Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter Volume 12, Number 28, 19 August 2005 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, but individual authors retain the copyright of specific articles. 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) EXTREMOPHILES: NOT SO EXTREME? By Seth Shostak 2) EARTH'S SURFACE TRANSFORMED BY MASSIVE ASTEROIDS Australian National University release 3) PROZAC FOR PLANTS By Karen Miller 4) MODEL GIVES CLEARER IDEA OF HOW OXYGEN CAME TO DOMINATE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE University of Washington release 5) METEOR IMPACTS: LIFE'S JUMP STARTER? Geological Society of America release 6) MARS ON EARTH: AS SIMPLE AS A WALK IN THE PARK By Leonard David 7) FREEZE-DRIED MATS OF MICROBES AWAKEN IN ANTARCTIC STREAM BED, SAYS CU STUDY University of Colorado at Boulder release 8) CARNEGIE MELLON ROVER HEADS TO ATACAMA DESERT IN CHILE FOR FINAL MISSION IN THREE-YEAR SEARCH FOR LIFE Carnegie Mellon University release 9) UCSD DISCOVERY SUGGESTS "PROTOSUN" WAS SHINING DURING FORMATION OF FIRST MATTER IN SOLAR SYSTEM University of California at San Diego release 10) EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL MARS SOCIETY CONVENTION A GREAT SUCCESS Mars Society release 11) INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND EVOLUTION AT THE WHITE HOUSE By Edna DeVore 12) TINY MICROBE HAS HUGE ROLE IN OCEAN LIFE, EARTH'S CARBON CYCLE By David Stauth 13) THE ENDS OF THE EARTH By Pamela Conrad Announcements 14) SJI CALLS FOR PAPERS, REVIEWERS AND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS By Neil Armand Mission Reports 15) CASSINI FLIES BY SATURN'S TORTURED MOON MIMAS NASA/JPL image advisory 2005-129 16) MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATE NASA/JPL release 17) MARS EXPRESS RADAR COLLECTS FIRST SURFACE DATA ESA release 38-2005 18) MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 19) MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER UPDATES Multiple agencies' releases _____________________________________________________________________ EXTREMOPHILES: NOT SO EXTREME? By Seth Shostak From Space.com 4 August 2005 Many of them are tiny, all of them are tough, and they could be your most distant ancestors. True to their name (which is a Greco-Latin combo for "someone who loves extremes"), extremophiles can batten and fatten in conditions that humans--and most other species--would consider off limits. The first of these sturdy organisms to be discovered, a thermophile, was found in the late 1960s in Yellowstone National Park, hanging out in one of the hot springs. It was a bacterium with a name bigger than itself: Thermus aquaticus (literally, "warm bath water dweller." Species names are often surprisingly prosaic once you translate them.) Thermus aquaticus not only withstood, but thrived, in temperatures above 160°F. For comparison, try turning on the hot water tap at home, and let it run. It will scald your hand, but the temperature won't exceed 140°F. This is observational proof that you are not a thermophile. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_extremophiles_050804.html. _____________________________________________________________________ EARTH'S SURFACE TRANSFORMED BY MASSIVE ASTEROIDS Australian National University release 5 August 2005 A cluster of at least three asteroids between 20 and 50 kilometers across colliding with Earth over 3.2 billion years ago caused a massive change in the structure and composition of the earth's surface, according to new research by ANU earth scientists. According to Dr. Andrew Glikson and Mr. John Vickers from the Department of Earth and Marine Sciences at ANU, the impact of these asteroids triggered major earthquakes, faulting, volcanic eruption and deep-seated magmatic activity and interrupted the evolution of parts of the Earth's crust. The research extends the original discovery of extraterrestrial impact deposits, discovered in South Africa by two US scientists, D. R. Lowe and G. R. Byerly, identifying their effects in the Pilbara region in Western Australia. "Our findings are further evidence that the seismic aftershocks of these massive impacts resulted in the abrupt termination of an over 300 million years-long evolutionary stage dominated by basaltic volcanic activity and protracted accretion of granitic plutons," Dr. Glikson said. The identification of impact ejecta--materials ejected by the hitting asteroid--is based on unique minerals and chemical and isotopic compositions indicative of extraterrestrial origin, including iridium anomalies. The impact ejecta from the Barberton region in the eastern Transvaal indicate the formation of impact craters several hundred kilometers in diameter in oceanic regions of the earth, analogous to the lunar maria basins (large dark impressions on the surface of the moon). The seismic effects of the impacts included vertical block movements, exposure of deep-seated granites and onset of continental conditions on parts of the earth surface. In the Pilbara, the formation of fault escarpments and fault troughs is represented by collapse of blocks up to 250-metres wide and 150- meters high, buried canyons and a major volcanic episode 3240 million years ago. "The precise coincidence of the faulting and igneous activity with the impact deposits, coupled with the sharp break between basaltic crust and continental formations, throws a new light on the role of asteroid impacts in terrestrial evolution," Dr. Glikson said. Preliminary indications suggest that at about the same time the Moon was also affected by asteroid