls released from a spring-loaded canon. The balls moved with a constant speed as opposed to a constant acceleration as they would on Earth. While the astronauts were playing catch in this manner, infrared cameras tracked the motions of their hands and arms, and electrodes measured the electrical activity of their arm muscles. McIntyre and colleagues designed the unusual experiment at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France and at the Santa Lucia Scientific Institute in Rome. It flew to space for a 17- day mission in 1998, one of 26 life sciences experiments in the Neurolab payload. In flight, says McIntyre, the astronauts were always able to catch the ball, but their timing was a little bit "off." They reacted as if they expected the ball to move faster than it did--in other words, as if gravity was "Earth-normal." The astronauts' expectation of gravity was surprisingly persistent. They continued to mis-anticipate the ball's motion nearly fifteen days into the experiment--"although we did begin to see some evidence of adaptation at that point, " says McIntyre. "The question is," he said, "if you do anticipate gravity, then why?" Astronauts orbiting Earth clearly sense a change in acceleration: for example, the astronauts themselves float. And they do adapt to weightlessness in many ways. Motion sickness, for example, tends to disappear after two or three days in space. Yet for nearly fifteen days, astronaut brains continued to predict that balls would be accelerated as on Earth, even in the face of contrary evidence. Such rigid, inflexible behavior supports the notion that the brain contains a built-in model of gravity--like a specialized computer in our heads that calculates acceleration. There's other evidence, too. For instance, says McIntyre, if you place an infant safely on a glass table where he or she can see the floor below, the baby will become fearful. He's not falling, yet he expects to fall--without any prior experience of falling. "It doesn't take much to elicit this response," he added. "It seems like a very robust, common effect that we expect a downward acceleration." Eventually the amount of acceleration we anticipate can be changed from Earth-normal to other values. By the 15th day of the Neurolab mission astronauts on the shuttle were beginning to catch the ball better. The too-early movement of the arm remained, but its amplitude grew smaller. At the same time, the astronauts began to add in an additional arm movement--one timed to occur just before the ball's impact. When the astronauts repeated the experiments on the ground, they all, said McIntyre, seemed surprised at how fast the ball dropped. But they adjusted far more quickly than they had in space. On Earth, if you're late with your response, you miss the ball. Perhaps that forces you to learn more quickly, he suggests. It's possible that the astronauts did adapt to 0-g, and then readapted back to 1-g again. It's also possible that the brain is able to learn and retain multiple models of acceleration. In different situations, it might simply choose which one to apply. That, in fact, is what McIntyre and his colleagues believe is going on. McIntyre's Neurolab experiment was surely fun, but there's more at stake than fun and games. Researchers hope that understanding how astronauts adjust to the unexpected movements of objects in space will improve mission safety. There are also benefits to those of us on Earth: Such experiments, says McIntyre, offer a unique way to explore the nervous system. Some kinds of brain damage cause trouble with timing much like the astronauts experienced. Unraveling how the nervous system works is an important step in treating these kinds of problems. Indeed, the human nervous system remains a puzzle in many respects. Experiments like this one show that at least some of the pieces may be found in space. Additional information on this article is available at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/18mar_playingcatch.htm?list52 260. _____________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/astrobiology.h tml 18 March 2002 Astrobiology, exobiology and terraformation articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s1.html T. E. Bell and T. Phillips, 2002. Once upon a water planet. NASA Science News. ESA, 2002. Scientists say Martian spots worth a close look. Spaceflight Now. Human space exploration and microgravity effects articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s3.html L. David, 2002. Interstellar travelers will have to watch their language. Space.com. K. Miller, 2002. Gravity in the brain. NASA Science News. D. Stover, 2002. Go somewhere! Popular Science. E. Venere, 2002. Purdue to create life-supporting ecosystem in space. SpaceDaily. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s4.html S. Shostak, 2002. A darn site better. Space.com. Evolutionary biology and chemistry articles http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/users/dthomas/astrobiology/online_article s5.html J. Gonzalez, 2002. Asteroids rained down during final formation of Earth. SpaceDaily. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI WEEKLY SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 7-13 March 2002 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Tuesday, March 12. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/english/where/. Activities this week included the successful deregistration of the D7.4 and registration of the D7.6 on-board modules, uplink of a Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) mini-sequence, and uplink and start of execution of the C31 background sequence. On- board activities for the end of C30 included a memory readout of online string statistics, a Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) Low Energy Magnetospheric Measurement Subsystem (LEMMS) exercise, and a Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) noise evaluation. Initial activities for C31 included a clearing of the Attitude Control Subsystem (ACS) high water marks, and participation in a commanding test over DSS-65. After the conclusion of C30, the Sequence Team lead and deputy will generate the sequence as-flown products. The Sequence Team Kick-off meeting for C32 was held this week. The repeat of a DSN firmware test to verify the Block V receiver firmware upgrade originally performed in January was conducted this week over DSS-25. The demo was successful. Mission Planning met with Program Management to present the plan for the Space Science subphase, which covers the period from 1 July 2002 through 1 January 2004. Cruise and tour sequence boundaries were one of the topics of discussion at this week's Mission Planning Forum. Proposed boundary changes for the Huygens Mission were discussed along with what is known of science and spacecraft restrictions on Revs B and C. At this month's Instrument Operations Working Group, presentations were made by the Science Archive working group and E-Kernel working group. Topics included product lists, schedule updates, Software Interface Specification (SIS) and Operations Interface Agreement (OIA) status, and changes to be implemented in the E-kernel system as a result of the recent design review. Additional status was reported on C-Kernel generation, and Science Operations and Planning Computers (SOPC), Remote Terminal Interface Unit (RTIU), Navigation Ancillary Information Facility (NAIF) toolkit, and Spacecraft, Planet, Instruments, C-matrix, and Events kernels (SPICE) server status. Cassini held a dry run for its Educational Outreach Design Review. The final design review will be March 22. In February outreach personnel gave a workshop at TechEd02. The workshop focused on bridging the gap between science and literacy learning through the use of Cassini science materials. Participants also learned about some of the exciting new education opportunities that will be available soon. Thirty-five high school and community college educators attended the workshop held in Long Beach, California. 