Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 11, Number 23, 1 June 2004 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. Opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of the authors, and are not necessarily endorsed by the editor or by Lyon College. 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 at http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs. 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. __________________________________________________________________________ Articles and News 1) WHAT TO WEAR ON MARS By Ryan Smith 2) DINOSAURS DIED WITHIN HOURS AFTER ASTEROID HIT EARTH 65 MILLION YEARS AGO University of Colorado release 3) PEBBLES FROM AN OVERHEATED EARTH? By Geoff Koch 4) SURVIVAL OF THE SMALLEST: MINI-MICROBES REDEFINE EXTREME LIVING By Robert Roy Britt 5) NASA'S NEW MISSION: MOON, MARS TO BE FIRST STOPS ON OUR JOURNEY THROUGH SOLAR SYSTEM By David A. King 6) ATOM: CONVERSATION WITH LAWRENCE KRAUSS From Astrobiology Magazine 7) NASA RELEASES MISSION REQUIREMENTS FOR PROPOSED JUPITER MISSION NASA release 2004-130 8) RAW INGREDIENTS FOR LIFE DETECTED IN PLANETARY CONSTRUCTION ZONES NASA release 2004-167 9) YOUNG PLANET CHALLENGES OLD THEORIES By Leslie Mullen Announcements 10) NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas Mission Reports 11) LESSONS LEARNT FROM BEAGLE 2 AND PLANS TO IMPLEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ESA release 12) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 13) CASSINI/HUYGENS APPROACHING SATURN AND TITAN ESA release 28-2004 14) SATURN SEEN FROM FAR AND NEAR NASA release 2004-131 15) CASSINI-HUYGENS MISSION STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 2004-134 16) MARS EXPLORATION ROVER MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 2004-132 17) MARS EXPRESS: ARSIA MONS VOLCANO IN 3D ESA release 18) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 19) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 20) ROSETTA'S SCIENTIFIC "FIRST"--OBSERVATION OF COMET LINEAR ESA release 29-2004 __________________________________________________________________________ WHAT TO WEAR ON MARS By Ryan Smith University of Alberta release 21 May 2004 As if getting to Mars weren't hard enough, astronauts also have to worry about what to wear when they arrive. Their concerns: exposure to micrometeor sandstorms, radiation, and a hyper-cold climate. However, three undergraduate students at the University of Alberta-- Jennifer Marcy, Ann Shalanski, and Matthew Yarmuch--addressed the problem in Dr. Barry Patchett's Materials Design 443 class and have published their findings in the Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance. Students in the class are asked to take something that already exists and improve its performance and design by using new materials. Patchett said that the space suit for Mars is the first design created in the class that he felt could stand up to the peer review process required for publication. "It is the best project I've seen in over a decade," he said. "I don't know why we decided to design a space suit," Yarmuch said. "Nothing like it had ever been designed in the class before, so I guess that was the main attraction." The three materials engineering students began by studying, layer by layer, the space suits NASA developed for trips to the moon. Suits made for Mars, however, will require much more thought than the ones produced for the lunar landings, Yarmuch said. "Mars has nothing for atmosphere. There's some carbon dioxide, but that's about it for gases." Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a magnetosphere to protect it from radiation and meteors and micrometeors, and astronauts exploring the martian surface will also have to deal with average temperatures of -55 C and low recorded at a frightening -133 C. In creating their design, the students tried to balance these concerns with the need to create a suit that astronauts could move about in as they explored. "The gravitational force on Mars is about one-third of that on Earth, so if you built the suit with lead to protect the astronauts from the radiation, it would still end up weighing a few hundred kilograms, and the poor guys wouldn't be able to move," Yarmuch said. The suit includes ball bearings and bearing and compression rings, and one of the 12 layers of material the students incorporated into their design is Demron, a new polymeric created by a company called Radiation Shield Technologies (RST). As the students completed their theoretical design using computer-aided design software, they didn't worry about costs, which "would have been very high" if they produced an actual suit, Yarmuch said. "We asked RST for an estimate on the cost of Demron, but because it's such a new product and we were only asking them for a speculative price, they didn't even want to give us a number," Yarmuch said. "Ultimately, we designed it without concern for cost--we went cutting edge on everything." Two of the reviewers on the editorial board for the Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance are from NASA, Patchett noted, so perhaps one day parts of the U of A students' space suit design will be incorporated into a suit built by NASA. "That would be very cool," Yarmuch added. "The development of a real suit to be used on a real mission to Mars is probably still a couple of decades away at least, but I think our research will help point future researchers in the right direction." Related links: The U of A Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering web site http://www.engineering.ualberta.ca/cme/ Dr. Barry Patchett's U of A web page http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/cme/nav03.cfm?nav03=23568&nav02=23293&nav01 =23089 The Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance web site http://www.asminternational.org/content/Journals/JournalofMaterialsEnginee ringandPerformance/engperf.htm Read the original news release at www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/expressnews/articles/printer.cfm?p_ID=5829. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article987.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-base-04i.html __________________________________________________________________________ DINOSAURS DIED WITHIN HOURS AFTER ASTEROID HIT EARTH 65 MILLION YEARS AGO University of Colorado release 24 May 2004 According to new research led by a University of Colorado at Boulder geophysicist, a giant asteroid that hit the coast of Mexico 65 million years ago probably incinerated all the large dinosaurs that were alive at the time in only a few hours, and only those organisms already sheltered in burrows or in water were left alive. The six-mile-in-diameter asteroid is thought to have hit Chicxulub in the Yucatan, striking with the energy of 100 million megatons of TNT, said chief author and Researcher Doug Robertson of the department of geological sciences and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. The "heat pulse" caused by re-entering ejected matter would have reached around the globe, igniting fires and burning up all terrestrial organisms not sheltered in burrows or in water, he said. A paper on the subject was published by Robertson in the May-June issue of the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America. Co-authors include CU-Boulder Professor Owen Toon, University of Wyoming Professors Malcolm McKenna and Jason Lillegraven and California Academy of Sciences Researcher Sylvia Hope. "The kinetic energy of the ejected matter would have dissipated as heat in the upper atmosphere during re-entry, enough heat to make the normally blue sky turn red-hot for hours," said Robertson. Scientists have speculated for more than a decade that the entire surface of the Earth below would have been baked by the equivalent of a global oven set on broil. The evidence of terrestrial ruin is compelling, said Robertson, noting that tiny spheres of melted rock are found in the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or KT, boundary around the globe. The spheres in the clay are remnants of the rocky masses that were vaporized and ejected into sub-orbital trajectories by the impact. A nearly worldwide clay layer laced with soot and extra-terrestrial iridium also records the impact and global firestorm that followed the impact. The spheres, the heat pulse and the soot all have been known for some time, but their implications for survival of organisms on land have not been explained well, said Robertson. Many scientists have been curious about how any animal species such as primitive birds, mammals and amphibians managed to survive the global disaster that killed off all the existing dinosaurs. Robertson and colleagues have provided a new hypothesis for the differential pattern of survival among land vertebrates at the end of the Cretaceous. They have focused on the question of which groups of vertebrates were likely to have been sheltered underground or underwater at the time of the impact. Their answer closely matches the observed patterns of survival. Pterosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs had no obvious adaptations for burrowing or swimming and became extinct. In contrast, the vertebrates that could burrow in holes or shelter in water--mammals, birds, crocodilians, snakes, lizards, turtles and amphibians--for the most part survived. Terrestrial vertebrates that survived also were exposed to the secondary effects of a radically altered, inhospitable environment. "Future studies of early Paleocene events on land may be illuminated by this new view of the KT catastrophe," said Robertson. Located on the CU-Boulder campus, CIRES is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Contact: Doug Robertson Phone: 303-492-3694 Owen Toon Phone: 303-492-1534 Jim Scott Phone: 303-492-3114 Greg Swenson Phone: 303-492-3113 Read the original news release at http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2004/168.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article994.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/05/27/dinosaur.hot/index.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/deepimpact-04h.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/asteroid_wiped_dinosaurs_hours.htm l __________________________________________________________________________ PEBBLES FROM AN OVERHEATED EARTH? By Geoff Koch From Stanford News Service and Astrobiology Magazine 25 May 2004 Analysis of 3.2-billion-year-old pebbles has yielded perhaps the oldest geological evidence of Earth's ancient atmosphere and climate. The findings, published in the April 15 issue of the journal, Nature, indicate that carbon dioxide levels in the early atmosphere were substantially above those that exist today and above those predicted by other models of the early Earth. The research implies that carbon dioxide, perhaps aided by another greenhouse gas such as methane, helped to keep the planet warm enough for life to form and evolve. Stanford geologists Donald R. Lowe and Dennis K. Bird, and senior Stanford researcher Robert E. Jones, also contributed to the research. "The early mix of greenhouse gases is relevant to the evolution of atmospheric oxygen and the conditions in which life arose," said Angela Hessler, a geology professor at Grand Valley State University, who completed the research as a doctoral student at Stanford University. "A more detailed picture of early Earth might serve as a proxy for exploring the history of nearby planets in the solar system." Early to rise? Scientists have long agreed that some sort of greenhouse effect started relatively soon after the Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago. Microbial life appeared as early as 3.8 billion years ago when the sun was 25 percent dimmer than it is today. Absent some process to retain and amplify heat, the planet would have been a frozen wasteland and the first bacteria would not have appeared so soon. The exact mix of these ancient greenhouse gases is poorly understood, in large part because of the paucity of data. Weathering rinds -- discolorations near the surface of pebbles that give evidence of reactions that occurred billions of years ago with the primeval atmosphere -- offer useful evidence. But the steady churning of the Earth's crust through plate tectonics ensured that most of these pebbles, and all their accompanying information, have long since been recycled. The researchers say the pebbles they analyzed, found in drill cores taken at the Royal Sheba gold