impacts and by resurgent volcanic activity. Dr. Glikson and Mr. Vickers will continue to investigate the extent and effects of large asteroid impacts by studying early terrains in other parts of the world, including India and Canada. Contact: Amanda Morgan Media Liaison Phone: 02 6125 5575 or 0416 249 245 Email: Amanda.Morgan@anu.edu.au Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/early-earth-05h.html _____________________________________________________________________ PROZAC FOR PLANTS By Karen Miller From NASA Science News 5 August 2005 Anxiety can be a good thing. It alerts you that something may be wrong, that danger may be close. It helps initiate signals that get you ready to act. But, while an occasional bit of anxiety can save your life, constant anxiety causes great harm. The hormones that yank your body to high alert also damage your brain, your immune system and more if they flood through your body all the time. Plants don't get anxious in the same way that humans do. But they do suffer from stress, and they deal with it in much the same way. They produce a chemical signal--superoxide (O2-)--that puts the rest of the plant on high alert. Superoxide, however, is toxic; too much of it will end up harming the plant. This could be a problem for plants on Mars. According to the Vision for Space Exploration, humans will visit and explore Mars in the decades ahead. Inevitably, they'll want to take plants with them. Plants provide food, oxygen, companionship and a patch of green far from home. On Mars, plants would have to tolerate conditions that usually cause them a great deal of stress--severe cold, drought, low air pressure, soils that they didn't evolve for. But plant physiologist Wendy Boss and microbiologist Amy Grunden of North Carolina State University believe they can develop plants that can live in these conditions. Their work is supported by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. Stress management is key. Oddly, there are already Earth creatures that thrive in Mars-like conditions. They're not plants, though. They're some of Earth's earliest life forms--ancient microbes that live at the bottom of the ocean, or deep within Arctic ice. Boss and Grunden hope to produce Mars-friendly plants by borrowing genes from these extreme-loving microbes. And the first genes they're taking are those that will strengthen the plants' ability to deal with stress. Ordinary plants already possess a way to detoxify superoxide, but the researchers believe that a microbe known as Pyrococcus furiosus uses one that may work better. P. furiosus lives in a superheated vent at the bottom of the ocean, but periodically it gets spewed out into cold sea water. So, unlike the detoxification pathways in plants, the ones in P. furiosus function over an astonishing 100+ degree Celsius range in temperature. That's a swing that could match what plants experience in a greenhouse on Mars. The researchers have already introduced a P. furiosus gene into a small, fast-growing plant known as Arabidopsis. "We have our first little seedlings," says Boss. "We'll grow them up and collect seeds to produce a second and then a third generation." In about one and a half to two years, they hope to have plants that each have two copies of the new genes. At that point they'll be able to study how the genes perform: whether they produce functional enzymes, whether they do indeed help the plant survive, or whether they hurt it in some way, instead. Eventually, they hope to pluck genes from other extremophile microbes--genes that will enable the plants to withstand drought, cold, low air pressure, and so on. The goal, of course, is not to develop plants that can merely survive martian conditions. To be truly useful, the plants will need to thrive: to produce crops, to recycle wastes, and so on. "What you want in a greenhouse on Mars," says Boss, "is something that will grow and be robust in a marginal environment." In stressful conditions, notes Grunden, plants often partially shut down. They stop growing and reproducing, and instead focus their efforts on staying alive--and nothing more. By inserting microbial genes into the plants, Boss and Grunden hope to change that. "By using genes from other sources," explains Grunden, "you're tricking the plant, because it can't regulate those genes the way it would regulate its own. We're hoping to [short-circuit] the plant's ability to shut down its own metabolism in response to stress." If Boss and Grunden are successful, their work could make a huge difference to humans living in marginal environments here on Earth. In many third-world countries, says Boss, "extending the crop a week or two when the drought comes could give you the final harvest you need to last through winter. If we could increase drought resistance, or cold tolerance, and extend the growing season, that could make a big difference in the lives of a lot of people." Their project is a long-term one, emphasize the scientists. "It'll be a year and a half before we actually have [the first gene] in a plant that we can test," points out Grunden. It'll be even longer before there's a cold- and drought-loving tomato plant on Mars--or even in North Dakota. But Grunden and Boss remain convinced they will succeed. "There's a treasure trove of extremophiles out there," says Grunden. "So if one doesn't work, you can just go on to the next organism that produces a slightly different variant of what you want." "Amy's right," agrees Boss. "It is a treasure trove. And it's just so exciting." Read the original