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. _____________________________________________________________________ INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS NASA/JSC release 15 March 2002 Expedition Four Commander Yury Onufrienko and Flight Engineers Dan Bursch and Carl Walz aboard the International Space Station continued science experiments and prepared for two spacecraft that will soon visit the outpost. The first plant tissue samples were taken from the Advanced Astroculture experiment inside the U.S. laboratory Destiny. Air, water, soil and plant samples will be brought back to Earth for scientists to study and will be compared to crops grown on Earth. The EarthKAM experiment completed its observations for this expedition and was deactivated Saturday after the digital camera took 425 pictures last week. The experiment has allowed middle school students on the ground to remotely take about 2,271 pictures of the Earth's geographical features from a vantage point 240 statute miles high. The last reading for the Hoffman Reflex experiment was taken this week. This experiment measures the ability of the spinal cord to respond to a stimulus after being exposed to microgravity and may provide input to improve exercise during long spaceflight missions. Eight crewmembers from expedition crews have participated in this experiment. Only post-flight observations remain for the current station crew. The crew began packing used and unneeded equipment into the Progress resupply vehicle docked to the aft end of the Zvezda service module. The Progress spacecraft will be jettisoned from the station Tuesday and will burn up upon re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. A new Progress resupply vehicle will launch from the Baikanour Cosmodrome in Kazahkstan March 21 and will arrive at the station three days later. An audit is taking place on board the station in preparation for the next space shuttle visit in April. Using an electronic inventory management system, station crewmembers are organizing equipment to enhance efficiency. When the space shuttle Atlantis docks to the space station next month, there will be a total of 10 crewmembers working throughout the spacecraft, now the size of a three-bedroom house, for almost a week. Walz and Bursch also operated the station's robotic arm, Canadarm2, to observe the exterior of the station via cameras located on the arm. The cameras focused on the claw-like latch cradle assembly mounted on the Destiny module. The crew also used the cameras to inspect the station's radiators and solar arrays. During STS-110 next month, Canadarm2 will be used to move the S-zero truss segment from the shuttle's payload bay to the latch assembly on Destiny to be installed during four planned spacewalks. Flight controllers on the ground continue to monitor the arm's operation after it experienced difficulties with the primary avionics system last week. The arm functioned successfully on the secondary system this week. Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, future launch dates, as well as station sighting opportunities from anywhere on the Earth, is available on the Internet at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov. Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet site administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, at http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov. The next ISS status report will be issued March 19, or sooner, if developments warrant. _____________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 13 March 2002 Flight controllers for NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft report the Martian radiation environment experiment began gathering science data today after their troubleshooting efforts successfully reestablished communications with the instrument. Engineers have been working since late February, trying a variety of techniques to communicate with the instrument, which stopped working in August. The results of their tests indicate the problem may be related to a memory error in the onboard software of the radiation instrument. "This is very exciting. We have been carefully working this issue, and establishing communication means we now have the entire payload working," said Roger Gibbs, Odyssey's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. The team established initial communication with the instrument late last week and has spent several days evaluating its health. Controllers returned the radiation monitor to its science collection mode this afternoon. Odyssey's camera system and gamma ray spectrometer suite are continuing to collect data and are working well. Science team members reported this week that the camera's infrared and visible image data are providing "new eyes" to see the makeup of Martian surface materials. Current targets for the camera include the candidate landing sites for the twin 2003 Mars exploration rovers. The neutron detectors in the gamma ray spectrometer suite are refining the detail in maps of near-surface hydrogen and are tracking changes in the surface as the Martian northern winter comes to an end. JPL manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Principal investigators at Arizona State University in Tempe, the University of Arizona in Tucson, and NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, operate the science instruments. Additional science investigators are located at the Russian Space Research Institute and Los Alamos National Laboratories, New Mexico. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. _____________________________________________________________________ STARDUST STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 15 March 2002 There were two Deep Space Network (DSN) tracking passes in the past week and all subsystems are normal. Stardust is currently 2.70 AU (251 million miles or 404 million kilometers) from the Sun. Analyses of the power subsystem show that, even in the worst-case scenario, there is still extra power to recharge the battery with the current values to protect the spacecraft in the unlikely event that the battery's charge drops too low (80 percent safe mode entry, 75 percent side swap). These fault protection limits will remain in place until early summer. A flight software patch, correcting the operating system's floating point math library function, was successfully installed as a preventative measure. No Stardust operations have been affected by this defect; however the patch was installed as a preventive measure to ensure that this defect will not impact future operations. The team is planning to gather in early April to celebrate Dr. Kenneth L. Atkins' retirement. Ken was the original Stardust project manager, leading the team to the successful spacecraft flight system development, launch and early operations. 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 9, Number 11.