Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 10, Number 47, 2 December 2003 Editor/Publisher: David J. Thomas, Ph.D., Science Division, Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas 72503-2317, USA. dthomas@lyon.edu 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 editor, except for specific articles, in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors. The editor does not condone "spamming" of subscribers. Readers would appreciate it if others would not send unsolicited e-mail using the Marsbugs mailing lists. Persons who have information that may be of interest to subscribers of Marsbugs should send that information to the editor. E-mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting the editor. Information concerning the scope of this newsletter, subscription formats and availability of back-issues is available from the Marsbugs web page at http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS 1) ARECIBO CHRONICLE By Seth Shostak 2) ARECIBO DIARIES III: THANKSGIVING 2003 IN ARECIBO By Peter Backus 3) EUROPA: FROZEN OCEAN IN MOTION From Astrobiology Magazine 4) NEW EVIDENCE FOR SOLAR-LIKE PLANETARY SYSTEM ROUND NEARBY STAR Royal Observatory, Edinburgh release 5) SPACE: A BAD INFLUENCE ON MICROBES? By Patrick L. Barry 6) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas 7) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 8) MARS ROVERS HEAD FOR EXCITING LANDINGS IN JANUARY NASA release 2003-158 9) MARS EXPRESS STATUS REPORT ESA release 10) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 11) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 12) MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 2003-156 13) NASA SPACECRAFT PINPOINTS WHERE THE WILD THING IS NASA/JPL release 2003-157 ________________________________________________________________________ ARECIBO CHRONICLE By Seth Shostak From Astrobiology Magazine 25 November 2003 Sometimes I feel like an ant. Actually, that syntax implies that I might have a hankering for some chocolate-covered Formicidae, but that's not right. What I mean to say is that sometimes--usually after dinner, it seems--my mind zooms back in hope of seeing the big picture: trying to get the establishing shot' on life, SETI, and just what the heck we're doing here in the lush foliage of Puerto Rico. And the first jarring revelation afforded by this wide-angle view is that we're just ants. There have been ten thousand generations of Homo sapiens before us. Since it's a fairly good rule of science to assume that anything you observe is typical (until shown otherwise), there may be ten thousand generations to follow. This is like the ants in my backyard. Those segmented little beasts are only one rank of marchers in a parade of time that stretches dauntingly backwards and forwards. Sure, they think they're special. They eagerly do their ant thing, hauling foodstuffs back to the nest in long, organized lines. But really, they're no more special than their great-great-great-great (put in one thousand "greats" here) grand-ants, or the countless ants to follow. It seems pretty analogous to the human condition, but not entirely. For SETI, we figure our generation really is special. Ours is the generation that--either at this observatory or some other--will break step with the parade and finally shatter the bubble of isolation that has enclosed life on this planet for 3.5 billion years. But are these thoughts merely wishful thinking, or worse, just hubris? That's what I wonder when the after-dinner camera pulls wide. It's traditional to state that SETI began in 1960, with Frank Drake's clever experiment in West Virginia. Consequently, we see ourselves as the first generation that's tried to locate extraterrestrials, and figure that he who dares, wins. But of course we're not the first. Karl Friedrich Gauss, whose name is familiar to anyone who has progressed beyond high school algebra, had plans to signal Moon dwellers 150 years ago. His schemes to gain the aliens' attention with flashing mirrors or geometric patterns in the forest seem quaint to us now, but Gauss was not dumb (heck, his brain is in a jar at the University of Gottingen!) So could it be that, 150 years from now, researchers will look upon our efforts as similarly naïve? Every week I get e-mail from folks who ask me if we're not being narrow-minded when we assume that sophisticated beings would communicate with radio waves or pulses of light. Of course, these well-meaning people don't offer any interesting alternatives (they do, however, offer plenty of uninteresting ones!) But, sure; maybe we're barking up the wrong tree. It would be silly and short-sighted to arbitrarily rule that out. But there's a big difference here. The known universe was claustrophobically small in Gauss' time. He was trying to signal intelligence on the Moon, or at most somewhere in the solar system. In the last century, a galaxy-filled universe has opened up. We know that planets are ubiquitous, and liquid water might be plentiful. We also know that technology that's no more advanced than our own could send messages from star to star. Radio waves are fast and energetically cheap. And, although our knowledge of physics is surely incomplete, it could be true (as we think it is) that there's nothing more efficient for communication than electromagnetic radiation. Unlike Gauss, we have the astronomy, and we have the technology. Our approach may not be the only approach, but it is manifestly feasible--it could work. Of that we're confident. The truth of this hits me while observing. Every few minutes, the Project Phoenix screens display a thin smear of bright pixels: yet another narrow-band signal. Each is sent through a cascade of progressively finer filters, to determine if it's interference or interstellar. So far all have been the former. But looking at these narrow white lines is profoundly reassuring. Our experiment passes the smell test. This is what it could look like, and this is what it would look like. Somewhere out there, if there are worlds easing radio waves into space, their activity would show up exactly so. It's nice to think that our generation is special. But there's also a reason to believe it. Staring for