Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 11, Number 33, 23 August 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) MICROFOSSILS IN A METEORITE By Brig Klyce 2) CANADIAN ANSARI X PRIZE ENTRANT TAKES THE PLUNGE IN TEST By Tariq Malik 3) VENUS: INHABITED WORLD? (INTERVIEW WITH DAVID GRINSPOON) By Henry Bortman 4) HAVE BLOOD, WILL TRAVEL By Patrick L. Barry and Tony Phillips 5) ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: WHAT'S REALLY OUT THERE By Seth Shostak Announcements 6) SPACE RESOURCES ROUNDTABLE VI, SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT Lunar and Planetary Institute release 7) NIAC 6TH ANNUAL MEETING NASA Insitute for Advanced Concepts release Mission Reports 8) CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 12-18 AUGUST 2004 NASA/JPL release 9) GENESIS: NASA MISSION RETURNS WITH A PIECE OF THE SUN NASA/JPL release 2004-207 10) MER UPDATE: BEDROCK IN MARS' GUSEV CRATER HINTS AT WATERY PAST NASA/JPL release 2004-204 11) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 12) MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGES NASA/JPL/ASU release 13) ROSETTA: COOKING ON A COMET? ESA release __________________________________________________________________________ MICROFOSSILS IN A METEORITE By Brig Klyce 2 August 2004 At the International Symposium on Optical Science and Technology in Denver, Colorado, Richard B. Hoover of NASA/NSSTC in Huntsville, Alabama announced the possible detection of a fossilized cyanobacterial mat in the interior of the Orgueil carbonaceous meteorite. Microfossils in meteorites have been reported before now, but critics say that they may have been left by earthly contaminants. Yet the newly seen microfossils can hardly be contaminants because they are not isolated single cells, but whole ecologies whose earthly examples grow only under conditions that the meteorite fragment never experienced after landing here. Witnesses agreed that the new evidence, soon to be published in the Conference Proceedings, is momentous. Meanwhile, Hoover's group is gathering additional images and data for submission to a peer-reviewed scientific journal. For Hoover's discussion, a larger photo, and corroborating photos from Russia see http://www.panspermia.org/hoover2.htm. __________________________________________________________________________ CANADIAN ANSARI X PRIZE ENTRANT TAKES THE PLUNGE IN TEST By Tariq Malik From Space.com 14 August 2004 A Canadian team of rocketeers has moved one step closer to launching its own manned spacecraft with the successful parachute drop test of a crew capsule today. The backers of Canadian Arrow, a rocket entry in the $10 million Ansari X Prize competition, watched happily as their crew compartment drifted down into Lake Ontario. "Today totally proves our Canadian Arrow design," said Geoff Sheerin, leader of the London, Ontario-based Arrow's bid for the X Prize. "It went really well and everything worked as it should." Sheerin's group is one of more than two dozen teams competing for the X Prize, an international competition to build and fly a reusable three- person spacecraft twice in two weeks. Competing spacecraft must to reach an altitude of at least 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth to qualify for the $10 million purse and X Prize trophy. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/xprize_arrowdrop_update_040814.html. __________________________________________________________________________ VENUS: INHABITED WORLD? (INTERVIEW WITH DAVID GRINSPOON) By Henry Bortman From Astrobiology Magazine 18 August 2004 The planet Venus is like Earth in many ways. It has a similar size and mass, it is closer to us than any other planet, and it probably formed from the same sort of materials that formed Earth. For years scientists and science fiction writers dreamed of the exotic jungles and life forms that must inhabit Earth's twin sister. David Grinspoon, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, writes in his book, Venus Revealed, that through the Mariner 2 and other Venus missions, "we found our 'sister planet' to be chemically alien, as well as hot and dry to quite unearthly extremes. With these revelations, the twin-sister imagery quickly disappeared, and the notion that 'Venus is hell' took hold." Only 20 percent of the light that hits Venus makes it through the cloud cover, the other 80 percent of the Sun's light is reflected back into space. This doesn't make Venus a cold world, however, because the thick carbon dioxide atmosphere traps the planet's heat. This greenhouse effect on Venus is often cited as a nightmare example of what could happen to Earth if we don't get our pollution under control. In part 1 of this interview with Astrobiology Magazine editor Henry Bortman, Grinspoon explained how Venus evolved from a wet planet similar to Earth to the scorching hot, dried-out furnace of today. In part 2, Grinspoon discusses the possibility of life on Venus. Astrobiology Magazine (AM): You've suggested, in contrast to the conventional view, that Venus may have held onto its water for perhaps as long as 