mine in South Africa, were rolled into smooth, round shapes in a 3.2 billion-year-old river or stream system. "This outcrop [in South Africa] is unique in its preservation," Bird said. "Few remain that haven't been modified in some way by tectonic and metamorphic processes." Rising atmosphere Hessler's geochemical analysis of the rinds, which include an iron-rich carbonate, allowed the team to determine the minimum amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when the carbonate was formed. This amount is several times higher than the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today, consistent with the current understanding that life evolved in a dramatically different environment than exists today. Other research by the Stanford group suggests that carbon dioxide levels gradually declined during the 500 million years after the formation of the pebbles. As the continents became stable, and surface weathering and photosynthesis evolved, it is likely that carbon dioxide was more readily removed from the atmosphere. Methane, another greenhouse gas produced by decaying biomass, may have combined with carbon dioxide to maintain warm or even hot surface temperatures. Earlier work by the study's authors suggests that surface temperatures on the 3.2-billion-year-old Earth may have topped 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit). Geologic samples with evidence of atmospheric chemistry in the Archaean Eon, the first two billion years of Earth's history, are separated by 500 million years. So despite the new information in the Nature study, attempts to understand Earth's ancient history still involve lots of inferences and educated guesses. The authors, whose research was funded by the NASA Exobiology Program and the National Science Foundation, agree on the need for more hard evidence. "There can be little doubt about the importance of empirical geologic observations for constraining future climate models of Earth's early atmosphere," they wrote. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article988.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-04g.html. __________________________________________________________________________ SURVIVAL OF THE SMALLEST: MINI-MICROBES REDEFINE EXTREME LIVING By Robert Roy Britt From Space.com 26 May 2004 A world of mini-microbes discovered deep under ice in Greenland reveals apparent survival skills that could come in handy on Mars or other extreme worlds: get small and hang in there. The tiny creatures are smaller than most commonly known bacteria and have endured at least 120,000 years in subzero temperatures, crushing pressure, low oxygen levels and almost no nutrients. They were found in ice core samples taken nearly 2 miles (3,000 meters) below a glacier. Researchers said they could be a million years old. The microscopic critters are all less than 1 micron wide and some are less than 0.2 microns. Most bacteria, which also are too small to see without a microscope, are between 1 and 10 microns. Scientists are still trying to figure out if newfound microbes--there are several varieties--were dormant or living normal, energy consuming lives. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/microbe_limits_040526.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-04zz.html. __________________________________________________________________________ NASA'S NEW MISSION: MOON, MARS TO BE FIRST STOPS ON OUR JOURNEY THROUGH SOLAR SYSTEM By David A. King, Director NASA Marshall Space Flight Center 26 May 2004 The new Vision for Space Exploration calls for NASA to return humans to the Moon, where they will lay the groundwork for exploration missions to Mars and beyond. Robotic missions will come first, but later human crews will explore our Solar System. Imagine traveling through space and setting foot on other worlds, then living and working there. That gets the heart pounding, doesn't it? This is a great and challenging endeavor we are engaged in, one that exemplifies our nation's pioneering spirit, and NASA wants every American to share in the excitement and the benefits every step of the way. We in NASA are already hard at work to enable safe, affordable human missions beyond Earth orbit. First, we will safely return the Space Shuttle to flight, getting back to the business of flying people to and from space. We will use the Shuttle to complete the International Space Station, where we will study the effects of long-term space exposure on the human body, preparing our travelers for the journeys to come. Then we will return to the Moon--not as a final destination, but as a stepping stone to other worlds. On its surface, we will learn to live and work in otherworldly environments. We will make use of lunar resources and develop the capabilities we need to conduct sustained robotic and human missions anywhere in the Solar System. From the Moon, we will set our sights on Mars, our nearest planetary neighbor--and the one most like our own. Did the Red Planet once support life? Will it again? This question has captured the human imagination for centuries. We intend to answer the first question as visitors, and the second as inhabitants. But Mars is just one possible objective. Other destinations could include the icy moons of Jupiter, which might conceal oceans capable of sustaining life, and even asteroids that could reveal new secrets about the origins and makeup of the universe. We also will identify sites for large, deep- space observatories--descendants of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory--that will open new windows into the cosmos, revealing to humanity the secrets of the stars. These are challenging objectives, ones only a great nation can take on and accomplish. We Americans are bold in spirit but also practical; we want to know what is the value of this mission of exploration and discovery, and how will we pay for it. First, the value: to begin, we need only look at the many thousands of jobs nationwide that result from space activities. Add to that millions of dollars in NASA research grants to colleges and universities, and contracts to industry. Money the nation invests in NASA is spent on Earth, not in space. And that investment produces real, tangible rewards. Since the 1950s, NASA has been a leader in our nation's technological progress. Medical procedures, wireless telephones, satellite television, household smoke detectors, dental braces, cordless power tools--these are just a few of the advances made possible by the U.S. space program. And as NASA advances the current state of technology to enable our new exploration initiative, many new innovations will emerge, and will be applied in business and industry to improve our economy and our quality of life. Perhaps most importantly, the Vision for Space Exploration will inspire our nation's youth as only NASA can, motivating whole generations to study math, science and engineering and to pursue careers in aerospace and other technical fields. Our nation's future prosperity and security depends on maintaining a technically competent national workforce. Our youth are our inheritors, the beneficiaries of our investment in the future, and we owe them a future rich in purpose and possibility. So how much will this ambitious program cost the average taxpayer? Today, NASA receives less than one penny of every American tax dollar. The budget associated with the Exploration mission does not change that. Most of the necessary funding will come from the reorientation of NASA's existing budget, focusing our resources on this mission of exploration and all its associated requirements. This is no small challenge, but we are meeting it head-on, resolved to make every American proud of their investment in our future in space. I am tremendously excited to be part of this effort, especially in light of the benefits that will result from it: knowledge of the universe, and our place in it; technological advances that will make life on Earth better and safer for everyone; and the fulfillment of our destiny as a nation of explorers seeking new frontiers. For half a century, our accomplishments in space have been a source of great pride for America. But for all our achievements, the space age is still very much in its infancy. Now we will resume our journey beyond Earth, and in the years to come will take greater strides than ever before. Now we embark on a journey of discovery to distant worlds--one that promises to increase our knowledge, ignite our imaginations and make our spirits soar. Contact: June Malone Phone: 256-544-0034 Read the original article at http://www.msfc.nasa.gov/news/background/king1.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-04zd.html. __________________________________________________________________________ ATOM: CONVERSATION WITH LAWRENCE KRAUSS From Astrobiology Magazine 26 May 2004 Lawrence Krauss, the department chair of physics at Case Western Reserve University , is the author of a half-dozen books, ranging from The Physics of Star Trek, to his most recent astrobiology book, Atom, which takes up the classic challenge to see the universe in an atom--and vice versa. Stephen Hawking wrote, "Lawrence Krauss has Carl Sagan's knack of expanding the imagination and explaining the mysteries of the universe in simple terms." Unique to his authoritative writing, Krauss draws on his experience and judgments as an active research cosmologist with over 180 scientific publications and numerous popular articles discussing issues related to physics, science, and society. In 2003, his recent astrophysical research article was the January 3rd cover for the prestigious Science magazine [The Age of Globular Clusters in the Milky Way: Constraints on Cosmology]. Astrobiology Magazine had the opportunity to talk with the bestselling author about his book, Atom, subtitled "A Single Oxygen Atom's Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth... and Beyond". Astrobiology Magazine (AM): How did the idea of following the oxygen atom from the small to the large and back again first come to you as a narrative for describing the relationship between the big bang and life on earth? Lawrence Krauss (LK): Well, for some time, I had always felt that one of the most poetic aspects of all of science is the fact that we are all star children, literally, as each and every atom in our bodies was once inside of a star, perhaps several stars, and the very elements that make us up were forged inside fiery stellar furnaces. I was not prepared when I began, however, for the truly remarkable journey I ultimately wrote about. One of the joys, and trials, of writing is the experience of learning how much one hadn't known about various subjects in advance. I knew when I decided to take up the challenge of the "Atom" that the experience would be qualitatively different from anything I had done before. The prospect of using the lives of an atom to present a literary view of the history of the universe, including the romances of our own human drama, became more seductive the more I thought about it. It was also clear that this story would involve not merely physics and astrophysics, but at the very least geophysics, geology, astronomy, biology and paleontology. Frankly, initially this challenge was also an attraction. AM: The concept of moving from the infinitesimal to the infinite has the classic visualization, called "Powers of Ten" which is attributed to a variety of illustrators but typically begins at the sub-atomic and zooms out to great distances in factors of ten. A 1950's European version covered around 40 powers, and a 1970's version with Phillip Morrison narrating covered another 5 to 10 orders more. The 1990's version probably is most famous in the opening sequence to the movie "Contact" where a twist is given to the zooming, because the viewer is travelling with an electromagnetic wave, and thus involves not only spatial zoom, but time travel. Can you comment on this, particularly is this journey by powers of ten in scale useful as a tutorial or heuristic? LK: I think it provides a very useful tutorial about scales in the Universe... perhaps the only problem with it is that it turns out, in fact, that if I draw a line from the Earth to the limits light has traveled since the Big Bang, this line has only a 1 in 1000 chance of intersecting a galaxy. The odds of finding a needle in a haystack are not much worse. So one problem with the zoom to infinity as depicted in these is they show not enough black, empty space in between. AM: Are