hours at the screens, I can picture-- easily picture--a discovery. And then I feel less like an ant. They have no future that's different from their past. But we do. The guts of any SETI experiment lie coiled within its digital signal processors. Deep inside these unimposing aluminum boxes, herds of electrons shuttle back and forth at the command of circuitry and software, sorting the incoming cosmic static by frequency, and hunting for the faint, slowly varying tone of distant transmitters. For more than a decade, Project Phoenix has used digital signal processors originally built for NASA's SETI search--the one that was halted in 1993. Sure, we've improved these devices a great deal, but in the digital world, a hardware design that's a dozen years old is museum fodder. The world has turned. The old processor, known to its pals as the Targeted Search System (TSS), is still around, hunkered down in a tractor-trailer container parked outside the observing room. There was so much electronics in this baby that the trailer required 38 kilowatts of full-time air conditioning just to keep the chips cool and calculating. But we use something different now--a new, modular system that is rather straightforwardly called the New Search System (NSS). The NSS takes up a small fraction of the space of the old signal processor, which means it fits nicely in the Observatory's computer room, saving the cost of those 38 kilowatts. And yes, it does what the old system did, but the NSS has a radically different architecture', as the computer jocks would say. You can grasp the architecture by considering a simple analog--Swedish automobile manufacture. Instead of using a single assembly line--which is vulnerable to complete failure at any point--small teams of stalwart Swedes build complete cars from start to finish. The teams of the NSS are called PDMs, or Programmable Detection Modules (the careful reader will note the copious appearance of acronyms in this article. Such is the consequence of engineers' natural desire for economy of communication, or EOC.) Each PDM handles about 2 MHz of the microwave band, splitting incoming cosmic static into several million channels, and searching for signals that appear in those channels. So what's the big deal? Well, the NSS is more than just a replacement for the old system (which, in addition to constant cooling, also required a lot of maintenance.) It's considerably more reliable... and reliability is important when you're on the telescope, and every minute is precious. When a PDM fails, scrutiny of the heavens proceeds with the other PDMs. The chance of catastrophic failure that would stop observing is reduced. As an astronomer who actually sits in front of the glowing ensemble of screens that control the telescope, I experience first-hand the advantages of the NSS. This is far more than a hardware upgrade: the software has also been rewritten. I can now quickly look at incoming signals that are being checked out. Do they look like satellites, or radar, or...? What's their strength? Their drift rate? Autopilot is nice, but to really get the feel of the craft, you have to poke and pull at the controls. "This is the most complex project I've ever worked on," says Tom Kilsdonk, a tall, soft-spoken software developer who's been crafting code for the NSS for five years. "I've got to say that it's really exciting to see a plan come together." Mike Davis, Director of SETI Projects for the SETI Institute, and a former Director of the Arecibo Observatory, is less restrained. "This is impressive as hell," he says. "It shows the real benefits of an object-oriented programming approach." Not having visited hell yet, I cannot fully gauge Davis' comparison. But seeing signals pour down the flat panel monitors of the NSS I feel as if I'm "taking the con" on a high-tech ship of discovery. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article687.html. ________________________________________________________________________ ARECIBO DIARIES III: THANKSGIVING 2003 IN ARECIBO By Peter Backus From Space.com 26 November 2003 Thanksgiving Day in the United States is a time for a reflection, for gathering with family and friends, feasting, and giving thanks for the good things in life. When you work closely with people long enough, they become like a second family. This is especially true if you work long hours away from your real home and family. Since 1998, our small Project Phoenix team has divided its time between Mountain View where we've been developing a new search system, and Arecibo, Puerto Rico, where twice a year we conduct observations. All told, Project Phoenix takes us away from home for two months a year. Long hours of hard work, both here at the Observatory and in California, have built a level of camaraderie and familiarity within the team. Each person contributes something to the "SETI family." Jill Tarter, our distinguished chief scientist, does the little things that add a bit of warmth to our home away from home. Jill frequently decorates the control room in a seasonal theme. One Halloween, we found our computer monitors adorned with orange and purple, candy-filled plastic pumpkins. Another year, the forty-foot long trailer containing our search computers was mysteriously festooned with brightly twinkling Christmas lights. Jill also provides the delicious Peet's coffee and tea that remind us of our Bay Area homes in northern California while helping us to keep us going through the long nights of observing. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_arecibo_backus_031126.html. ________________________________________________________________________ EUROPA: FROZEN OCEAN IN MOTION From Astrobiology Magazine 26 November 2003 The Jovian moon, Europa, is the smallest of the four satellites first discovered by Galileo in 1610. Slightly smaller than the Earth's moon, Europa's two-thousand mile diameter however reflects about five times as much light as our Moon. This brightness hints at what makes Europa such an intriguing place for astrobiologists. Europa's cracked surface is not as smooth as a mirror, but has an icy-sheet that covers the entire satellite. Tens of miles underneath this ice-sheet may slosh a liquid and murky ocean. Named for a Phoenician princess, Europa was captured by the mythological Jupiter. When Jupiter disguised himself as a white bull (Taurus), she was picking coastal flowers, but took stride on his back underneath the surf on her way to the island of Crete. When so named, the moon Europa was not known to have a subterranean sea and vast floating rafts of ice. Shown in false color, the images of Europa highlight the coarse ice in blue and the mineral-rich cracks in red and brown. The blue-ice is the older layer of nearly pure frozen water. The northern hemisphere in particular is tinted brown with mineral deposits like magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) contaminating the ice. Unlike the other moons of the solar system, where meteor strikes riddle their pockmarked faces, Europa is relatively smooth and self-healing after impacts. The moon is not sheltered from such strikes, but shows few signs of catastrophic hits. The places where a few craters are preserved, their depths are shallow and ripple out like a soft surface has swallowed the rocky debris. Gaps are filled with slush from underneath and frozen in place. What is virgin surface today may be 10 to 250 million years old, a mere blink of an eye in geological timelines. In closer view, many of these young ridges and criss-crossing patterns look as though plastered over with a rough knife. The zig-zag pieces of the moving puzzle on Europa are shifted by daily tides as Europa orbits the massive parent, Jupiter. Jovian gravity shapes the icy to fit together and cap the sea with an frozen pack. The close view of the ice pack shows a curious double-ridge pattern that marks much of the cracking. Whether these ridges spring geyser-like to heal stress fractures or alternatively more closely resemble a slush spreading through a crack, the pairing of edges makes Europa a surprisingly ordered puzzle of bonded rafts. In many places, the height of a ridge may rival the terrestrial cliffs of Mount Rushmore. But to witness anything comparable on Earth, one might have to drain the oceans to see the scarred marks of continental drift, as it rips the terrerstrial crust and drives together tectonic plates. Europa, when viewed in this way, is like a terrestrial ocean inverted: the water shifts underneath a ceiling of land. Europa's shell is sometimes compared to a candy, with a hard-coating, a liquid layer, and a molten iron and nickel core. The probable sixty-mile thick ocean layer, if truly liquid, is so deep that its volume equals all of Earth's oceans combined. Even farther out, a wispy gas layer of oxygen shrouds Europa. Like only four other bodies in our solar system--Earth, Mars, Venus, and Ganymede- -Europa has trace evidence of molecular oxygen in its highly rarefied atmosphere. But unlike Earth, where living things contribute the bulk of oxygen, ultraviolet radiation from the Sun and Jupiter's powerful magnetic cloud strip the water ice to make whatever oxygen has been found haloing Europa to a distance of 125 miles above the frozen pack. A lander on Europa would greet a relatively windless surface world. The tropical conditions near the equator only reach a surface temperature of minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit (-130°C). The acidity of its briny ocean may compare to battery acid, rich in the sulfurous deposits characteristic of the other Jovian satellites. As inhospitable as this world might seem, the presence of sulfur and sulfuric acid may not differ from some views of the early Earth, and are not incompatible with many extreme environments where bacteria have evolved to master radically different life-cycles based on extracting energy without sunlight. Indeed, like the electrochemistry of a battery, terrestrial life has found ways to extract energy from the charged reactions of sulfuric acid. A mystery of where Europan acid comes from has perplexed researchers, since the discovery that the side of Europa that permanently faces another of Jupiter's moon, Io, is rich in sulfur. Because Io spews volcanic sulfur into space, the pairing of these two moons may provide evidence for transport between two satellites unlike what was imagined between more isolated worlds. Alternatives to explain the oxidizing acids on Europa include that sulfuric minerals rise up from the depths of the ocean, or are ionized by the intense radiation of Jupiter itself. Whether Europa mines sulfur from Jupiter, Io, or its own ocean has contributed to more curiousity about the cracked moon. Setting the clock on this imagined Europan lander would challenge terrestrial expectations. The Europan day, its time to complete a full rotation, is equivalent to its year, the time to orbit Jupiter (or about 3.55 Earth days). To stand at the longitude that always faces Jupiter, would present an overhead specter of the parent Jupiter always shining above filling the sky. Like most moons that are phase-locked with their planet, there is a far-side to Europa that is relatively darker. But a global ocean separating the core from its surface may offer a slippery version of this traditional view. Jupiter's gravity would spin the ice pack faster than the core, and the floating world drifts unlike any other known moon or planet. This drift may be slow, however, since no appreciable surface features differed when the Voyager and Galileo probes first photographed Europa during flybys separated by twenty years. Europa challenges many assumptions about what the outer planets might offer as hospitable conditions for primitive life to develop. So far from the Sun, Europa draws tidal energy from its parent planet. The murky ocean that may separate its core from a floating surface world is salty enough that it conducts electrically as it orbits. If some microbial life could survive this far from the Sun, it would need to generate its chemical energy from the briny liquid and depend on the shelter of a frozen cap to weather the intense radiation of its Jovian host. Where water, energy and some mineral nutrient has been found on Earth, life has flourished in what often offers some of the more exotic biochemistry hardly imagined even a few decades ago. If life exists on Europa is highly speculative, but would depend on sulfur for its fuel. Whether Europa's primitive conditions ever sparked life or not, the recent end of the Galileo probe's mission took precautions against contaminating whatever may lurk underneath the tidally-flexed, Europan surface. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article688.html. ________________________________________________________________________ NEW EVIDENCE FOR SOLAR-LIKE PLANETARY SYSTEM ROUND NEARBY STAR Royal Observatory, Edinburgh release 1 December 2003 Astronomers at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh have produced compelling new evidence that Vega, one of the brightest stars in the sky, has a planetary system around it which is more like our own Solar System than any other so far discovered. All of the hundred or so planets that have been discovered around other stars have been very large gaseous (Jupiter-like) planets orbiting close to their star. This is very unlike our own Solar System. New computer modeling techniques have shown that observations of the structure of a faint dust disk around Vega can be best explained by a Neptune-like planet orbiting at a similar distance to Neptune in our own solar system. The wide orbit of the Neptune-like planet means that there is plenty of room inside it for small rocky planets similar to the Earth--the Holy Grail for astronomers wanting to know whether we are alone in the Universe. The modeling, which is described today (1 December 2003) in The Astrophysical Journal, is based on observations taken with the world's most sensitive submillimeter camera, SCUBA. The camera, built in Edinburgh, is operated on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. The SCUBA image shows a disk of very cold dust (-180 degrees centigrade) in orbit around the star. "The irregular shape of the disk is the clue that it is likely to contain planets" explains astronomer Mark Wyatt, the author of the paper. "Although we can't directly observe the planets, they have created clumps in the disk of dust around the star." The modeling suggests that the Neptune-like planet actually formed much closer to the star than its current position. As it moved out to its current wide orbit over about 56 million years, many comets were swept out with it, causing the dust disk to be clumpy. "Exactly the same process is thought to have happened in our Solar System", said Wyatt, "Neptune was 'pushed' away from the sun because of the presence of Jupiter orbiting inside it". So it appears that as well as having a Neptune-like planet, Vega may also have a more massive Jupiter-like planet in a smaller orbit. The model can be tested in two ways. Wayne Holland, who made the original observations, explains "The model predicts that the clumps in the disk will rotate around the star once every three hundred years. If we take more observations after a gap of a few years we should see the movement of the clumps. Also the model predicts the finer detail of the disk's clumpiness which can be confirmed using the next generation of telescopes and cameras." Paradoxically the star barely appears in the SCUBA image because it is far too hot to be seen with this kind of detector. Vega is, however, easily seen with the naked eye. It is the third brightest star visible from Northern latitudes and is bluish-white in color. Tonight you can see it in the west at around 7:00 PM. Facts about Vega: * Vega is the fifth brightest star in the sky and the third brightest visible in the Northern hemisphere. * It is 25 light years away from the Sun. * It has a diameter three times bigger than the Sun. * It is 58 times brighter than the sun. * Together with Deneb and Altair, Vega forms the summer triangle. * Vega is the brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the Harp. The lyre, or harp, is supposed to have been invented by the Greek God, Hermes who gave it to his half-brother Apollo. Apollo then gave it to his son Orpheus, the musician of the Argonauts. * Vega was the first star ever to be photographed. During the night of July 16-17 1850 the historic picture was taken at Harvard Observatory using a 15 inch refractor telescope during a 100 second exposure. Read the original news release at http://www.roe.ac.uk/atc/news/pressrelease/20031201/index.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/extrasolar-03s.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0312/01vega/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/planets_around_vega.html ________________________________________________________________________ SPACE: A BAD INFLUENCE ON MICROBES? By Patrick L. Barry From NASA Science News 1 December 2003 At least one common disease-causing microbe becomes more virulent in simulated microgravity. Scientists studying this phenomenon hope to gain a better understanding of infectious disease. Life is a bit different in space, even for microbes. Research shows that the pattern of gene activity in some microbes differs in weightlessness, leading to differences in behavior. These differences could be behind a curious observation: the common food-borne pathogen Salmonella becomes more virulent when grown in a form of simulated microgravity. This news is little comfort to astronauts whose immune systems already function below par in weightlessness, making infection more likely. To help keep astronauts healthy and to better understand microbial infection in general, scientists want to know exactly which genes are affected by microgravity and why weightlessness--whether real or simulated--should cause these changes. "Whenever you see the virulence of a microbe change in response to an environmental stimulus, that's a chance to learn something about how that pathogen causes disease," says Cheryl Nickerson, an expert in microbiology and immunology at Tulane University Health Sciences Center. Nickerson and her colleagues hope that studying these changes could point out new ways to combat "bad" microbes with drugs and vaccines, both for the sake of astronauts and for people here on the ground. Using modern advances in biotechnology and the weightlessness provided by the International Space Station (ISS), they plan to explore the changes in gene expression