article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/05aug_nostress.htm. _____________________________________________________________________ MODEL GIVES CLEARER IDEA OF HOW OXYGEN CAME TO DOMINATE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE University of Washington release 8 August 2005 A number of hypotheses have been used to explain how free oxygen first accumulated in Earth's atmosphere some 2.4 billion years ago, but a full understanding has proven elusive. Now a new model offers plausible scenarios for how oxygen came to dominate the atmosphere, and why it took at least 300 million years after bacterial photosynthesis started producing oxygen in large quantities. The big reason for the long delay was that processes such as volcanic gas production acted as sinks to consume free oxygen before it reached levels high enough to take over the atmosphere, said Mark Claire, a University of Washington doctoral student in astronomy and astrobiology. Free oxygen would combine with gases in a volcanic plume to form new compounds, and that process proved to be a significant oxygen sink, he said. Another sink was iron delivered to the Earth's outer crust by bombardment from space. Free oxygen was consumed as it oxidized, or rusted, the metal. But Claire said that just changing the model to reflect different iron content in the outer crust makes a huge difference in when the model shows free oxygen filling the atmosphere. Increasing the actual iron content fivefold would have delayed oxygenation by more than 1 billion years, while cutting iron to one-fifth the actual level would have allowed oxygenation to happen more than 1 billion years earlier. "We were fairly surprised that we could push the transition a billion years in either direction, because those levels of iron in the outer crust are certainly plausible given the chaotic nature of how Earth formed," he said. Claire and colleagues David Catling, a UW affiliate professor in atmospheric sciences, and Kevin Zahnle of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center in California will discuss their model tomorrow (August 9) in Calgary, Alberta, during the Geological Society of America's Earth System Processes 2 meeting. Earth's oxygen supply originated with cyanobacteria, tiny water- dwelling organisms that survive by photosynthesis. In that process, the bacteria convert carbon dioxide and water into organic carbon and free oxygen. But Claire noted that on the early Earth, free oxygen would quickly combine with an abundant element, hydrogen or carbon for instance, to form other compounds, and so free oxygen did not build up in the atmosphere very readily. Methane, a combination of carbon and hydrogen, became a dominant atmospheric gas. With a sun much fainter and cooler than today, methane buildup warmed the planet to the point that life could survive. But methane was so abundant that it filled the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where such compounds are very rare today. There, ultraviolet exposure caused the methane to decompose and its freed hydrogen escaped into space, Claire said. The loss of hydrogen atoms to space allowed increasingly greater amounts of free oxygen to oxidize the crust. Over time, that slowly diminished the amount of hydrogen released from the crust by the combination of pressure and temperature that formed the rocks in the crust. "About 2.4 billion years ago, the long-term geologic sources of oxygen outweighed the sinks in a somewhat permanent fashion," Claire said. "Escaping to space is the only permanent escape that we envision for the hydrogen, and that drove the planet to a higher oxygen level." The model developed by Claire, Catling and Zahnle indicates that as hydrogen atoms stripped from methane escaped into space, greenhouse conditions caused by the methane blanket quickly collapsed. Earth's average temperature likely cooled by about 30 degrees Celsius, or 54 degrees Fahrenheit, and oxygen was able to dominate the atmosphere because there was no longer an overabundance of hydrogen to consume the oxygen. The work is funded by NASA's Astrobiology Institute and the National Science Foundation's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program, both of which foster research to understand life in the universe by examining the limits of life on Earth. "There is interest in this work not just to know how an oxygen atmosphere came about on Earth but to look for oxygen signatures for other Earth-like planets," Claire said. Contact: Mark Claire Phone: 206-616-4549 E-mail: mclaire@astro.washington.edu Read the original news release at http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=11549. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1676.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/new_model_of_how_oxygen_domin ate_earth_atmosphere.html _____________________________________________________________________ METEOR IMPACTS: LIFE'S JUMP STARTER? Geological Society of America release 8 August 2005 Meteor impacts are generally regarded as monstrous killers and one of the causes of mass extinctions throughout the history of life. But there is a chance the heavy bombardment of Earth by meteors during the planet's youth actually spurred early life on our planet, say Canadian geologists. A study of the Haughton Impact Crater on Devon Island, in the Canadian Arctic, has revealed some very life-friendly features at ground zero. These include hydrothermal systems, blasted rocks that are easier for microbes to inhabit, plus the cozy, protected basin created by the crater itself. If true, impact craters could represent