2 billion years. What are the implications for habitability? David Grinspoon (DG): For habitability, there are implications for Venus and there are implications for terrestrial planets in general. Venus almost certainly had liquid water when it was young. So the conditions for the origin of life, as conventionally defined, were satisfied there as much as on Earth and Mars. We've been hearing a lot about how Mars may never have been warm, so perhaps Venus was more habitable in that sense than Mars. It may have been Venus and Earth that were the two young habitable planets, perhaps even exchanging material through impact ejecta, like we hear more commonly described as a relationship between young Mars and young Earth. It may in fact have been Venus and Earth that were enjoying this exchange. Another intriguing thing about early Venus is that it may have had an oxygen-rich atmosphere. You had this massive loss of hydrogen to space from water, and what's left is all that oxygen. We've heard a lot about the rise of oxygen being important in the development of complex life on Earth. Perhaps Venus was a warm, wet planet with an oxygenated atmosphere much earlier than Earth. The problem in thinking about the habitability of Venus is that, in the conventional view, the water didn't last long. But if the water lasted for billions of years, that becomes much more interesting for the possibility of biological development. Earth is going to lose its oceans in the future, just as Venus did in the past. How long planets retain their oceans is a function of distance from the sun, all other things being equal. But clouds may allow planets to hold onto their oceans at closer distances to the sun than has been conventionally thought. For habitable planets in general, when the planets are on the inner edge of what we think of as the habitable zone, clouds perhaps make it harder to lose oceans. If planets on that inner edge retain their oceans longer, then there is more real estate of terrestrial planets in the galaxy that keep their oceans for biologically significant time scales. AM: If there had been life on Venus, say for 2 or 3 billion years, would this resurfacing event have buried all the evidence? DG: On a planet like Venus that's been recently geologically active compared to a planet like Mars, it's much harder to search for ancient life, just because an active planet buries its past. The very things that make Venus so geologically interesting also make it a real challenge to uncover its ancient history. I believe the signs are probably there, they're just going to be harder to tease out. The way to do it is with future missions that are targeted at understanding this ancient history. Although 80 percent of Venus seems to have been resurfaced sometime in the last billion years, the other 15 percent or so was not. There are these highland areas, called tesserae, which are clearly the oldest areas on Venus. They're very rugged terrain, and have what looks like a long history of intense tectonic deformation. Those are the places I think you want to go to look for signs of the more ancient history on Venus. I'm a strong advocate of new missions to Venus. We really have to go to the surface and dig in the rocks and drill to find out what is the mineralogy, and what is the history of the older areas in particular. Then we also can do new measurements of the atmosphere. If we get very accurate measurements of the isotopes in the atmosphere, then I think we can start to piece together the evolutionary history of the atmosphere in a more complete way than has been done. It's not going to be easy, because Venus is a hard place. It's a challenging place to explore on the surface, given the extreme conditions, and also because recent geological activity has destroyed the obvious signs of that older history. But it's there in the rocks, just like on Earth. Earth has a relatively young surface. If you were studying the Earth only from space with orbital imagery, it would be very hard to know its ancient history. AM: Our results from looking at ancient rocks on Earth are pretty ambiguous, though. DG: Well, we do better than we would if we didn't have that ability. I'm not going to claim it would be easy. But I'd like to have the ability to do in situ experiments on the rocks of Venus, and eventually sample return, especially from the older areas, so we can study those rocks in Earth's laboratories. It would be a challenging mission, but I've been on NASA panels that have studied these options, and there are designs for sample return missions from Venus. By the way, one further implication for habitability bears mentioning. If Venus once had life, and there's no good reason to think that it couldn't have, then we can ask what happened to this life when the oceans disappeared. One possibility is that it simply died out once its habitat vanished. But life is tenacious and highly adaptable. So I think that it is possible that Venusian life migrated to an atmospheric niche when the surface water dried up. The clouds, after all, do contain water, mixed in with concentrated sulfuric