experienced by microbes in the true weightlessness of spaceflight. Their first experiment, called "Yeast GAP", will send genetically engineered brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) up to the space station aboard a Russian Progress rocket in 2004. Brewer's yeast itself is not pathogenic. Nevertheless, "yeast cells make a great 'model organism' for this research because they're easily handled, thoroughly studied, and their genome has been completely mapped," says Nickerson, the principal investigator of Yeast GAP. Furthermore, brewer's yeast shares much of its DNA with infectious species of microscopic fungi and protozoans. "Also, the yeast's genome is relatively simple, which makes the results easier to analyze," she says. Still, the challenge is formidable. The brewer's yeast genome contains 6,312 genes, each of which produces one of the proteins that constitute the molecular machinery of the cell. To get a grip on this immense complexity, the researchers will send up 6,312 variants of the single- celled yeast. Each variant has a different gene "knocked out" and replaced with a unique "barcode" pattern of custom-made DNA. This barcode DNA does not encode a protein; it merely serves as a tag distinguishing that particular variant from all the others. "We mix all these different strains of yeast in a special growth apparatus (called the Group Activation Pack, hence the acronym GAP) and see which ones grow well in weightlessness," explains Timothy Hammond, co-investigator for Yeast GAP and a kidney specialist (nephrologist) at Tulane University Health Sciences Center and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Orleans. Suppose a yeast variant is missing some particular gene--let's call it "gene X." And suppose that variant fails to grow as well in space as it does on the ground. Such a result would imply that the missing gene X is an essential part of the yeast's response to microgravity. That little nugget of knowledge would then help guide future research: scientists could target their experiments to see how the protein produced by gene X relates to the changes in various microbes' behaviors in space--including microbes that cause disease. Why should any kind of cell behave differently in microgravity? No one's sure, but scientists have some ideas. For example, perhaps cells sense deformations in their sack-like membranes and respond to that signal. Cells cultured in 1-g normally settle to the bottom of their container and become flattened, while cells floating in weightlessness remain more round. That difference could be cueing changes in gene expression. Nickerson and others are exploring this idea on the ground using a "microgravity simulator" developed by NASA's Johnson Space Center. Called the "rotating wall vessel bioreactor", it mimics the conditions of weightlessness for microbes by growing them inside of a slowly rotating liquid-filled chamber. The rotation of the liquid counteracts the slow sedimentation of the cells, thereby creating a constant "free- fall" of the cells through the culture medium. Cells feel a slight shear as they move through the liquid--a difference from true weightlessness that could affect their behavior--but like cells in orbit, they avoid becoming flattened on the bottom of the container. (It was using this bioreactor that Nickerson first noticed the increased virulence of Salmonella.) Apparently, the bioreactor's approximation of weightlessness works rather well. An earlier experiment by Hammond showed that a strain of brewer's yeast grown on the ground in the bioreactor showed many of the same changes in behavior as yeast grown onboard the space shuttle. Exploring the similarities and differences in how cells react to this bioreactor environment versus true microgravity will be another important outcome of Yeast GAP, Hammond says. If the rotating bioreactor proves sufficiently similar to the orbital environment, it could provide a cheaper and more convenient way to study microbes in microgravity-like conditions. Whether performed in true or simulated weightlessness, this line of research could help unravel the genetic basis of infection--a bit of knowledge that would help astronauts and land-lovers alike to live a little healthier. Read the original article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/01dec_yeast.htm. ________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/astrobiology.html 2 December 2003 Astrobiology and planetary engineering articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles1.html Astrobiology Magazine, 2003. Europa: frozen ocean in motion. Astrobiology Magazine. Human space exploration articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles3.html P. L. Barry, 2003. Space: a bad influence on microbes? NASA Science News. SETI articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles4.html P. Backus, 2003. Arecibo diaries III: Thanksgiving 2003 in Arecibo. Space.com. S. Shostak, 2003. Arecibo chronicle. Astrobiology Magazine. Extrasolar planets articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles7.html Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, 2003. New evidence for nearby Solar-like planetary system. Spaceflight Now. Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, 2003. Evidence for planets around Vega. Universe Today. Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, 2003. New evidence for solar-like planetary system around nearby star. SpaceDaily. ________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 20-24 November 2003 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Monday, November 24. 