we any closer to understanding this trip from the atom to the Big Bang, only if the element of "time" is involved? LK: It turns out that we are forever shielded from direct visual observation of the initial Big Bang because as we look farther and farther out, we are guaranteed to hit a wall. The likelihood that our light ray will be scattered by a proton or an electron before it could reach us approaches 100 percent, so that the primordial soup is opaque, more like tomato soup than consommé. We cannot see into it, we can see only its surface. AM: On the cover art, the background illustration for Atom shows particle tracks spiraling with opposite polarities. In choosing to follow an oxygen atom as the tracer for life on earth, does that bias the journey towards animal evolution, since oxygen gas is more a waste or poison for the earliest life here? Or is the atom's odyssey all the various combinations, from carbon dioxide, water, oxygen and ozone that comprise the "stuff of life" chemically? LK: I actually picked oxygen at the beginning without fully understanding the remarkable relationship between oxygen and life. The more I learned, however, the more perfect it seemed, because I wanted to trace the changes that took place in an oxygen atom's "life-cycle" on Earth as it began as part of a geological cycle, then became a part of life as a waste product, and then became an integral part of animal life through respiration. All phases are equally important, I think. Thus, your question assumes that oxygen as a plant waste product is less important to life than in animal respiration, which I don't think is the case. It does stand to reason, however, that present-day life evolved out of bacteria that thrived without oxygen, perhaps without light and only in hot water. In the first place, in the early Earth, there was no free oxygen. Next, in the absence of oxygen, there was no ozone layer to protect life against the extreme ultraviolet radiation coming from the sun. While there is little doubt that life can survive such conditions, this may nevertheless have inhibited its growth on the surface of the oceans and on land. AM: Most attempts to detect spectral properties from planetary atmospheres have a kind of rank order of the importance given to these chemical combinations, with oxygen as ozone near the top. This ranking often is higher than water itself, at least for remote sensing in the atmosphere. The appearance of ozone on earth was more about radiation protection from UV than a classic nutrient or waste balance in what is required as biological prerequisites. Could a dead rocky planet get ozone or keep it without the action of some form of biology? LK: I doubt it. But also remember that many forms of life do not need oxygen. Biochemical arguments suggest that sulfur-eating bacteria, or methane- producing fermenters, are likely to have predated more sophisticated photosynthetic bacteria. In fact, before photosynthesis there was quite likely chemosynthesis. Here primordial life forms would have lived without oxygen and in the dark. They would not have been powered, as plants are, by the sun, but rather by the heat of the Earth. AM: Why did life on Earth flourish, while the surface of Mars is a wasteland? LK: Probably because our sister planet was just a little too small. AM: It is often said that the three key findings for astrobiology were: extremophiles, extrasolar planets and a sense that water may be more ubiquitous even in our own solar neighborhood (in meteors like the Mars' Lafayette, Europa, and the ice frost on polar Mars). In some cases, this picture has evolved quite suddenly, for instance, with 100-plus extrasolar planets found in just the last decade (and none known before around 1995). In your work, do you find one prong of this triad to be most compelling scientifically: life living in extremes, lots of candidate planets, or water? LK: I find the existence of extremophiles the most compelling new development. The first cells were probably more accustomed to the darkness and the putrid smell of sulfur associated with hydrothermal vents. Every year one reads of new forms of life discovered in places ranging from the relatively benign hydrothermal vents to the acidic, toxic, sweaty regions at the bottom of deep oil wells. Most compelling of all, perhaps, is the recent discovery that the tree of life has merely three branches, not five [plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and protists (sophisticated single- celled animals)], and that the one closest to the root involves bacteria that live in hot environments, the hyperthermophiles. Hyperthermophiles defy all conventional wisdom. These forms of life not only can thrive in environments that normalize sterilize materials, in excess of the normal boiling temperature of water at sea level, 100 degrees Celsius, they require such temperatures. These arguments suggest that all life on Earth today descended from species that liked it hot. AM: Atom has a poetic parallel to William Blake's famous "the world in a grain of sand", but in this case even a more radical step from what must necessarily be inanimate for oxygen but presumably even Blake's grain of sand is not completely sterile or devoid of life in a microbial sense. You comment in the book that "Remember that the motor that drives life is simply based on the movement of electrons," and go on to compare oxygen as an electron acceptor combined with hydrogen, an electron donor. Do you consider the fundamental unit that might bridge biology and physics is now just on the cusp of what we call 'inanimate', such as the biomolecules (RNA, DNA, oxygen, water), or is it more of a process like metabolism (electron transfers) or photosynthesis? In other words, is life a product or a process? LK: That is the million dollar question, of course... and I don't have the answer! As a physicist, I guess I tend to concentrate on processes more than objects, and thus I find metabolism fascinating, and to me the most compelling characteristic of life. AM: One key chemical structure shared by both chlorophyll and hemoglobin is the porphyrin ring which is itself devoid of oxygen, but the larger molecule makes carbohydrates. Did your theme of one atom's odyssey ever flirt with following carbon atoms or carbon-based life, rather than oxygen, as its tracer? LK: I originally thought of carbon, but in retrospect that would have been a poorer candidate, I believe. The transformations that oxygen is a part of are more fascinating, I think. Carbon can bond in a hugely diverse set of combinations, with bonds of different types for different purposes. Oxygen however will occupy a very special role. For as far as we know, only oxygen atoms can combine to form molecules with the ability to power a civilization. So one might say, life is powered by oxygen, and fed by carbon. As for porphyrin, eventually microbes hit upon this ringlike molecule. At the center of its ring of carbon atoms, a single iron atom can be located, in which case this is called a heme group. The particular structure of this group allows electrons to flow easily within it. In this way, they can be accepted from outside, move to the middle during transport, and then be redeposited elsewhere. The development of these structures and of the associated energy transfer and production processes they mediate is of crucial importance to our oxygen atom on Earth. For it makes way for the two most profound developments in the history of life: photosynthesis and, later, respiration. By these two processes, not only would life be forever changed but so would the Earth. AM: In the last part of the book, you quoted Yogi Berra, "The future ain't what it used to be," and discuss various scenarios for the mortality of life such as global catastrophes. The magazine did an excerpt of many scientists' reflections on "A Perfect World" and immediately the theme emerged that population growth was the greatest near-term catastrophe, while life prolongation or extension was the greatest near-term biological hope. There was necessarily some tension between those two outcomes. From the point of view of a physicist seeing the changes in biology, do you have a best candidate for the near-term risks and also how the planet might recover? LK: I think the near-term risks involve social problems having to do with scarce resources related to energy production and usage. Global warming is going to happen, and produce disasters, but I also see destroying the ocean ecosystems as a possible disaster. Perhaps the recovery will involve developing sentient life-forms that use less energy. For example, I see no obstructions to the creation of intelligent, self-aware, self- programmable, computing machines. If this occurs, these machines will have a tremendous evolutionary advantage over purely biological machinery. We will, I believe, soon be able to manipulate living systems on scales currently unthinkable. It seems to me that this combination of technologies has one logical outcome. Humans if they are to compete with the machines of their own invention, will inevitably be forced to do what will ultimately become possible to do, namely, integrate their biology with computer technology. If it is possible, it will happen, as I expect cloning, genetically selective reproduction, and a host of other practices that have not yet begun to give ethicists nightmares will also happen. Of course this is the optimistic outlook, from my perspective. Alternatively, as I have alluded, there is the possibility that scarce resources on a hot, polluted planet, mixed with a possible victory of superstition and myth over logic and rationality, will result in numerous devastating wars, and perhaps the establishment of theocracies that suppress scientific thought, well before technological progress reaches the stage I desribed. Human civilization then takes a giant step backward. AM: You also authored the book, The Physics of Star Trek, prior to undertaking, Atom. Do you personally find the vision of Star Trek, as many species who journey into space, to be forward-looking to a certain stage of evolution or just wishful thinking scientifically? LK: Star Trek is primarily wishful thinking! But of course wishful thinking is also a part of science... and sometimes it pays off. AM: The epilogue's closing lines are "Sisyphus was smiling." Would you conclude that Sisyphus is smiling because of his own cyclical journey, or because he doesn't see an alternative to pushing up his rock on the same hill and thus as a kind of comic acceptance? LK: I believe Sisyphus is smiling because the struggle is what makes life worth living. The voyage is often far more enlightening than reaching the destination. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article989.html. __________________________________________________________________________ NASA RELEASES MISSION REQUIREMENTS FOR PROPOSED JUPITER MISSION NASA release 2004-130 26 May 2004 NASA has issued its mission design requirements to three industry teams for a proposed mission to Jupiter and its three icy moons. The requirements are also the first product formulated by NASA's new Office of Exploration Systems in Washington. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter is a spacecraft with an ambitious proposed mission that would orbit three planet-sized moons of Jupiter--Callisto, Ganymede and Europa--that may harbor vast oceans beneath their icy surfaces. The mission would be powered by a nuclear reactor and launched sometime in the next decade. Associate Administrator retired Rear Admiral Craig E. Steidle of NASA's Office of Exploration Systems said, "The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter requirements represent our new way of doing business, tracing exploration strategies to the technology maturation programs that will enable this exciting mission and the other missions that make up Project Constellation." The Request for Proposal was released this week to the three previously qualified industry teams led by Boeing, Huntington Beach, CA; Lockheed Martin, Denver, CO; and Northrop Grumman, Redondo Beach, CA. These three companies are currently working under study contracts investigating conceptual designs for the mission. The proposals are due July 16, 2004. The scope of the initial contract is to co-design the spacecraft through the preliminary design with the government team. A contract modification will be issued after preliminary design to implement the design, to integrate and test the spacecraft and to integrate the spacecraft with the reactor module and mission module. JPL would be responsible for delivering the mission module, which would include instruments procured competitively via a NASA announcement of opportunity. The launch vehicle will be supplied by NASA. The Department of Energy's Office of Naval Reactors would be responsible for the reactor module. To ensure the technologies demonstrated are consistent and coordinated with the Vision for Space Exploration, Project Constellation is managed within the Office of Exploration Systems. "Although the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission may not launch until the next decade, the study of revolutionary new technologies in spacecraft design is underway in the areas of power conversion and heat rejection, electric propulsion, radiation hardened electronics and materials, and telecommunications," said Karla Clark, industry studies lead and deep space avionics project manager for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Mission. Three cross-cutting science themes identified by the NASA-chartered science definition team would drive the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter science investigations. The themes are to evaluate the degree to which subsurface oceans are present on these worlds; to study the chemical composition of the moons, including organic materials, and the surface processes that affect them; and to scrutinize the entire Jupiter system, particularly the interactions between Jupiter and the moons' atmospheres and interiors. "The scientists have told us what they want," said John Casani, project manager for the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission at JPL. "When you consider the five-to-eight year trip to Jupiter, going from one moon to the next, not only flying by but orbiting each moon, this will require a unique nuclear power and electric propulsion system. The large amount of power required for electric propulsion could be used in orbit to power a significantly enhanced suite of instruments not even conceivable with previous power systems." The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission is part of NASA's Project Prometheus, a program studying a series of initiatives to develop power systems and technologies for space exploration. The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, managed by JPL, would be the first NASA mission utilizing nuclear electric propulsion, which would enable the spacecraft to orbit each of these icy worlds to perform extensive investigations of their makeup, history and potential for sustaining life. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission for NASA's Office of Exploration Systems, Washington, DC. For more information visit http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/prometheus.htm or http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jimo/index.cfm. Contacts: Carolina Martinez Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-9382 Michael Braukus NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1979 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-04f.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/27jimo/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/icy_moons_mission_information.html __________________________________________________________________________ RAW INGREDIENTS FOR LIFE DETECTED IN PLANETARY CONSTRUCTION ZONES NASA release 2004-167 27 May 2004 NASA has announced new findings from the Spitzer Space Telescope, including the discovery of significant amounts of icy organic materials sprinkled throughout several "planetary construction zones," or dusty planet-forming discs, which circle infant stars. These materials, icy dust particles coated with water, methanol and carbon dioxide, may help explain the origin of icy planetoids like comets. Scientists believe these comets may have endowed Earth with some of its water and many of its biogenic, life-enabling materials. Drs. Dan Watson and William Forrest of the University of Rochester, NY, identified the ices. They surveyed five very young stars in the constellation Taurus, 420 light-years from Earth. Previous studies identified similar organic materials in space, but this is the first time they were seen unambiguously in the dust making up planet-forming discs. In another finding, Spitzer surveyed a group of young stars and found intriguing evidence that one of them may have the youngest planet detected. The observatory found a clearing in the disc around the star CoKu Tau 4. This might indicate an orbiting planet swept away the disc material, like a vacuum leaving a cleared trail on a dirty carpet. The new findings reveal the structure of the gap more clearly than ever before. Because CoKu Tau 4 is only about one million years old, the possible planet would be even younger. As a comparison, Earth is approximately 4.5-billion years old. "These early results show Spitzer will dramatically expand our understanding of how stars and planets form, which ultimately helps us understand our origins," said Dr. Michael Werner, Spitzer project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, CA, which manages the mission. Spitzer also discovered two of the farthest and faintest planet-forming discs ever observed. These discs surround two of more than 300 newborn stars uncovered for the first time in a stunning new image of the dusty stellar nursery called RCW 49. It is approximately 13,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. "Preliminary data suggest all 300 or more stars harbor discs, but so far we've only looked closely at two. Both were found to have discs," said Dr. Ed Churchwell of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, principal investigator of the RCW 49 research, with Dr. Barbara Whitney of Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO. Planet forming, "protoplanetary," discs are a natural phase in a star's life. A star is born inside a dense envelope of gas and dust. Within this envelope, and circling the star, is a flat, dusty disc, where planets are born. "By seeing what's behind the dust, Spitzer has shown us star and planet formation is a very active process in our galaxy," Churchwell said. Spitzer's exquisitely sensitive infrared eyes can see planet forming discs in great detail. "Previously, scientists could study only a small sample of discs, but Spitzer is already on its way toward analyzing thousands of discs," Werner said. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph instrument, which breaks apart infrared light to see the signatures of various chemicals, was used to observe the organic ices and the clearing within CoKu Tau 4's disc. Spitzer's infrared array camera found the new stars in RCW 49. Papers on the research will appear in the September 1, 2004, issue of the journal Astrophysical Journal Supplements. For images and information about the research on the Internet, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu or http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov. For information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov. Contacts: Nancy Neal/Dwayne Brown NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1547/1726 Whitney Clavin Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-4673 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/youngest_planet_040527.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/extrasolar-04o.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/27spitzer/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/spitzer_finds_youngest_planet.html __________________________________________________________________________ YOUNG PLANET CHALLENGES OLD THEORIES By Leslie Mullen From Astrobiology Magazine 28 May 2004 The Spitzer Space Telescope has detected the youngest planet ever found, claim NASA scientists. Planets are thought to take many millions of years to form after a star is born, but the discovery of a million-year old star with a planet already in orbit around it means scientists may have to rethink planetary formation models. Edward Churchwell, an astronomer with the University of Wisconsin and a principal investigator for GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire), said the new findings "knocked our socks off. We were really excited." The star CoKu Tau 4 is surrounded by a dusty disc, which is typical of very young stars. A star is born inside a dense cloud of gas and dust. Within this cloudy envelope, a flat, dusty disc encircles the star, and planets develop from the material in this disc. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph (IRS) observed a clearing in the dusty disc around CoKu Tau 4. The clearing is about 10 AU in size, or 10 times the Earth-Sun distance. The theory is that a planet orbiting CoKu Tau 4 at about 10 AU scooped up much of the inner disc material, and prevents the dusty outer ring of material from falling in towards the star. Such empty regions separating a star from its dusty disc have been seen before, but never in so young a star. Because CoKu Tau 4 is about one million years old, the possible planet would be even younger. In the standard core accretion model of planet formation, dusty grains hit and clump together as they swirl around a star. Over time, these clumps grow bigger and bigger, eventually becoming proto-planetary lumps that acquire even more material through gravity. Scientists believe gas giant planets like Jupiter form first in a solar system, gathering much of the dust and gas of the star's original disc. It is thought that gas giants take about 4 million years to form through core accretion. Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution of Washington, has an alternative theory that could account for a gas giant forming so early in the life of CoKu Tau 4. In his disc instability model, points of instability within the dusty disc create gravity wells that form clumps. These clumps increase in density to become gas giant proto-planets in only a few thousand years. "If that planet actually formed by disc instability, that has profound implications for the prevalence of planetary systems similar to our own," says Boss. "That means you can make gas giant planets--a major component of our own solar system--in a short time scale, in even the shortest-lived disc." Another explanation for the cleared region around the star could be an unseen stellar companion (a binary star system), but scientists have failed to find even the faintest glimmer of a companion star. The clearing also could be caused by the formation of asteroids and comets, or by the heat and light of the star blowing the material outwards. But the inner edge of the dusty disc is very sharp, says Dan Watson, an astronomer with the University of Rochester, NY, who works with the IRS science team on Spitzer. Watson says that only a planet could be responsible for such a sharply defined inner margin, and planetary formation is also the only explanation that could give the degree of clearing seen around CoKu Tau 4. "I expect Spitzer will discover many more of these important objects, each one a unique laboratory into disc evolution, and quite likely planet formation," says Anne Kinney, director of the Astronomy and Physics Division of the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Spitzer also detected icy organic materials in the dust discs encircling other young stars. These stars are in the constellation Taurus, 420 light years from Earth. The icy particles are coated with water, methanol and carbon dioxide. These ice grains could develop into comets, which could then provide water and organic materials to any terrestrial planets that eventually may form. Scientists believe comets provided the early Earth with some of the water and organic materials that made life possible. This is the first time such icy organic materials were seen unambiguously in the dust of planet-forming discs. "We've seen evidence from these observations with Spitzer that there are ices and simple organic compounds such as methanol in these discs," says Boss. "The UV (ultraviolet) flux in addition, if it's in a disc (in a star-forming region), could perhaps convert these ices into more advanced organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons." Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are the building blocks for more complex organic molecules, and they appear to be widespread throughout the universe. PAHs may have played a vital role in the origin of life on Earth. "Even amino acids--alanine and guanine--can form, as has been shown by laboratory studies, by UV irradiation of simple ices," adds Boss. "So one can imagine a system where the formation of life-bearing elements is hastened along by pre-biotic chemistry that occurs in the disc, even before things start getting going on a habitable planet." Papers on the research will appear in the September 1 issue of the journal, Astrophysical Journal Supplements. The Spitzer Space Telescope is the fourth of NASA's Great Observatories, which include the Hubble Space Telescope (visible light), the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. The Spitzer Space Telescope detects infrared radiation, or heat, from distant, cold, and dust-obscured celestial objects. Launched on August 25, 2003, the Spitzer Space Telescope is orbiting the sun, trailing behind and receding from the Earth. This unusual orbit allows the telescope to avoid the Earth's heat, and it also prevents the Earth from blocking the telescope's field of view. The telescope will move away from Earth at about a tenth of an AU per year. The Spitzer Space Telescope has a projected life span of five years. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article993.html. __________________________________________________________________________ NEW ADDITIONS TO THE ASTROBIOLOGY INDEX By David J. Thomas http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/ 1 June 2004 Terrestrial extreme environments articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles2.html R. R. Britt, 2004. Survival of the smallest: mini-microbes redefine extreme living. Space.com. SpaceDaily, 2004. Tiny microbes in Greenland glacier may define limits for life on Earth. SpaceDaily. Human space flight articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles3.html D. A. King, 2004. Moon, Mars to be first stops on our journey through Solar System. SpaceDaily. R. Smith, 2004. All dressed up and ready to explore. SpaceDaily. R. Smith, 2004. Mars: all dressed up--students fashion space suits for Mars. Astrobiology Magazine. Evolution (biological, chemical and cosmological) articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles5.html I. A. Chen and J. W. Szostak, 2004. Membrane growth can generate a transmembrane pH gradient in fatty acid vesicles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 101(21):7965-7970. G. Koch, 2004. Pebbles from an overheated Earth? Astrobiology Magazine. L. Mullen, 2004. Young planet challenges old theories. Astrobiology Magazine. NASA, 2004. Raw ingredients for life detected around young stars. Spaceflight Now. NASA, 2004. Raw ingredients for life detected in planetary construction zones. SpaceDaily. University of Colorado, 2004. Asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs in hours. Universe Today. University of Colorado, 2004. Dinosaurs died within hours after asteroid hit Earth. SpaceDaily. University of Colorado, 2004. Dinosaur era ended instantly. Astrobiology Magazine. University of Pennsylvania, 2004. Thick siderite marine beds suggest high CO2 levels in early atmosphere. SpaceDaily. Extrasolar planets articles http://www.lyon.edu/projects/marsbugs/astrobiology/online_articles7.html R. R. Britt, 2004. Astronomers see evidence for youngest planet. Space.com. NASA, 2004. Spitzer finds youngest planet. Universe Today. __________________________________________________________________________ LESSONS LEARNT FROM BEAGLE 2 AND PLANS TO IMPLEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ESA release 24 May 2004 The Mars Express spacecraft, carrying the Beagle 2 lander, was launched on 2 June last year, arriving in the vicinity of Mars in December. The separation of Beagle 2 from Mars Express occurred on 19 December. The satellite continued its mission with its successful insertion into a Mars orbit on 25 December, the day on which Beagle 2 was due to land. The first radio contact with Beagle 2 was expected shortly after the scheduled landing time but no signal was received. Many radio contacts were attempted over the following days and weeks, but without result. By early February it became clear that there was no prospect of communicating with Beagle 2 and a joint ESA/UK inquiry was set up to investigate the circumstances and possible reasons that prevented completion of the Beagle 2 mission. The report was commissioned jointly by Lord Sainsbury and ESA's Director General, Jean-Jacques Dordain. It is not therefore a public inquiry. The Commission of Inquiry was led by ESA's Inspector General, René Bonnefoy, with David Link (former Director at Matra-Marconi Space, now EADS- Astrium(UK)) as co-Chairman. The Commission of Inquiry, which included senior managers and experts from within Europe and also NASA and Russia, held several meetings in the UK and in ESA, interviewing the key actors, directors, managers, scientists, and engineers, who participated in the development of Beagle 2. The report has been submitted to the UK Minister for Science and Innovation and the Director General of ESA and accepted. No single technical failure or shortcoming was unambiguously identified but a few credible causes for Beagle 2's loss were highlighted. More importantly, the Board made it clear that there were programmatic and organisational reasons that led to a significantly higher risk of Beagle 2 failure, than otherwise might have been the case. The scope of the Inquiry covered a wide range of important issues of concern to the UK, ESA and other Member States in ESA. Some of these matters are necessarily confidential between governments and the Agency and cannot be released. Furthermore, the development of Beagle 2 entailed close working relations between many firms in the UK. Many of those firms invested their own funds in the project and formed relations which remain commercially sensitive. Although deciding that the Report should remain confidential, we believe it is important that the full set of Recommendations is published together with our appreciation of lessons learnt. You will, of course, have an opportunity to hear at first hand about our plans to implement those Recommendations and to ask questions. Lessons learnt The Inquiry Board has not singled out any act by any individual, nor any technical failure that in itself could have been the unique cause of failure of Beagle 2. In the Inquiry Board's work, many individual decisions were analysed. However, there are institutional lessons to be learnt, many of which flow from treating the lander as an instrument, which at the time was the standard practice. The Commission has proposed a set of 19 Recommendations on which the UK Government, ESA and the Beagle 2 project team are agreed. They can be grouped in three parts: 1) those concerning best practice when selecting a complex project - such as the Beagle 2 lander--assessing its overall benefits and risks, planning means to manage and mitigate risks and ensuring that it is fully integrated within the overall management of the mission; 2) those concerned with technical factors which may have contributed to the loss of Beagle 2, for example specification, development and testing of the airbags; 3) and those concerning technical enhancements for future landers which would have aided our understanding of events during Beagle 2's descent and subsequently improved our ability to find it or reactivate it. In 1997, due to the failure of an earlier Russian mission, equipment was available for a mission to Mars. At the same time it was known that Mars would be at a point of closest approach to Earth during the summer of 2003. As a result ESA Member States selected the Mars Express mission, though the schedule was tight, and ESA invited proposals to consider the addition of a lander. Three European teams proposed landers and Beagle 2 was selected. It is now clear that the very high potential scientific benefits of the project may have contributed to a collective institutional underestimate by us all of the corresponding means to identify and mitigate risks that arose during development and subsequently proved difficult to resolve due to the very tight financial, mass and schedule constraints imposed by the rigid schedule set by that closest point of approach, and by overall budget constraints. Implementation plan 1. ESA will return to Mars but next time the approach must have the capacity to handle the complexity, and scientists, engineers and industry will need to agree from the start the formal partnership arrangements and responsibilities that will apply throughout; 2. Any future complex instrument or lander must be implemented under the same management process as the mission spacecraft. BNSC has already led the way in implementing such a new policy with the European MIRI instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope. Nevertheless, scientific groups will be fully integrated into those overall arrangements; 3. A dedicated Exploration Directorate in ESA has been set up to coordinate technical requirements and approaches Europe-wide and will take responsibility for securing European capabilities for crucial elements for planetary missions; 4. Confidential Debriefing will be given to all scientific groups and industrial companies in Beagle 2 on request; 5. ESA Member States will be confidentially debriefed on the implications of this new approach in future programmes and to partnership arrangements. The recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry: Recommendation 1 Future lander missions should be under the responsibility of an Agency with appropriate capability and resources to manage it. The lander/orbiter mission should be managed as an integrated whole. Nationally-funded science instruments should be included in the lander on the same basis as on the orbiter. Recommendation 2 For future science payloads which are critical to overall mission success or have a very high public profile, the ESA Executive should make a formal, comprehensive assessment of all aspects of the proposals including technical, management and finance, and advise Space Science Policy Committee (SPC) accordingly before acceptance. If the assessment is not positive, ESA should advise the SPC not to accept the proposal. Recommendation 3 Sponsoring Agencies of nationally-funded contributions to ESA projects should ensure that the required financing is committed at the outset to meet the estimated Cost at Completion and require that a structured development program is established. Recommendation 4 In addition to the ESA-led reviews of interfaces, formal Project Reviews of nationally-funded contributions to ESA missions should be undertaken by the sponsoring Agency to a standard agreed with ESA and should cover the entire project. Recommendation 5 When an independent review of a nationally-funded project, such as the Casani review of Beagle 2, is commissioned, it is essential that ESA and the Sponsoring Agency ensure that its recommendations are properly dispositioned and those which are agreed are actioned and followed up through a formal process. Recommendation 6 For future projects, Heads of Agreement or similar formal arrangements between co-operating entities, ESA, and national sponsors, should be put in place at the outset of projects and should include formal consultations at key stages of the projects to jointly consider its status. Recommendation 7 Fixed price contracting should be avoided solely as a mechanism for controlling costs, and used only where the sponsor and contractor are in alignment on the requirements and scope of the work and the sharing of risks between them. Both parties should be confident that the contractor has sufficient margins to manage his uncertainties and risks. Recommendation 8 For future high-profile/high-risk projects, ESA and any Sponsoring Agency should manage the expectations of the outcome of the project in a balanced and objective way to prepare for both success and failure. Recommendation 9 At the start of a program, the funding authority (authorities) should require that there is system-level documentation. This is necessary to provide all partners with the technical requirements for the project and sufficient design description and justification such that the margins and risks being taken in each partner's area of responsibility are visible. Recommendation 10 Future planetary missions should be designed with robust margins to cope with the inherent uncertainties, and they should not be initiated without adequate and timely resources to achieve that. Recommendation 11 Future planetary