acid. This is highly speculative, but I think it is possible that life could exist, even today, in the clouds of Venus. We now know that life exists in clouds on Earth, and also that some terrestrial organisms can thrive in extremely acidic environments. Furthermore, the clouds of Venus are a much more stable and continuous niche than the comparatively ephemeral and wispy clouds of Earth. So, from one point of view, the clouds of Earth are a more extreme environment for life than the clouds of Venus. It seems like a long shot, but given our extreme ignorance about life elsewhere in the universe, let us not rule out an energetic, stable environment like the clouds of Venus until we've explored them much more fully. AM: Are there any missions to Venus currently planned? If so, will they help answer the question about past or present life on Venus? DG: The European Space Agency has a mission called Venus Express, which is going to be in an orbiter. It will not address the surface issues, but it will do some really interesting orbital science. To get at these evolutionary questions that we are discussing here, though, you can't do it from an orbiter. You have to probe in the atmosphere for the isotopes, and you have to ultimately go to the surface, as forbidding as that is, to do these kinds of experiments. The Decadal Survey of the NRC Commission called for a new mission to Venus to do surface and atmospheric in situ science. They called it VISE--Venus In Situ Explorer. It's one of NASA's top ranked goals for the next decade. To send anything to the surface of Venus that's going to survive long enough to do measurements costs a lot, because you have to put it in this intense pressure vessel and you have to try to control the temperature. Just an hour's worth of science on the surface of Venus costs more than a mission to do a month's worth on Mars. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1142.html. __________________________________________________________________________ HAVE BLOOD, WILL TRAVEL By Patrick L. Barry and Tony Phillips From NASA Science News 19 August 2004 In the time it takes you to read this sentence, more than 10 million red blood cells in your body will die. Don't be alarmed; it's natural, and stem cells in your bone marrow are constantly making enough new cells to replace the dying ones. But what if those blood-making cells stopped working? Without a fresh supply of red and white blood cells, you would quickly become anemic, your immune system would collapse, and without medical attention, you would die. This could be a concern for astronauts taking long trips beyond Earth orbit. It's well known that space radiation can damage cells in astronauts' bodies. Less well understood is the specific threat to the key blood-making cells. Understanding that threat, and developing remedies, is the job of Alan Gewirtz, a medical doctor at the University of Pennsylvania (Division of Hematology and Oncology). He's bombarding stem cells with simulated space radiation to see how the cells are affected. By exploring the molecular damage, and testing candidate drug-remedies, "this research could benefit not only astronauts, but also people here on Earth who suffer from blood disorders such as leukemia and aplastic anemia," says Gewirtz. The work is being done at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory ("NSRL" for short) in New York. NSRL draws high-speed particles from one of the atom smashers at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island and channels them to a special facility for biological research. The radiation consists of protons and heavy ions moving at almost light speed--much like the cosmic rays astronauts encounter in deep space. Apollo astronauts absorbed some cosmic rays on their way to the moon, but they didn't suffer much from it because those trips were short, a matter of days. Astronauts traveling to Mars, on the other hand, will be "out there" for at least six months. Accumulated cosmic ray damage could become important. To see how cosmic rays affect an astronaut's internal blood supply, Gewirtz irradiates Petri dishes containing samples of blood-making stem cells. Each sample contains about a million cells collected from the bloodstream of paid, healthy volunteers. Once the cells have been exposed, the team looks closely for damage. Are the cells' DNA strands (the "memory chips" for making new cells) affected? If so, how, and how badly? Are other parts of the cells' internal machinery damaged? In what ways? These stem cells should not be confused with controversial embryonic stem cells; Gewirtz is working with adult stem cells. Adult stem cells live in several places within every person's body, such as the bone marrow, the brain, the skin, and the gut. Unlike most of the body's cells, stem cells aren't pigeonholed into being only one kind of cell, such as a heart or a kidney cell; instead, they retain the ability to become any type of cell-- a trait called "pluripotency" or "multipotency." Bone marrow stem cells, called "hematopoietic progenitor" cells, generate a continuous supply of