some of the best sites to look for signs of past or present life on Mars and other planets. A presentation on the biological effects of impacts is scheduled for Monday, 8 August, at Earth System Processes 2, a meeting co-convened by the Geological Society of America and Geological Association of Canada this week in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The idea that meteor impacts could benefit or even create conditions suitable for the beginning of early life struck Canadian Space Agency geologist Gordon Osinski while he and colleagues were conducting a geological survey of the 24-kilometer (15-mile) diameter Haughton Crater. Along the rim of the crater they noticed what looked like fossilized hydrothermal pipes, a few meters in diameter. "That set the bells ringing about possible biological implications," said Osinski. Hydrothermal systems are thought by many people to be the favourable places for life to evolve." Detailed mineralogical analyses have since revealed that when the Haughton meteor smacked into the icy ground 23 million years ago it created not only a crater, but fractured the ground in such a way as to create a system of steamy hydrothermal springs reaching temperatures of 250 degrees C. The heat appears to have gradually dropped over a period of tens of thousands of years, the researchers report. Besides providing heat and cracking the ground, the impact also created pore spaces in otherwise dense granitic rocks, giving microbes more access to the minerals and the surfaces inside the rocks--basically more real estate and more supplies. The shocked rocks are also more translucent, which would be beneficial to organisms that possessing with any photosynthetic capabilities. A crater shape itself also might serve as a protective environment, says Osinski. As such, impact craters are also good places to store evidence of past life. On Earth many craters fill with water and become lakes. Lakes accumulate sediments, the layers of which are a geological archive of the time after the crater formed. The Haughton Impact crater, for instance, contains the only Miocene-age sediments in the entire Canadian Arctic. "One of the most interesting aspects of the Haughton Impact Crater is that it's in a polar desert," said Osinski. The dry, frigid weather makes for a barren landscape that's easy to study, he said. The same features make it one of the more Mars-like places on Earth. "Most people put impacts with mass extinctions," said Osinski. "What we're trying to say is that following the impact, the impact sites are actually more favorable to life than the surrounding terrain." It's interesting to note, says Osinski, that on Earth the heaviest meteor bombardment of the planet happened at about the same time as life is believed to have started: around 3.8 billion years ago. Impact craters of that age were long ago erased on Earth by erosion, volcanic resurfacing and plate tectonics. But other planets and moons--including Mars--still bear the cosmic scars of that early debris-clogged period in the solar system. It may be possible, therefore, that the best places to look for at least fossil evidence of life on Mars is inside those very same craters, he said. "What we're doing is trying to narrow down the search area," said Osinski. Read the original news release at http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/05-25.htm. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1673.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/meteor_impact_life_jump_start er.html. _____________________________________________________________________ MARS ON EARTH: AS SIMPLE AS A WALK IN THE PARK By Leonard David 9 August 2005 Home of the spewing Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone National Park may also be an analog for happenings even on far-flung worlds like Mars. This sprawling national park is largely contained within Wyoming, but also stretches out into Montana and Idaho. As the world's first national park, Yellowstone is a literal hot spot for geologists and biologists-a way to inquire into the intricacies of ancient life here on Earth and possible connections to niches for life on Mars. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050809_mars_on_earth.html. _____________________________________________________________________ FREEZE-DRIED MATS OF MICROBES AWAKEN IN ANTARCTIC STREAM BED, SAYS CU STUDY University of Colorado at Boulder release 9 August 2005 An experiment in a dry Antarctic stream channel has shown that a carpet of freeze-dried microbes that lay dormant for two decades sprang to life one day after water was diverted into it, said a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher. The results showed the resilience of life in the harsh polar environment, where temperatures are below freezing for most of the year and glacial melt water flows for only five to 12 weeks annually, said Professor Diane McKnight of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. Such research on life in extreme environments is of high interest to astrobiologists, who consider Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys an analogue for Mars because of its inhospitable climate and intermittent water flow. "This was something we did not anticipate," said McKnight, whose research group is working at Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research, or LTER, site funded by the National Science Foundation. "These mats not only persisted for years when there was no water in the streambed, but blossomed into an entire ecosystem in about a week. All we did was add