entry missions should include a minimum telemetry of critical performance measurements and spacecraft health status during mission critical phases such as entry and descent. Recommendation 12 For future planetary entry missions, a more robust communications system should be used, allowing direct commanding of the lander for essential actuations and resets without software involvement - enabling recoveries in catastrophic situations. Recommendation 13 Planetary probe missions involving high-level shocks from pyros and other events should undergo representative shock environmental testing at system level. Recommendation 14 Adequate and realistic deployment tests should be performed, and sufficient time and resources must be available in the development of a new planetary mission. Recommendation 15 Elimination of internal connectors for mass saving should be avoided if at all possible. But if unavoidable, a stringent system of check and independent crosscheck should be followed during the final wiring operation. Recommendation 16 A back-up for the entry detection event (T0) must be included in the design of planetary entry probes. Recommendation 17 Future planetary entry missions should include a release of the back cover and front shield, which is aerodynamically stable and analytically predictable to avoid uncontrolled contact of front shield with the lander. Recommendation 18 Sufficient difference between ballistic coefficients of all separated items, e.g., back covers assembly and the main parachute, or other positive means, must be ensured to exclude collision after separation. Recommendation 19 Adequate competencies in air bag and parachute technology must be available for future European planetary missions, making best use of existing expertise e.g., in USA and Russia. The Beagle 2 inquiry was launched on February 11 by Lord Sainsbury, UK Minister for Science and Innovation, and Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA Director General, to investigate the circumstances and possible reasons that prevented completion of the Beagle 2 mission. Such inquiries are routine in the event of unsuccessful space missions. The Inquiry Commission was set up jointly between ESA and BNSC and was chaired by the ESA Inspector General. The Commission included senior managers and experts from Europe and also from NASA and Russia. Its remit was to: 1) assess the available data/documentation acquired during development, integration and testing of the Beagle 2 lander on Earth and that pertaining to the cruise phase operations prior to release of the spacecraft to Mars; 2) analyze the programmatic environment (i.e. decision processes, funding level and resources, management and responsibilities, interactions between the various entities) throughout the project; 3) identify possible issues and shortcomings, both programmatic and technical, in the above and in the approach used, which might have contributed to the loss of the mission. All members of the Commission have signed a non-disclosure agreement. The Beagle 2 project was led by the Open University, providing the science lead, and EADS-Astrium, the prime industrial contractor responsible for the main design, development and management of the lander. The Beagle 2 lander was funded through a partnership arrangement involving the Open University, EADS-Astrium, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC), the Office of Science and Technology and ESA. Funding also came from the National Space Science Centre and the Wellcome Trust. UK principal investigators for Beagle 2 in the UK came from the Open University (gas analysis package), Leicester University (environmental sensors and x-ray spectrometer) and Mullard Space Science Laboratory (imaging systems). BNSC is a partnership of Government Departments and Research Councils with an interest in the development or exploitation of space technologies. BNSC is the UK Government body responsible for UK civil space policy, to help gain the best possible scientific, economic and social benefits from putting space to work. Contacts: BNSC Press Enquiries: 020 7215 0806/0905 Out of hours: 020 7215 3234/3505 Public Enquiries: 020 7215 5000 Textphone (for people with hearing impairments): 020 7215 6740 http://www.bnsc.gov.uk ESA Franco Bonacina, Head of Media Relations Division Phone: +33(0)1 53 69 7155 Fax: +33(0)1 53 69 7690 Read the original news release at http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMLKAHHZTD_index_0.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article990.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/05/24/britain.europe.mars.ap/index.html http://www.space.com/news/beagle_update_040524.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/24beagle2report/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/esa_beagle_2_study.html __________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS NASA/JPL release 20-26 May 2004 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Madrid tracking station on Wednesday, May 26. 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 the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Titan movie which searches for evidence of cloud motion to measure winds. ISS also continued to study the orbits of the ring-region satellites to improve our understanding of short- and long-term dynamical evolution. The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) continues to map the Saturn magnetosphere in neutral and ion photon emissions to derive the distribution and density of atomic and molecular species. Deep space calibrations were performed for the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), and a high frequency calibration for the Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument. The ISS NAC was commanded to perform a power- on reset to clear any possible residual problems prior to some critical Optical Navigation activities. These activities then occurred without incident. Remaining on-board activities centered on preparations for Trajectory Correction Maneuver 20. This maneuver is significant in that it adjusts the spacecraft's orbit for its approach to Saturn, and is the same type of maneuver that will be used for Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI). This week a checkout was performed for Rocket Engine Assembly-B, the main engine cover was opened, and the oxidizer side of the propulsion system un-isolated. The spacecraft is now ready to support TCM-20 on May 27, 2004. Starting on Monday, May 24, the Cassini Imaging Team increased the frequency of its postings of images to one per day (five days per week) for the enjoyment of scientists and members of the public alike. The Multi Mission Image Processing Laboratory (MIPL) supported the generation and delivery of three sets of "critical" Optical Navigation images in the last week. Two of the events occurred on non-prime-shift and were staffed for potential manual intervention. All these deliveries were made successfully and on-time by the automated processes--no intervention required. In the last week, 625 ISS images arrived and were distributed along with 369 Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) cubes. The total number of ISS images acquired since the start of Approach Science is now 7413, and the number of VIMS cubes is 1311. In support of the Phoebe encounter, the flight team is holding an Operations Readiness Test (ORT) for the Phoebe Live Update Process. This week the files generated during last week's live update process were run through the Integrated Test Laboratory for validation. In addition, it was decided to forgo the remaining portions of the ORT to allow for an earlier Navigation convergence and a more relaxed schedule for actual Phoebe operations. The port #1 end-to-end pointing analysis for tour sequences S29 and S30 has been completed. The Teams will now review the analysis reports and correct any problems in time for preliminary port #2 on June 7. The science operations plan implementation process for tour sequences S31 and S32 began this week. A Tour Process meeting was held Wednesday, May 26, to discuss the impacts the new reference trajectory has on the integrated science plan and the possible options available to deal with those changes. A sequence change request approval meeting was held as part of the process to develop tour sequence S03. Four requests were approved. A delivery coordination meeting was held for Navigation software version T1.4. During last week's internal SOI review, Navigation identified two "must-do" fixes for this software. One was for ARDVARC, the automated radiometric data visualization and real-time correction software, and the other for PVTOEXP which converts spacecraft trajectory "P" files from NAV- IO format to "Export" DSN format. The 4.1 version was approved and has been installed for operations use. The Saturn Observation Campaign (SOC) is a Cassini informal education program, comprised of about 300 mostly amateur astronomers in 43 states around the US and in 42 countries around the world. A Saturn Observation Campaign observing event will be held at Monrovia's Library Park at the corners of Myrtle and Lime Streets, in Monrovia, California from 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Saturday May 29. There will be at least two and maybe more telescopes aimed at Saturn and Jupiter or the moon. A local middle school science class has been invited and a nice crowd is expected. Saturn will look best earlier rather than later in the evening. Saturday night is also the date of the Griffith Observatory Star Party, hosted by the Los Angeles Amateur Astronomers and the LA Sidewalk Astronomers. The Griffith Observatory event runs from 2:00 PM for solar to 10:00 PM once a month. The Griffith Observatory satellite is located immediately south of the LA Zoo and the Autry Museum in the northeast corner of Griffith Park. Glendale, California (http://www.griffithobs.org/satellite.html). Saturn is getting low in the western sky, and by next month, it won't be visible again--at least at a decent hour for viewing--until late 2004. This weekend will be a great time to see Saturn, with Mars nearby, Venus and Jupiter and even the 3-day waxing moon. As Saturn grows closer through the eyes of the Cassini spacecraft, both Cassini and the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope snapped spectacular pictures of the planet and its magnificent rings. Cassini is approaching Saturn at an oblique angle to the Sun and from below the ecliptic plane. Cassini has a very different view of Saturn than Hubble's Earth-centered view. For the first time, astronomers can compare views of equal sharpness of Saturn from two very different perspectives. For more information go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/18. Five Cassini images were released in the past week. These images are available on the gallery section of the Cassini web site at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/latest/index.cfm. 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. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article995.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04h.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04k.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/21cassinititan/ http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/24cassinimoons/ http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/25cassinishadows/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/shadow_saturns_rings.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/swirls_on_saturn.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_rings_and_moons.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/detailed_image_saturn_storms.html __________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI/HUYGENS APPROACHING SATURN AND TITAN ESA release 28-2004 26 May 2004 Launched in October 1997, the ESA/NASA Cassini-Huygens mission is currently heading for Saturn. While ESA's Huygens probe will be the first ever to land on the surface of a moon in the outer Solar System, NASA's Cassini orbiter will continue to explore Saturn and its rings. After an almost seven-year journey and four gravity-assist swing-by manoeuvres the spacecraft will be inserted into its orbit around Saturn on 30 June (Pacific Daylight Time, 1 July CET) and reach its closest approach to Saturn. The Huygens probe will be detached from its mother ship on 25 December and land on Titan in January next year. On 3 June a press conference will take place at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC, with ESA participation, to present the mission and outline milestones and upcoming media activities. Media representatives can follow this press conference from ESA/ESOC, where several project representatives will be present, together with David Southwood, ESA Director of Science, or from one of the other ESA establishments. They are requested to complete the attached reply form and fax it to the Communication office at the establishment of their choice. The ESA TV service will also broadcast the press conference via Eutelsat W1. Further information concerning the retransmission schedule can be found on http://television.esa.int. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperation between NASA, the European Space Agency and ASI, the Italian space agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, is managing the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington. Contacts: Franco Bonacina ESA Media Relations Division Phone: +33.(0)1.5369.7155 Fax: +33.(0)1.5369.7690 Don Savage NASA Public Affairs, Office of Space Science Phone: +1.202.358.1727 Fax: +1.202.358.3093 ESA web site: http://saturn.esa.int NASA web site: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov __________________________________________________________________________ SATURN SEEN FROM FAR AND NEAR NASA release 2004-131 26 May 2004 As Saturn grows closer through the eyes of the Cassini spacecraft, which is hurtling toward a rendezvous with the ringed world on June 30 (July 1, Universal Time), both Cassini and the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope snapped spectacular pictures of the planet and its magnificent rings. Cassini is approaching Saturn at an oblique angle to the Sun and from below the ecliptic plane. Cassini has a very different view of Saturn than Hubble's Earth-centered view. For the first time, astronomers can compare views of equal sharpness of Saturn from two very different perspectives. The view from Hubble, taken on March 22, 2004, is so sharp that many individual Saturnian ringlets can be seen. When Cassini returned its picture of Saturn on May 16, it was so close to the planet that the imaging science subsystem narrow-angle camera could not fit the whole planet in its field-of-view. Cassini is still about 20 million kilometers (about 12.4 million miles) away and only 36 days from reaching Saturn. Hubble's exquisite optics, coupled with the high resolution of its Advanced Camera for Surveys, allow it to take pictures of Saturn which are nearly as sharp as Cassini's, even though Hubble is nearly a billion miles farther from Saturn than Cassini. Cassini will ultimately far exceed the resolution of Hubble during its close encounter with Saturn. Cassini's sharpness began to surpass Hubble's when it came to within 23 million kilometers (14 million miles) of Saturn earlier this month. Camera exposures in four filters (blue, blue-green, green and red) were combined to form the Hubble image, to render colors similar to what the eye would see through a telescope focused on Saturn. The subtle pastel colors of ammonia-methane clouds trace a variety of atmospheric dynamics. Saturn displays its familiar banded structure, and haze and clouds of various altitudes. Like Jupiter, all bands are parallel to Saturn's equator. Even the magnificent rings, at nearly their maximum tilt toward Earth, showe subtle hues, which indicate the trace chemical differences in their icy composition. Cassini has two cameras, a wide angle and narrow angle. This narrow angle image was made using a combination of three filters (red, green, blue) and was taken at a range of 24.3 million kilometers (15.1 million miles). The view is from 13 degrees below the equator. Enceladus, one of Saturn's 31 known moons, appears near the south pole at the bottom of the image. The color differences between the Hubble and Cassini images are mainly due to the different sets of filters used. More than two decades have passed since a spacecraft last visited Saturn-- NASA's Voyager-2 flew by Saturn in August 1981. Since 1990, Hubble has produced high-resolution Saturn images, tracking storms and auroral activity while providing crisp views of the rings over time and from various angles. Cassini will begin a four-year mission in orbit around Saturn when it arrives on June 30, 2004 (July 1, 2004 Univeral Time). Six months later it will release its piggybacked Huygens probe for descent through Titan's thick atmosphere. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative mission 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, manages the mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. Hubble images and additional information on Hubble are available at http://hubblesite.org/news/2004/18. Cassini images and information are available athttp://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Hubble Photo Credit: NASA, ESA and Erich Karkoschka (University of Arizona), Cassini Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Contacts: Carolina Martinez/Nancy Lovato Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-9382 Cheryl S. Gundy Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD Phone: 410-338-4707 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04i.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0405/26saturn/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_from_hubble_cassini.html __________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI-HUYGENS MISSION STATUS REPORT NASA/JPL release 2004-134 28 May 2004 The Cassini spacecraft successfully performed a critical six-minute trajectory correction maneuver May 27 to put it on course with its first encounter, Saturn's outermost moon Phoebe, set for June 11. The spacecraft is operating normally and is in excellent health. "The maneuver is very critical for getting us into Saturn orbit because it is the first checkout of the bipropellant pressurization system after nearly five years of dormancy," said Todd Barber, propulsion engineer for Cassini at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. "It sets the stage for Saturn orbit insertion on June 30." During the course of its trip, Cassini has traveled 3.4 billion kilometers (2.1 billion miles). "We couldn't have asked for a smoother ride," said Robert T. Mitchell, program manager for the Cassini-Huygens mission at JPL. "All the instruments are performing well, and for almost seven years we have traveled without any major hitches. The excitement is building as we are getting ready to put Cassini in orbit around the ringed planet." The orbiter has relied on three radioisotope thermoelectric generators to power all the electrical components, including the 12 science instruments. The European-built Huygens probe on board Cassini carries six instruments. "If the road to Saturn were a highway, the Cassini orbiter would have passed the sign along the road that says 'Saturnian County line,'" said Jeremy Jones, chief navigator for the Cassini-Huygens mission at JPL. "The next exits are Phoebe, 9 million kilometers (5.4 million miles) ahead, Saturn 19 million kilometers (12 million miles) ahead." Phoebe is an oddly shaped moon with a dark surface. It orbits in the opposite direction from the motion of most other bodies in the solar system. The backwards-revolution leads scientists to believe that it is an object captured from distant Kuiper Belt, making it an interesting target. "The Phoebe flyby may offer the first glimpse of what the frigid bodies at the edge of the solar system look like," said Dr. Bonnie Buratti, scientist on the Cassini-Huygens mission at JPL. "These bodies, which include Plut objects left over from the formation of the planets 4.5 billion years ago." After the Phoebe flyby, Cassini will be on course for Saturn. On arrival date June 30 (July 1 Universal Time), Cassini will become the first orbiter around Saturn. "The two Voyager and Pioneer spacecraft flew by the planet and saw it from a distance two or three days at a time. With Cassini, we will be in the city limits for four years," said Dr. Dennis Matson, project scientist for Cassini at JPL. "The difference is like driving by the Grand Canyon versus stopping, getting off and enjoying the sights for On arrival, Cassini will begin a 96-minute burn designed to put the spacecraft into Saturn's orbit. As part of getting the spacecraft into orbit, Cassini will twice cross between known gaps in the rings. As a precautionary measure, the spacecraft will use its antenna as a shield to protect it from tiny particle hits. A prime target for Cassini and the piggyback Huygens probe built by the European Space Agency is the smoggy moon Titan. "In the 350 years since the discovery of Titan we have come to see it as a world with surprising similarities to our own, yet located almost 1.5 billion kilometers (900 million miles) from the Sun," said Dr. Jonathan Lunine, Huygens interdisciplinary scientist and professor of planetary science and physics at the University of Arizona, Tucson. "With a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere and p compounds important in the chain of chemistry that led to life on Earth." Six months after reaching Saturn, Cassini will release the wok-shaped Huygens probe towards Titan on December 24, 2004 (December 25 Universal Time). The event will be by far the most distant descent of a robotic probe on another object in the solar system. On January 14, 2005 (Jan. 15 Universal Time), Huygens will enter Titan's atmosphere, deploy its parachute, and begin its scientific observations of Titan. The Cassini-Huygens mission 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, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. For the latest images and more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission, visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov. Contacts: Carolina Martinez Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-9382 Donald Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1727 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-04j.html http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/040527burn.html __________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORATION ROVER MISSION STATUS NASA/JPL release 2004-132 26 May 2004 NASA's solar-powered Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is beginning on Thursday what controllers expect to be frequent use of an overnight "deep sleep" mode to stretch the robot's power supply. Opportunity has managed only one to two hours of activity on many recent days while it has been examining a stadium-sized impact crater from vantage points around the rim. Shutting down more completely overnight will conserve enough battery charge to add several hours of science operations during the day, according to Jim Erickson, Mars Exploration Rover deputy project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. There is a calculated tradeoff--an increased risk that, without an overnight heater running, one of the six scientific instruments might be disabled by the cold. The susceptible instrument is Opportunity's miniature thermal emission spectrometer, called the Mini-TES. It makes infrared observations used for identifying minerals from afar to help the science team decide where to send the rover. Its observations also provide close-up evaluation of rock and soil targets, and thermal information about surface materials and the atmosphere. "The Mini-TES gives us vital insight into the minerals in rocks and the role of liquid water in their formation, so this choice is a carefully considered decision to weigh the risk of losing this capability against the benefit of continuing and increasing Opportunity's ability to do all the other exploration-oriented things this rover can do," said Dr. Jim Garvin, lead scientist for Mars and lunar exploration at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. Both Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, have already provided several weeks of bonus operations after successfully completing their primary missions: three months of examining geological evidence about past environments at their landing sites. As the Mars' southern-hemisphere winter advances and dust accumulates on the solar panels, the amount of electricity the rovers can generate is decreasing. The decline is more serious for Opportunity because the robotic arm of that rover has a heater with a malfunctioning switch. The switch cannot be turned off. A properly functioning thermostat turns the heater off during the day, but the heater stays on overnight even when it's not needed. The amount of energy wasted was not enough to hinder Opportunity from succeeding in its primary mission, but is now sapping about one-third of the rover's diminished amount of solar-generated electricity. "Deep sleep gives us a way to turn that heater off overnight," said Opportunity Mission Manager Matt Wallace of JPL. The capability to do so results from a software upgrade transmitted to both rovers in April. The first use of deep sleep, on Opportunity on May 6, verified its benefit to the useful power supply. Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, principal investigator for the rovers' science instruments, said, "Deep sleep is going to buy us back a huge amount of capability to drive farther, take more pictures, use the arm more." The deep sleep mode turns off a heater for the miniature thermal emission spectrometer as well as the troublesome heater in the arm. The spectrometer's heater uses less power but provides important protection. Scientists and engineers decided not to use deep sleep agaivn after May 6 until the spectrometer had completed high- priority observations from two different overlook points of the crater informally named "Endurance." Those observations were completed Tuesday. Tests on Earth indicate the spectrometer's beam splitter, a disc of potassium bromide salt about the size of a four-coin stack of quarters, would become ruined somewhere in the temperature range of minus 50 to minus 60 degrees Celsius (minus 58 to minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit). Dr. Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, Tempe, lead scientist for the instrument, said, "The thermal models predict that with deep sleep, we'll go to about minus 48 Celsius. That has me concerned because it's getting close." The May 6 deep sleep did no damage, but next time the temperature could go lower, and it probably will drop lower during deep sleep later in the martian winter. Christensen concurs with the decision to take that risk in order for the rover to have adequate power for its otherv activities. "We always knew that as dust built up and we ran low on power, eventually there would come a time when we couldn't use the Mini-TES heater," he said. "We're getting to that point sooner because of the stuck heater on the arm." Meanwhile, engineers and scientists are assessing how well Opportunity would be able to climb out of Endurance Crater. The assessment will aid in deciding whether to send the rover into the crater for up-close examination of rock layers there. Opportunity may complete a circuit around the crater's rim by mid-June and be ready for a decision about entering the crater. Spirit, halfway around Mars, resumed normal operations May 23 after engineers diagnosed a software glitch that halted the rover's activities on May 21. The symptoms resembled a problem seen about a week earlier, where again the computer encountered a conflict between two onboard tasks. However the errors are understood and the two incidents are unrelated. If they recur, neither poses a threat to the rovers' health. Spirit is now less than 700 meters (0.4 miles) from the base of the "Columbia Hills," having traveled more than 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) since landing. Controllers are optimistic that Spirit will reach the base of the hills by mid-June. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Additional information about the project is available from JPL at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer and from Cornell University athttp://athena.cornell.edu. Daily MER updates are available at: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_spirit.html http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status_opportunity.html Contact: Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-6278 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article991.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/05/27/marsrovers.ap/index.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zzzzo.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zzzzp.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zzzzq.html http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040526status.html __________________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPRESS: ARSIA MONS VOLCANO IN 3D ESA release 24 May 2004 This image of the Arsia Mons shield volcano was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express. This image shows a spectacular zone of collapse features on the southern flank of the giant shield volcano Arsia Mons (located at 239°E longitude and 10°S latitude, see the Mars map image). The image was taken from an altitude of about 400 kilometers during orbit 263 of the Mars Express spacecraft. The original image resolution was 20 meters per pixel, but the versions shown here have been reprocessed to reduce the volume of data for use on the internet. The main red-green anaglyph image, covering an area of 38 kilometers by 53 kilometers, is a detail section of the top left of the black and white image below, which covers an area of 80 kilometers by 105 kilometers. The total height difference in the land surfaces in these scenes is about 7 kilometers, and some individual collapse pits have a depth of 2 kilometers. The pits probably formed when lava erupted from the side of Arsia Mons. When lava, or molten rock, finds its way to the surface, it produces several veins and chambers. These slowly empty as the lava erupts and runs down the volcano flanks. Some of the lava reaching the surface cools down and becomes solid, often building a roof over the emptied chamber. The resulting voids collapse due to the weight of the overlying material. At several places, the walls of the pits have been modified by later landslides. The overall trend of the collapse zone runs from the south-west to the north-east, following exactly a giant zone of crustal weakness in the Tharsis region, along which the three large volcanoes Arsia, Pavonis and Ascraeus Montes are aligned. The 3D images require stereoscopic glasses to view. For more information on Mars Express HRSC images, you might like to read our updated "Frequently Asked Questions" (http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEMJBQXLDMD_0.html). Read the original news release at http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/SEM2EAHHZTD_0.html. An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article992.html. __________________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 20-26 May 2004 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available. Ascraeus Caldera Wall (Released 20 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/20/index.html Lycus Sulci Slope Streaks (Released 21 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/21/index.html Apsus Vallis Region (Released 22 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/22/index.html Dipping Rock Layers (Released 23 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/23/index.html Ganges Sedimentary Rocks (Released 24 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/24/index.html Dust Event (Released 25 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/25/index.html Dark Polar Dunes (Released 26 May 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/05/26/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 24-28 May 2004 Acidalia Planitia Crater (Released 24 May 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040524a.html Rampart Crater Ejecta (Released 25 May 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040525a.html Acidalia Planitia Crater (Released 26 May 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040526a.html Moreux Crater (Released 27 May 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040527a.html South Polar Cap (Released 28 May 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040528a.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, D.C. 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. __________________________________________________________________________ ROSETTA'S SCIENTIFIC "FIRST"--OBSERVATION OF COMET LINEAR ESA release 29-2004 26 May 2004 ESA's comet-chaser Rosetta, whose 10-year journey to its final target Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko started on 2 March, is well on its way. The first phase of commissioning is close to completion and Rosetta has successfully performed its first scientific activity--observation of Comet Linear. The commissioning activities, which started a couple of days after launch, included the individual activation of all instruments on board the Rosetta orbiter and the Philae lander. This first check-out worked flawlessly and showed that the spacecraft and all instruments are functioning well and in excellent shape. The commissioning tests also paved the way for Rosetta's first scientific activity: observation of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR), which is currently traveling for the first and only time through the inner Solar System and offered Rosetta an excellent opportunity to make its first scientific observation. On 30 April, the OSIRIS camera system, which was scheduled for commissioning on that date, took images of this unique cometary visitor. Later that day, three more instruments on board Rosetta (ALICE, MIRO and VIRTIS) were activated in parallel to take measurements of the comet. Although the parallel activation of the instruments was not planned until later in the year, the Rosetta team felt confident that this could be done without any risk because of the satisfactory progress of the overall testing. The first data from the remote-sensing observations confirm the excellent performance of the instruments. The four instruments took images and spectra of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) to study its coma and tail in different wavelengths, from ultraviolet to microwave. Rosetta successfully measured the presence of water molecules in the tenuous atmosphere around the comet. Detailed analysis of the data will require the complete calibration of the instruments, which will take place in the coming months. The OSIRIS camera produced high-resolution images of Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) from a distance of about 95 million kilometers. An image showing a pronounced nucleus and a section of the tenuous tail extending over about 2 million kilometers was obtained by OSIRIS in blue light and is available at http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/spcs/rosetta/rosetta20040526a.tif. The successful observation of Comet Linear was a first positive test for Rosetta's ultimate goal, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which will be reached in 2014. Rosetta will be the first mission to undertake a long- term exploration of a comet at close quarters whilst accompanying it on its way towards the Sun. The unprecedented in-depth study conducted by the Rosetta orbiter and its Philae lander will help scientists decipher the formation of our Solar System around 4600 million years ago and provide them with clues of how comets may have contributed to the beginning of life on Earth. In particular, the Philae lander, developed by a European consortium under the leadership of the German Aerospace Research Institute (DLR), will analyse the composition and structure of the comet's surface. After Rosetta's first deep-space manoeuvres were carried out on 10 and 15 May with the highest accuracy, the first phase of commissioning is set to be completed in the first week of June. Rosetta will then go into a quiet "cruise mode" until September, when the second phase of commissioning is scheduled to start. These activities, including the interference and pointing campaign, will last until December. The Rosetta spacecraft is well under way on its epic 10-year voyage, to do what has never before been attempted--orbiting and landing on a comet. Rosetta was built under the prime contractorship of Astrium Germany, leading an industrial team of more than 50 contractors from 14 European countries and the United States. Contact: ESA Media Relations Division Phone: +33(0)1.53.69.7155 Fax: +33(0)1.53.69.7690 An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rosetta_focuses_linear.html. __________________________________________________________________________ End Marsbugs, Volume 11, Number 23. 41 Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 11, Number 23, 1 June 2004