cells that can become any of the following: platelets, lymphocytes and granulocytes (white blood cells), erythrocytes (red blood cells), and others. In this way, stem cells are a source of fresh replacement cells to fill in as older cells wear out. Beyond assessing radiation damage to hematopoietic progenitor cells, Gewirtz's group also plans to test some drug-like "countermeasures" that could help astronauts better endure low levels of radiation exposure. One idea is to give the cells antioxidants. Much of the damage to DNA isn't caused by the radiation itself, but by chemically reactive "free radicals" created when the radiation strikes some other molecule. These roving free radicals then go on to "oxidize", and thus damage, the DNA. Mopping up free radicals with antioxidants, in the form of pills, perhaps, could slow or halt the damage. Another approach they're considering is to amplify a natural system in people's cells for repairing DNA. Normally, cells contain dozens of specialized repair enzymes that constantly run up and down the long, stringy DNA molecules, checking for damage and making repairs. "We hope to find ways to stimulate the natural repair mechanisms," Gewirtz says. "It's hard to beat millions of years of evolution for picking out what works, and works well." Will these countermeasures help protect the cultured cell samples? Gewirtz says his team ought to have some results by the end of the year. If they're successful, astronauts on their way to Mars may not have to worry about their own internal wellsprings of new blood cells running dry. Read the original article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/19aug_blood.htm. __________________________________________________________________________ ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: WHAT'S REALLY OUT THERE By Seth Shostak From Space.com 19 August 2004 Standing in the ticket line for Alien vs. Predator, I assumed this movie would be a souped-up version of a video game, a small home entertainment pumped up on Hollywood steroids to fill the big screen. Of course, I couldn't help but notice that the line extended over three counties, and the movie had grabbed top ranking at the box office its first weekend out. Facts are, Alien vs Predator is not just mindless bloat, and a better film than folks over thirty will expect. Get this straight: the movie is a cut-and-paste job. It's a pastiche of a half-dozen situations from well-known sci-fi pictures, a quilt sewn together from tried-and-true scraps of film fabric. The plot (don't worry; it doesn't extend beyond the movie's halfway mark) is cranked up fast, as an orbiting surveillance satellite finds a weird object buried thousands of feet under Antarctica (think The Thing). Next, a wealthy, but terminally ill industrialist, Charles Bishop Weyland, decides to hire some experts to find out what the hidden edifice is, mostly to inject some last-minute thrills into his waning life (think Contact). Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_avp_shostak_040819.html. __________________________________________________________________________ SPACE RESOURCES ROUNDTABLE VI, SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT Lunar and Planetary Institute release 19 August 2004 The Space Resources Roundtable, Inc., in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines and the Lunar and Planetary Institute, will convene the sixth Space Resources Roundtable on November 1-3, 2004, at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. The purpose of the Space Resources Roundtable is to bring together interested space professionals, experienced resource personnel from industry, and entrepreneurs who may be considering entering into the process of developing and utilizing the resources of space, including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The goal of the Space Resources Roundtable is to advance the prospects for the commercial development of space resources through information exchange between personnel in government, commercial, and academic organizations. Go to http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/roundtable2004/ for registration and additional information. __________________________________________________________________________ NIAC 6TH ANNUAL MEETING NASA Insitute for Advanced Concepts release 20 August 2004 NIAC will be hosting its 6th Annual Meeting on October 19-20, 2004 at the Grand Hyatt Seattle. All currently funded Phase II NIAC Fellows and NIAC Student Fellows will be giving status reports on their concepts and recently selected Phase I Fellows and Student Fellows will be presenting posters about their concepts. In addition, two keynote speakers, Dr. Robert Hoyt and Dr. Paul Spudis will be giving their perspectives on concepts that may have a significant impact on future space exploration activities. There is no fee to attend this meeting, but you must register and we urge you to reserve a room at the Grand Hyatt as soon as possible. The due date for reserving your room at the Grand Hyatt is September 18, 2004 the due date for meeting registration is October 8, 2004. Registration and accommodation information is available at http://www.niac.usra.edu. __________________________________________________________________________ CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 12-18 AUGUST 2004 NASA/JPL release 20 August 2004 The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired from the Goldstone tracking station on Wednesday, August 18. 