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://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm. On-board activities this week included Radio and Plasma Wave Science High Frequency Receiver calibration, uplink and execution of a Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) event filter mini-sequence, uplink of the MIMI Instrument Expanded Block (IEB) load and data rate throttle down Immediate/Delayed Action Program, uplink and load of a Composite InfraRed Spectrometer IEB, uplink and execution of a Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) High Rate Detector checkout mini-sequence, and an SSR repair. The Radio Science team continues to collect coherent X-band data and, when available, Ka1 data as part of the continuing Gravitational Wave Experiment #3 (GWE). Deep Space Station 55 provided its first support for GWE#3 this week. The station became operational on November 1st, 2003, and is equipped with Ka-band receive capability. This means that both X-band and Ka1 data can be acquired. Support was provided for three consecutive days with a final pass planned for Wednesday of this week. At the request of the Cassini Project Scientist, investigators from Boston University have been granted observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope to view Saturn's aurora around the time of Saturn orbit insertion next July. This effort will be in conjunction with the Cassini spacecraft's measurement of the solar wind impinging upon the Saturnian system. The aurora is believed to be caused by interactions between the solar wind, the Saturnian magnetosphere, and the atmosphere of Saturn itself. Official port 1 deliveries were made as part of the Science Operations Plan Implementation process for tour sequences S19 and S20. The Science Planning Team process for Cruise sequence C43 concluded this week. A handoff package was passed to Uplink Operations to support the sequence generation process that will begin next week. The C42 Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation (PSIV) phase 1 science and sequence update process package was released for review as part of the C43 sequence development process. The PSIV 1 Sequence Change Request /Sequence approval meeting will be held next week. The Spacecraft Operations Office delivered ground software tools RBOT V2.0 and FSDS V2.17. RBOT is a tool used by the AACS team to bias the reaction wheels to minimize low speed wheel time. FSDS is an AACS flight software simulation program used to validate and verify AACS flight software. A delivery coordination meeting was held for Command Database version D10B. This version includes command changes for CDA, INMS, and MIMI, and is planned for use with Mission Sequence Subsystem D10.2 to be delivered in March of next year. Mission Assurance met with the Aerospace Corporation as part of an ongoing JPL/Aerospace collaboration to further the practice of Risk Management. Slides were produced to document the status of the collaboration effort to date, including data gathering and inputs to a Risk Management Storybook. The joint working group is scheduled to present the status and results to date at next year's Space Systems Engineering and Risk Management Symposium, scheduled for 17-20 February 2004. 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. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ROVERS HEAD FOR EXCITING LANDINGS IN JANUARY NASA release 2003-158 2 December 2003 NASA's robotic Mars geologist, Spirit, embodying America's enthusiasm for exploration, must run a grueling gantlet of challenges before it can start examining the red planet. Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, also faces tough martian challenges. "The risk is real, but so is the potential reward of using these advanced rovers to improve our understanding of how planets work," said Dr. Ed Weiler, associate administrator for space science at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. Spirit is the first of two golf-cart-sized rovers headed for Mars landings in January. The rovers will seek evidence about whether the environment in two regions might once have been capable of supporting life. Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., have navigated Spirit to arrive during the evening of January 3, 2004, in the Eastern time zone. Spirit will land near the center of Gusev Crater, which may have once held a lake. Three weeks later, Opportunity will reach the Meridiani Planum, a region containing exposed deposits of a mineral that usually forms under watery conditions. "We've cleared two of the big hurdles, building both spacecraft and launching them," said JPL's Peter Theisinger, project manager for the Mars Exploration Rover Project. "Now we're coming up on a third, getting them safely onto the ground." Since their launches on June 10 and July 7 respectively, each rover has been flying tucked inside a folded-up lander. The lander is wrapped in deflated airbags, cocooned within a protective aeroshell and attached to a cruise stage that provides solar panels, antennas and steering for the approximately seven month journey. Spirit will cast off its cruise stage 15 minutes before hitting the top of the martian atmosphere at 5,400 meters per second (12,000 miles per hour). Atmospheric friction during the next four minutes will heat part of the aeroshell to about 1,400 C (2,600 F) and slow the descent to about 430 meters per second (960 mph). Less than two minutes before landing, the spacecraft will open its parachute. Twenty seconds later, it will jettison the bottom half of its aeroshell, exposing the lander. The top half of the shell, still riding the parachute, will lower the lander on a tether. In the final six seconds, airbags will inflate, retro rockets on the upper shell will fire, and the tether will be cut about 15 meters (49 feet) above the ground. Several bounces and rolls could take the airbag-cushioned lander about a kilometer (0.6 mile) from where it initially lands. If any of the initial few bounces hits a big rock that's too sharp, or if the spacecraft doesn't complete each task at just the right point during the descent, the mission could be over. More than half of all the missions launched to Mars have failed. JPL Director Dr. Charles Elachi said, "We have done everything we know that could be humanly done to ensure success. We have conducted more testing and external reviews for the Mars Exploration Rovers than for any previous interplanetary mission." Landing safely is the first step for three months of Mars exploration by each rover. Before rolling off its lander, each rover will spend a week or more unfolding itself, rising to full height, and scanning surroundings. Spirit and Opportunity each weigh about 17 times as much as the Sojourner rover