water." McKnight gave a presentation on the experiment at the Ecological Society of America's 90th Annual Meeting held August 7-12 in Montreal. The river channels under study feature intermittent streams that link glaciers to frozen lakes on the valley floor, she said. The streambeds contain photosynthetic microbes known as cyanobacteria, which collectively occur as thin, rubbery mat-like structures that can spread several meters across the streambed surface. The experiment began in the 1994 research season, when the team used sandbags to divert water from an active streambed in the McMurdo Dry Valleys into the dry streambed, she said. A time series of aerial photographs, coupled with carbon isotope analyses of the cyanobacteria that measured variation in atmospheric carbon over decades, indicated the streambed had been dry for about 20 years. "After we diverted the water into the channel, photosynthesis began the same day and the mats became abundant within a week," she said. "This showed us that they had been preserved in a cryptobiotic state." Over the next several years, the microbial mats in the experimental channel had higher growth rates than mats in adjacent streambeds receiving annual summer water flow, she said. The study showed the new microbial mats were taking up atmospheric nitrogen at a higher rate than mats in adjacent streambeds, increasing biomass productivity, she said. As photosynthetic bacteria, cyanobacteria are believed by biologists to be among the first living organisms to colonize Earth. The mats generally are orange or black and consist of 10 to 15 different species of cyanobacteria, she said. Because of a cooling trend in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, some streambeds that normally have annual summer flows have been dry in recent years, McKnight said. In contrast, the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed nearly 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the past 60 years and has seen the collapse of several major ice shelves and significant glacial thinning in recent years, according to several international studies. The McMurdo Dry Valleys region consists of glaciers, open expanses of barren ground, stream channels and permanently ice- covered lakes. The life forms inhabiting the area include microorganisms, mosses, lichens and a few groups of invertebrates. Study collaborators included Cathy Tate of the U.S. Geological Survey, Denver; Ned Andrews of the USGS, Boulder, CO; Dev Niyogi of the University of Missouri-Rolla; CU-Boulder graduate student Karen Cozetto; Cathy Welsh and Berry Lyons of Ohio State University; and Douglas Capone of the University of California, Irvine. The McMurdo Dry Valleys site is one of 26 LTER sites in the world designated by NSF. Approximately 25 scientists participate in research during each field season. Contact: Diane McKnight Phone: 303-492-4687 E-mail: Diane.mcknight@colorado.edu Jim Scott Phone: 303-492-3114 E-mail: jim.scott@colorado.edu Read the original news release at http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2005/295.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1674.html _____________________________________________________________________ CARNEGIE MELLON ROVER HEADS TO ATACAMA DESERT IN CHILE FOR FINAL MISSION IN THREE-YEAR SEARCH FOR LIFE Carnegie Mellon University release 10 August 2005 Carnegie Mellon University researchers and their colleagues from NASA's Ames Research Center, the universities of Tennessee, Arizona and Iowa, as well as Chilean researchers at Universidad Catolica del Norte (Antofagasta) are preparing for the final stage of a three-year project to develop a prototype robotic astrobiologist, a robot that can explore and study life in the driest desert on Earth. The team will direct and monitor Zoë, an autonomous solar-powered rover developed at Carnegie Mellon, as it travels 180 kilometers in Chile's Atacama Desert. Zoë is equipped with scientific instruments to seek and identify micro-organisms and to characterize their habitats. It will use them as it explores three diverse regions of the desert during its two-month stay, which runs from August 22 to October 22. The results of this expedition ultimately may enable future robots to seek life on Mars, as well as enabling the discovery of new information about the distribution of life on Earth. The search-for-life project was begun in 2003 under NASA's Astrobiology Science and Technology Program for Exploring Planets, or ASTEP, which concentrates on pushing the limits of technology to study life in harsh environments. Zoë's abilities represent the culmination of three years of work to determine the optimum design, software and instrumentation for a robot that can autonomously investigate different habitats. During the 2004 field season, Zoë exceeded scientists' expectations when it traveled 55 kilometers autonomously and detected living organisms using its onboard Fluorescence Imager (FI) to locate chlorophyll and other organic molecules. "Our goal with this final investigation is to develop a method to create a real-time, 3D topographic 'map' of life at the microscopic level," said Nathalie Cabrol, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames and the SETI Institute who heads the science investigation aspects of the project. "This map eventually could be integrated with satellite data to create an unprecedented tool for studies of large-scale environmental activities on life in specific areas. This concept can be applied to planetary research and also on Earth to explore other extreme environments." "This