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 included uplink and execution of a Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) flight software checkout mini-sequence, memory readouts of the Command & Data Subsystem action log and non-interfering error log, and uplink of files to unmask the helium latch valve driver assembly fault protection monitors and to update the default main engine thrust value from 450 Newtons to 443 Newtons prior to Orbit Trim Maneuver(OTM) #2, aka the Periapsis Raise Maneuver (PRM). Additional files were generated for use in Spacecraft Operations Office (SCO) testing of a representative PRM in the Integrated Test Laboratory (ITL). The final PRM will be approved August 19 for uplink and execution Monday morning August 23. This is the third largest maneuver to be performed during the mission, and the last planned fully pressurized maneuver in the remaining tour. The PRM is necessary to move the spacecraft path well outside the rings at periapsis, about 300,000 km farther away from Saturn than it was at Saturn Orbit Insertion. Two previously unknown moons were discovered orbiting Saturn between Mimas and Enceladus. The moons are approximately 3 and 4 km across and are provisionally named S/2004 S1 and S/2004 S2. More information regarding these moons may be found on the Cassini web site. Products were delivered for official port 1 as part of Science Operations Plan (SOP) implementation of tour sequences S35 and S36. Kickoff of SOP Implementation for S37/S38 begins next week. The aftermarket process for sequence S07 completed this week, and requested changes were delivered and decision meetings held for both S08 and S09. A preliminary port delivery was made for sequence S06 as part of the SOP Update process. Three sequence change requests (SCR) were approved at an SCR approval meeting this week as part of the S04 Science and Sequence Update Process (SSUP). The SSUP is the final process in the development chain prior to the uplink of the background sequence to the spacecraft. The SCRs included a pointing change for Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS), sponge bit allocations, and two ISS memory readouts (MRO). In addition, the Preliminary Sequence Integration and Validation-2 stripped sub-sequences for S04 have been placed in the program file repository. A waiver request disposition meeting and an SCR approval meeting were also held as part of the development process for S05. Five of the six SCRs were approved. These included a tweak to pointing to catch newly discovered cumulous clouds near Titan's south pole, a change of primary pointing of four satellite orbit determination observations to catch newly discovered moons, a pointing correction for a Titan A RADAR observation, addition of some Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) resets, and two ISS MROs. INMS, the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), and ISS have submitted sample archive data products and supporting documentation for review by the Planetary Data System Discipline nodes. INMS is including higher- level products in their archive. The Planetary Data System and the RADAR team are conducting peer reviews of archive data Software Interface Specifications since data products are not yet available. The review includes raw and higher level products. The subject of this week's tour plan presentation to the flight team was the Cross Discipline Target Working team's plans for tour. A VIMS science team meeting was held this week in Denver, Colorado. Presentations were given on anomaly investigations, status of calibration and decontamination issues, and the proposed changes to the solid-state recorder library region. A delivery coordination meeting (DCM) was held August 18 to review SCO Propulsion Tools version 3.1 and coordinate installation. The only changes in this delivery are in the Bipropellant System Performance Tool (BSPT) and the Monopropellant System Performance Tool (MSPT) files to allow outputs to be published to the program file repository. A DCM was also held for the Mission Sequence Subsystem delivery of Cassini Information Management System version 3.2. The software was installed for operations use the same day. A tutorial and demonstration are tentatively planned for the instrument teams at an upcoming Science Planning Tour Process meeting in early September. Cassini Outreach conducted two NASA workshops at the Girl Scout USA Headquarters, Edith Macy Conference Center, Briarcliff Manor, NY. Several "Saturn in your Kitchen and Backyard" activities were demonstrated for the leaders. Fifty Girl Scout, 4-H trainers, museum program managers and solar system ambassadors are now armed with a suite of solar system exploration activities which they will be incorporating into their programs. Cassini activities were demonstrated and copies of the activities were distributed to all. These activities can also be found on the Cassini Education pages http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/education/edu-58- kitchen.cfm For the most recent Cassini information, press releases and images go to http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . 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 Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1145.html http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/040819colorpix.html http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/040822dione.html __________________________________________________________________________ GENESIS: NASA MISSION RETURNS WITH A PIECE OF THE SUN NASA/JPL release 2004-207 19 August 2004 In a dramatic ending that marks a beginning in scientific research, NASA's Genesis spacecraft is set to swing by Earth and jettison a sample return capsule filled with particles of the Sun that may ultimately tell us more about the genesis of our solar system. "The Genesis mission--to capture a piece of the Sun and return it to Earth--is truly in the NASA spirit: a bold, inspiring mission that makes a fundamental contribution to scientific knowledge," said Steven Brody, NASA's program executive for the Genesis mission, NASA Headquarters, Washington. On September 8, 2004, the drama will unfold over the skies of central Utah when the spacecraft's sample return capsule will be snagged in midair by helicopter. The rendezvous will occur at the Air Force's Utah Test and Training Range, southwest of Salt Lake City. "What a prize Genesis will be," said Genesis Principal Investigator Dr. Don Burnett of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. "Our spacecraft has logged almost 27 months far beyond the moon's orbit, collecting atoms from the Sun. With it, we should be able to say what the Sun is composed of, at a level of precision for planetary science purposes that has never been seen before." The prizes Burnett and company are waiting for are hexagonal wafers of pure silicon, gold, sapphire, diamond and other materials that have served as a celestial prison for their samples of solar wind particles. These wafers have weathered 26-plus months in deep space and are now safely stowed in the return capsule. If the capsule were to descend all the way to the ground, some might fracture or break away from their mountings; hence, the midair retrieval by helicopter, with crew members including some who xhave performed helicopter stunt work for Hollywood. "These guys fly in some of Hollywood's biggest movies," said Don Sweetnam, Genesis project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. "But this time, the Genesis capsule will be the star." The Genesis capsule--carrying the agency's first sample return since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972, and the first material collected beyond the Moon--will enter Earth's atmosphere at 9:55 AM Mountain Time. Two minutes and seven seconds after atmospheric entry, while still flying supersonically, the capsule will deploy a drogue parachute at 33 kilometers (108,000 feet) altitude. Six minutes after that, the main parachute, a parafoil, will deploy 6.1 kilometers (20,000 feet) up. Waiting below wixll be two helicopters and their flight crews looking for their chance to grab a piece of the Sun. "Each helicopter will carry a crew of three," said Roy Haggard, chief executive officer of Vertigo Inc. and director of flight operations for the lead helicopter. "The lead helicopter will deploy an eighteen-and-a- half foot long pole with what you could best describe as an oversized, Space-Age fishing hook on its end. When we make the approach we want the helicopter skids to be about eight feet above the top of the parafoil. If for some reason the capture is not successful, the second helicopter is 1,000 feet behind us and setting up for its approach. We estimate we will have five opportunities to achieve capture." The helicopter that does achieve capture will carry the sample canister to a clean room at the Michael Army Air Field at the U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, where scientists await their cosmic prize. The samples will then be moved to a special laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, where they will be preserved and studied by scientists for many years to come. "I understand much of the interest is in how we retrieve Genesis," added Burnett. "But to me the excitement really begins when scientists from around the world get hold of those samples for their research. That will be something." JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, manages the Genesis mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operates the spacecraft. Los Alamos National Laboratory and NASA's Johnson Space Center contributed to Genesis payload development, and the Johnson Space Center will curate the sample and support analysis and sample allocation. More detailed background on the mission is available at http://genesismission.jpl.nasa.gov. Contacts: DC Agle Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-5011 Donald Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1727 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1146.html http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1149.