of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission. They are big enough to roll right over obstacles nearly as tall as Sojourner. "Think of Spirit and Opportunity as robotic field geologists," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, principal investigator for the rovers' identical sets of science instruments. "They look around with a stereo, color camera and with an infrared instrument that can classify rock types from a distance. They go to the rocks that seem most interesting. When they get to one, they reach out with a robotic arm that has a handful of tools, a microscope, two instruments for identifying what the rock is made of, and a grinder for getting to a fresh, unweathered surface inside the rock." JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington. For information about the Mars Exploration Rover project on the Internet, visit http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer. For Cornell University's Web site about the science payload, visit http://athena.cornell.edu. Contacts: Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-6278 Donald Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington DC Phone: 202-358-1547 ________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPRESS STATUS REPORT ESA release 28 November 2003 Summary of overall status The Mars Express spacecraft, despite a series of intense solar flares that occurred late October-early November in active sunspots regions, is in good health and is operating normally. The spacecraft flew in the intense radiation environment that resulted from the exceptional solar and geomagnetic activity associated with these regions, temporarily causing disturbances on the star trackers. These disturbances, which were over within a few days, did not cause damage and did not constitute a threat to the mission. The main engine calibration has been performed successfully. Following the trajectory correction maneuver performed on 10 November, the spacecraft is now on course to Mars for the upcoming Beagle-2 ejection. The characterization of the solar array confirmed the nominal performance of this subsystem. Preparations and simulations for Beagle-2 ejection and Mars Orbit Insertion are entering the final stages. The Beagle-2 lander separation will take place on 19 December 2003. It will descend through the martian atmosphere and land on the planet on 25 December 2003. The Mars Express spacecraft will undergo Mars orbit insertion (MOI) on 25 December 2003. The Interplanetary Cruise payload commissioning phase is now completed. No further payload activities were done in Interplanetary Cruise since the last status report. Several planned payload activities (for example, ASPERA, radio science) have been postponed until after MOI. A Mars observation sequence (imaging and spectroscopy) involving the OMEGA, HRSC and SPICAM instruments is scheduled for the 1st of December. All Beagle-2 checkouts have been successful, as well as a recently completed Beagle-2 lander software upload. Detailed lander surface operations are being finalized for the first few days on the surface of Mars. Some of these operations will be coordinated with high-resolution remote sensing by the orbiter during several flyovers of the Beagle-2 landing site in Isidis Planitia. The planning for Mars commissioning and initial science operations after MOI is progressing nominally. Payload activity timelines are being prepared for the first few months in orbit, with the goal of optimizing the scientific return while keeping within the limits of the power budget. Orbital/trajectory information Information on the spacecraft's position and remaining distance to Mars can be viewed under "Orbit View" on the sidebar navigation. Today, 28 November 2003, Mars Express is 28 days from Mars Orbit Insertion. Read the original news release at http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=34280. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article691.html. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 20-26 November 2003 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available. Rocks Exposed on Slope in Aram Chaos (Released 20 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/20/index.html Cracked South Polar Plain (Released 21 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/21/index.html Crater Cluster Near Pathfinder (Released 22 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/22/index.html Iberus Vallis Troughs (Released 23 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/23/index.html Multiple-Event Gully (Released 24 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/24/index.html Layers in Crater Wall (Released 25 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/25/index.html Elysium Mons Wind Streak (Released 26 November 2003) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/26/index.html All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are archived at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html. Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 24-26 November 2003 Geomorphic Gumbo (Released 24 November 2003 http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20031124a.html Dust Devils (Released 25 November 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20031125a.html Filled Channels and Craters (Released 26 November 2003) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20031126a.html All of the THEMIS images are archived at http://themis.la.asu.edu/latest.html. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey 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. ________________________________________________________________________ MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 2003-156 26 November 2003 The martian radiation environment experiment on NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter has collected data continuously from the start of the Odyssey mapping mission in March 2002 until late last month. The instrument has successfully monitored space radiation to evaluate the risks to future Mars-bound astronauts. Its measurements are the first of their kind to be obtained during an interplanetary cruise and in orbit around another planet. On October 28, 2003, during a period of intense solar activity, the instrument stopped working properly. Controllers' efforts to restore the instrument to normal operations have not been successful. These efforts will continue for the next several weeks or months. The martian radiation environment experiment detects energetic charged particles, including galactic cosmic rays and particles emitted by the Sun in coronal mass ejections. The dose equivalent from galactic cosmic rays as measured by the instrument agrees well with predictions based on modeling. Validation of radiation models is a crucial step in predicting radiation-related health risks for crews of future missions. "Even if the instrument provides no additional data in the future, it has been a great success at characterizing the radiation environment that a crewed mission to Mars would need to anticipate," said Dr. Jeffrey Plaut, project scientist for Mars Odyssey at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. JPL manages the Mars Odyssey and Global Surveyor missions for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Investigators at Arizona State University, Tempe; University of Arizona, Tucson; NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston; the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Moscow; and Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, built and operate Odyssey science instruments. Information about NASA's Mars exploration program is available on the Internet at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov. Contact: Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-6278 An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/mars_odyssey_instrument_fails.ht ml. ________________________________________________________________________ NASA SPACECRAFT PINPOINTS WHERE THE WILD THING IS NASA/JPL release 2003-157 1 December 2003 Forty-nine days before its historic rendezvous with a comet, NASA's Stardust spacecraft successfully photographed its quarry, comet Wild 2 (pronounced Vilt-2), from 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) away. The image, the first of many comet portraits it will take over the next four weeks, will aid Stardust's navigators and scientists as they plot their final trajectory toward a January 2, 2004 flyby and collection of samples from Wild 2. "Christmas came early this year," said Project Manager Tom Duxbury at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "Our job is to aim a 5 meter (16 foot) long spacecraft at a 5.4 kilometer (3.3 mile) wide comet that is closing on it at six times the speed of a bullet. We plan to "miss the comet" by all of 300 kilometers (188 miles), and all this will be happening 389 million kilometers (242 million miles) away from home. By finding the comet as early and as far away as we did, the complexity of our operations leading up to encounter just dropped drastically." The ball of dirty ice and rock, about as big as three Brooklyn Bridges laid end-to-end, was detected on November 13 by the spacecraft's optical navigation camera on the very first attempt. The set of images was stored in Stardust's onboard computer and downloaded the next day where mission navigator Dr. Shyam Bhaskaran processed them and noticed a white blob of light bisecting the base of a triangle made by three stars Stardust uses for deep space navigation. "When I first looked at the picture I didn't believe it," said Bhaskaran. "We were not expecting to observe the comet for at least another two weeks. But there it was, very close to where we thought it would be." The Wild 2 sighting was verified on November 18 using the second set of optical navigation images downloaded from Stardust. To make this detection, the spacecraft's camera saw stars as dim as 11th visual magnitude, more than 1,500 times dimmer than a human can see on a clear night. The early detection of Wild 2 provides mission navigators critical information on the comet's position and orbital path. Future optical navigation images will allow them to do more fine-tuning. In turn, these new orbital plots will be used to plan the spacecraft's approach trajectory correction maneuver. Stardust's first such maneuver is planned for December 3. Unlike other orbiting bodies, the paths of comets cannot be precisely predicted because their orbits about the Sun are not solely determined by gravity. The escape of gas, dust and rock from comets provides a "rocket effect" that causes them to stray from a predictable orbital path. The actual orbital path cannot be precisely determined from Earth-based telescopes because the comet is shrouded in a cloud of escaping gas and dust. What is seen from Earth is not the actual 5.4 kilometer (3.3 mile) wide body envelops it. "With these images we anticipate we will flyby comet Wild 2 at an altitude of 300 kilometers, give or take about 16 kilometers," added Bhaskaran. "Without them, we wouldn't be able to safely get any closer to the comet than several thousand kilometers." Stardust will return to Earth in January 2006 to make a soft landing at the U.S. Air Force Utah Test and Training Range. Its sample return capsule, holding microscopic particles of comet and interstellar dust, will be taken to the planetary material curatorial facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, where the samples will be carefully stored and examined. Stardust's cometary and interstellar dust samples will help provide answers to fundamental questions about the origins of the solar system. More information on the Stardust mission is available at http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov. Stardust, a part of NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, highly focused science missions, was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics and Operations, Denver, CO, and is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The principal investigator is astronomy professor Donald E. Brownlee of the University of Washington in Seattle. Contact: D. C. Agle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-393-9011 An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/stardust-03c.html. ________________________________________________________________________ End Marsbugs, Volume 10, Number 47.