is the first time a robot is looking for life," said Carnegie Mellon associate research professor David Wettergreen, who leads the project. "We have worked with rovers and individual instruments before, but Zoë is a complete system for life seeking. We are working toward full autonomy of each day's activities, including scheduling time and resource use, control of instrument deployment and navigation between study areas. "Last year we learned that the Fluorescence Imager can detect organisms in this environment. This year we'll be able to see how densely an area is populated with organisms and map their distribution. We intend to have the robot make as many as 100 observations and make advances in procedural developments like how to decide where to explore." Zoë will visit a foggy coastal region, the dry Andean altiplano, and an area in the desert's arid interior that receives no precipitation for decades at a time. At these sites, the rover's activities will be guided remotely from an operations center in Pittsburgh where the researchers will characterize the environment, seek clear proof of life and map the distribution of various habitats. During last year's mission, the team carried out experiments using an imager able to detect fluorescence in an area underneath the rover. The FI detects signals from two fluorescent dyes that mark carbohydrates and proteins-- well as the natural fluorescence of chlorophyll. The FI, developed by Alan Waggoner, director of the university's Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center (MBIC), was not fully automated last year. Scientists had to follow the rover and spray dyes onto the sample area. This year, Zoë can spray a mixture of dyes for DNA, protein, lipid and carbohydrates without human intervention. The Life in the Atacama project is funded with a $3 million, three- year grant from NASA to Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute in the School of Computer Science. They collaborate with MBIC scientists, who received a separate $900,000 NASA grant to develop fluorescent dyes and automated microscopes to locate various forms of life. The science team uses EventScope, a remote experience browser developed by researchers at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry in Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts, to guide Zoë. It enables scientists and the public to experience the Atacama environment through the rover's "eyes" and various sensors. During the field investigation, scientists will interact with Zoë in a science operations control room at the Remote Experience and Learning Lab in Pittsburgh. Scientists from NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, University of Arizona, the British Antarctic Survey and the European Space Agency will participate. For more information, images and field reports from the Atacama, visit: www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/atacama. Read the original news release at http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases05/050810_atacama.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1679.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-05zzf.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/carnegie_mellon_rover_heads_t o_atacama_desert.html?1182005 _____________________________________________________________________ UCSD DISCOVERY SUGGESTS "PROTOSUN" WAS SHINING DURING FORMATION OF FIRST MATTER IN SOLAR SYSTEM University of California at San Diego release 12 August 2005 From chemical fingerprints preserved in primitive meteorites, scientists at the University of California, San Diego have determined that the collapsing gas cloud that eventually became our sun was glowing brightly during the formation of the first material in solar system more than 4.5 billion years ago. Their discovery, detailed in a paper that appears in the August 12 issue of Science, provides the first conclusive evidence that this "protosun" played a major role in chemically shaping the solar system by emitting enough ultraviolet energy to catalyze the formation of organic compounds, water and other compounds necessary for the evolution of life on Earth. Scientists have long argued whether the chemical compounds created in the early solar system were produced with the help of the energy of the early sun or were formed by other means. "The basic question was, 'Was the sun on or was it off?'" says Mark H. Thiemens, Dean of UCSD's Division of Physical Sciences and chemistry professor who headed the research team that conducted the study. "There is nothing in the geological record before 4.55 billion years ago that could answer this." Vinai Rai, a postdoctoral fellow working in Thiemens' lab, came up with a solution, developing an extremely sensitive measurement that could answer the question. He searched for chemical fingerprints of the high-energy wind that emanated from the protosun and became trapped in the isotopes, or forms, of sulfide found in four primitive groups of meteorites, the oldest remnants of the early solar system. Astronomers believe this wind blew matter from the core of the rotating solar nebula into its pancake-like accretion disk, the region in which meteorites, asteroids and planets later formed. Applying a technique Thiemens developed five years ago to reveal details about the Earth's early atmosphere from variations in the oxygen and sulfur isotopes embedded in ancient rocks, the UCSD chemists were able to infer from sulfides in the meteorites the intensity of the solar wind and, hence, the intensity of the protosun. They conclude in their