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/genesis_update_040819.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/genesis-04e.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/helicopter_catch_samples_genesis.h tml __________________________________________________________________________ MER UPDATE: BEDROCK IN MARS' GUSEV CRATER HINTS AT WATERY PAST NASA/JPL release 2004-204 18 August 2004 Now that NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit is finally examining bedrock in the "Columbia Hills," it is finding evidence that water thoroughly altered some rocks in Mars' Gusev Crater. Spirit and its twin, Opportunity, completed successful three-month primary missions on Mars in April and are returning bonus results during extended missions. They remain in good health though beginning to show signs of wear. On Opportunity, a tool for exposing the insides of rocks stopped working Sunday, but engineers are optimistic that the most likely diagnosis is a problem that can be fixed soon. "It looks like there's a pebble trapped between the cutting heads of the rock abrasion tool," said Chris Salvo, rover mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We think we can treat it by turning the heads in reverse, but we are still evaluating the best approach to remedy the situation. There are several options available to us." Opportunity originally landed right beside exposed bedrock and promptly found evidence there for an ancient body of saltwater. On the other hand, it took Spirit half a year of driving across a martian plain to reach bedrock in Gusev Crater. Now, Spirit's initial inspection of an outcrop called "Clovis" on a hill about 9 meters (30 feet) above the plain suggests that water may once have been active at Gusev. "We have evidence that interaction with liquid water changed the composition of this rock," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, principal investigator for the science instruments on both rovers. "This is different from the rocks out on the plain, where we saw coatings and veins apparently due to effects of a small amount of water. Here, we have a more thorough, deeper alteration, suggesting much more water." Squyres said, "To really understand the conditions that altered Clovis, we'd like to know what it was like before the alteration. We have the 'after.' Now we want the 'before.' If we're lucky, there may be rocks nearby that will give us that." Dr. Doug Ming, a rover science team member from NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, said indications of water affecting Clovis come from analyzing the rock's surface and interior with Spirit's alpha particle X- ray spectrometer and finding relatively high levels of bromine, sulfur and chlorine inside the rock. He said, "This is also a very soft rock, not like the basaltic rocks seen back on the plains of Gusev Crater. It appears to be highly altered." Rover team members described the golf-cart-sized robots' status and recent findings in a briefing at JPL today. Opportunity has completed a transect through layers of rock exposed in the southern inner slope of stadium-sized "Endurance Crater." The rocks examined range from outcrops near the rim down through progressively older and older layers to the lowest accessible outcrop, called "Axel Heiberg" after a Canadian Arctic island. "We found different compositions in different layers," said Dr. Ralf Gellert, of Max-Planck-Institut fur Chemie, Mainz, Germany. Chlorine concentration increased up to threefold in middle ilayers. Magnesium and sulfur declined nearly in parallel with each other in older layers, suggesting those two elements may have been dissolved and removed by water. Small, gray stone spheres nicknamed "blueberries" are plentiful in Endurance just as they were at Opportunity's smaller landing-site crater, "Eagle." Pictures from the rover's microscopic imager show a new variation on the blueberries throughout a reddish-tan slab called "Bylot" in the Axel Heiberg outcrop. "They're rougher textured, they vary more in size, and they're the color of the rock, instead of gray," said Zoe Learner, a science team collaborator from Cornell. "We've noticed that in some cases where these are eroding, you can see a regular blueberry or a berry fragment inside." One possibility is that a water-related process has added a coarser outer layer to the blueberries, she said, adding, "It's still really a mystery." JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Images and additional information about the project are available from JPL at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov and from Cornell University at http://athena.cornell.edu. Contacts: Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-6278 Donald Savage NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1727 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1143.html http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1144.html http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/08/18/mars.water.reut/index.