paper that the slight excess of one isotope of sulfur, 33S, in the meteorites indicated the presence of "photochemical reactions in the early solar nebula," meaning that the protosun was shining strongly enough to drive chemical reactions. "This measurement tells us for the first time that the sun was on, that there was enough ultraviolet light to do photochemistry," says Thiemens. "Knowing that this was the case is a huge help in understanding the processes that formed compounds in the early solar system." Astronomers believe the solar nebula began to form about 5 billion years ago when a cloud of interstellar gas and dust was disturbed, possibly by the shock wave of a large exploding star, and collapsed under its own gravity. As the nebula's spinning pancake-like disk grew thinner and thinner, whirlpools of clumps began to form and grow larger, eventually forming the planets, moons and asteroids. The protosun, meanwhile, continued to contract under its own gravity and grew hotter, developing into a young star. That star, our sun, emanated a hot wind of electrically charged atoms that blew most of the gas and dust that remained from the nebula out of the solar system. Planets, moons and many asteroids have been heated and had their material reprocessed since the formation of the solar nebula. As a result, they have had little to offer scientists seeking clues about the development of the solar nebula into the solar system. However, some primitive meteorites contain material that has remained unchanged since the protosun spewed this material from the center of the solar nebula more than 4.5 billion years ago. Thiemens says the technique his team used to determine that the protosun was glowing brightly also can be applied to estimate when and where various compounds originated in the hot wind spewed out by the protosun. "That will be the next goal," he says. "We can look mineral by mineral and perhaps say here's what happened step by step." The UCSD team's study was financed by a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Journal reference: Vinai K. Rai, Teresa L. Jackson and Mark H. Thiemens, 2005. Photochemical mass-independent sulfur isotopes in achondritic meteorites. Science, 309(5737):1062-1065, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5737/1062. Contacts: Mark Thiemens Phone: 858-534-6882 E-mail: mthiemens@ucsd.edu Kim McDonald Phone: 858-534-7572 E-mail: kmcdonald@ucsd.edu Read UCSD News on the web at http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1682.html http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050811_solar_nebula.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/protosun_was_shining_during_f irst_matter_.html _____________________________________________________________________ EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL MARS SOCIETY CONVENTION A GREAT SUCCESS Mars Society release 15 August 2005 Roughly 400 people from around the world attended the 8th International Mars Society Convention at the University of Colorado Boulder, August 11-14. In the course of the conference over a hundred and fifty papers were presented, covering every aspect of both the robotic and human exploration and settlement of Mars, with subject matter ranging from the latest data returned from the Mars probes to advanced technologies for robotic and human Mars exploration, to political strategy, to the philosophical and theological implications of opening a new world for humanity. On Thursday, August 11, Mars Society President Dr. Robert Zubrin opened the conference with a plenary talk entitled "Moon by 2012, Mars by 2016." In his talk, Zubrin said that the conditions for pushing a human exploration initiative ahead now were uniquely favorable, but that these conditions could not be expected to last. "We have to make hay while the Sun is shining," Zubrin said, and get the new initiative solidly off the ground by the time administrations change in January 2009. The key to determining whether the Bush "Vision for Space Exploration" is the actually beginning of a Moon- Mars human exploration initiative or just a flashy cover for terminating the Shuttle and downsizing the Space Station, he said, is whether or not a heavy lift launch vehicle program is begun. "A heavy lift launcher is essential for sending humans to the Moon and Mars, and it is not essential for anything else. If we get a heavy lift launcher we are on our way to Mars. If we don't, we're not going anywhere." Zubrin was followed by William Farrand, a member of the MER Pan Cam team, who wowed the audience with spectacular images taken by the Mars Exploration Rovers. The next to speak was former Shuttle commander Dr. Scott Horowitz, now with ATK Thiokol, who presented his ideas for a new generation of launch vehicles based on Space Shuttle technology. The concepts include a 130 tonne to LEO heavy lift vehicle (HLV) employing two 5- segment solid rocket boosters (the current Shuttle uses 4-segment SRBs) and 5 space shuttle main engines (SSME) in the first stage, with a Shuttle external tank providing the first stage core, and a 9- meter diameter payload fairing including a hydrogen oxygen upper stage powered by 1 SSME mounted above. In Horowitz's plan, this vehicle would deliver all the heavy cargos needed to go to the Moon or Mars to low Earth orbit (LEO). The crew would then be delivered to orbit in a capsule CEV on a medium launch vehicle (MLV, 20 tonne to LEO capacity) composed of a single 5-segment SRB with a hydrogen oxygen upper stage powered by 1 SSME. He then caused considerable excitement by showing the