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zzzzzzs.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-04zzzzzzt.html http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/040818status.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/more_evidence_past_water_mars.html __________________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 12-18 August 2004 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available. Bright Layer Outcrops (Released 12 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/12/index.html Polar Cap Retreat (Released 13 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/13/index.html South Polar Crater (Released 14 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/14/index.html Ridged Layer Outcrop (Released 15 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/15/index.html Sedimentary Rock Outcrops (Released 16 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/16/index.html Aligned Defrosting Dunes (Released 17 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/17/index.html Ancient Bedforms (Released 18 August 2004) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2004/08/18/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 16-20 August 2004 Daedalia Planum (Released 16 August 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040816A.html Elysium Planitia (Released 17 August 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040817A.html Hydraotes Chaos (Released 18 August 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040818A.html Tantalus Fluctus (Released 19 August 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040819a.html Hecate Tholus (Released 20 August 2004) http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20040820A.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: COOKING ON A COMET? ESA release 19 August 2004 One of the ingenious instruments on board Rosetta is designed to "smell" the comet for different substances, analyzing samples that have been "cooked" in a set of miniature ovens. ESA's Rosetta will be the first space mission ever to land on a comet. After its lander reaches Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the main spacecraft will follow the comet for many months as it heads towards the Sun. Rosetta's task is to study comets, which are considered the primitive building blocks of the Solar System. This will help us to understand if life on Earth began with the help of "comet seeding". The Ptolemy instrument is an "Evolved Gas Analyser", the first example of a new concept in space instruments, devised to tackle the challenge of analyzing substances "on location" on bodies in our Solar System. Weighing just 4.5 kilograms and about the size of a shoe box, it was produced by a collaboration of the UK's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Open University. The analysis of these samples from the surface of the comet will establish what the cometary nucleus is made from, providing valuable information about these most primitive objects. After the lander touches down on the comet, the Ptolemy instrument will collect comet nucleus material, believed to be a frozen mixture of ices, dust and tar, using the Sampling, Drilling and Distribution system (SD2) supplied by Tecnospazio Milano of Italy. SD2 will drill for small cores of ice and dust from depths of down to 250 millimetres. Samples collected in this way will be delivered to one of four tiny "ovens" dedicated to Ptolemy, which are mounted on a circular, rotatable carousel. The German- supplied carousel has 32 of these ovens, with the remainder being used by other Rosetta instruments. Of the four Ptolemy ovens, three are for solid samples collected and delivered by SD2 while the fourth will be used to collect volatile materials from the near-surface cometary atmosphere. By heating the solid samples to 800 °C, the oven converts them into gases which then pass along a pipe into Ptolemy. The gas will then be separated into its constituent chemical species using a gas chromatograph. Ptolemy can then determine which chemicals are present in the comet sample, and hence help to build up a detailed picture of what the comet is made from. It does this using the world's smallest "ion-trap mass spectrometer", a small, low-power device built with the latest miniature technology. This device will find out what gases are present in any particular sample and measure stable isotope ratios. Read the original news release at http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMR26W4QWD_index_0.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1147.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0408/19rosetta/ http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rosetta_can_smell_comet.html __________________________________________________________________________ End Marsbugs, Volume 11, Number 33.