conference a copy of a White House memo issued the day before, showing Defense Department concurrence with the plan and authorizing NASA to develop such vehicles, with MLV development to commence immediately, but the start of the HLV program deferred until 2010. Horowitz then announced that ATK Thiokol has been developing the 5-segement SRB the new launcher will need on its own money, and invited those present to come to Utah to witness it being test fired this week (!). The Thursday afternoon session included four simultaneous tracks, each with nine papers. Track 1 was Technologies for Mars, Track 2 was Mars Analogue studies, Track 3 was Mars and the Arts, and Track 4 was Life Support and Biomedical Issues. A special presentation was also given by Kevin Grazier of JPL, on the latest results from the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan. The Thursday evening session was rounded out with entertaining presentations by Larry Kuznetz and Gerry Williams dealing with Mars in pop culture and cinema. The Friday morning plenaries were begun with Robert Cataldo and Dr. Stan Borowski of NASA Glenn Research Center presenting the space agency's latest analysis of what the future space nuclear power and propulsion systems are going to look like. Dr. Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center then discussed the need for human astronauts to do astrobiological research on Mars to resolve fundamental scientific questions concerning prevalence and potential diversity of life in the universe. These talks were then followed in the afternoon by four simultaneous nine-paper tracks, including the very well attended Spacesuit Symposium in Track 1, the Mars Homestead Project in Track 2, Commercial Spaceflight in Track 3, and Political and Educational Outreach in Track 4. The conference then reconvened after dinner to hear Italian geologist Tizania Trabucchi present a plenary talk on the activities of this summer's "Crew Greenleaf" at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station on Devon Island. Tizania was then followed by a special premier presentation of the powerful new two-hour documentary movie, The Mars Underground, (www.themarsunderground.com) making a strong case for the feasibility and vision of human Mars exploration and settlement, and keeping the audience riveted to their seats until well past 11:00 PM. The Saturday morning presentations were led off by Dr. Bill Clancey of NASA Ames Research Center who discussed the important work his team has done developing intelligent "mobile agents" to assist exploration and demonstrating them in use at the Mars Desert Research Station. Clancey was followed by Chris Shank, Special Assistant to NASA Administrator Dr. Mike Griffin, who gave the conference a sneak preview of NASA's soon to be made public new architecture for human lunar exploration. As presented by Shank, the NASA plan closely resembles the systems advocated earlier by Scott Horowitz, with Lunar missions performed by a dual launch of a Shuttle derived HLV in the 100 tonne to LEO class, and a crew-launching Shuttle-derived MLV in the 20 tonne to LEO class. These talks were then followed by Joroen Lapre of Industrial Light and Magic, who knocked the audience flat with new special effects visualizations of Mars based closely on the latest data. Saturday afternoon included four more nine-paper tracks, including New Launch and Propulsion technologies in Track 1, Mars Society Chapter and Task Force Activities in Track 2, Public Policy and Space Law in Track 3, and Mars Analogue Studies in Track 4. On Saturday afternoon, the Mars Society Steering Committee also met. Based upon their outstanding contributions to the Society, it was decided to nominate new members to the SC. These new members include Jonathan Clarke, Lucinda Weisbach, Kevin Sloan, Gus Scheerbaum, Steve McDaniel, Chris Carberry, Artemis Westenberg, Gus Frederick, Jean LaGarde, Ed Fisher, and Shannon Rupert Robles. The Mars Society Steering Committee also decided to launch an International Mars Rover Competition, or Mars Grand Prix, for short. This contest will be open to student teams from colleges around the world. In this contest, the teams will design and build their own instrumented teleoperated rovers within a certain weight limit. They will then be challenged to navigate their rover around a piece of desert terrain (cut off from their direct viewing), with a 15 second time delay each way in the communication loop, around a piece of desert terrain preplanted with obstacles, traps, and various geological phenomenon of potential interest, for a set time limit of two hours. The winning team will be the one that makes the most accurate discoveries, with points taken off for making false discoveries. The teams will thus be challenged to develop not only a capable mobile vehicle, but instrumentation, data handling and communication, autonomy and hazard avoidance technology, and the expertise required to interpret the geological data into scientific discoveries. Complete rules for the contest will be published by mid September 2005, with the actual competition to take place in the desert May 2006. Prizes will include six two-week crew slots in the Mars Desert Research Station, plus free admission and hotel for up to six team members at the 9th International Mars Society Convention in Washington DC, August 2006, where they will be presented with the First Mars Grand Prix Cup. That's' right, Washington. The SC decided to hold our next international conference in the capitol of the USA, during August 2006, where we will bring together those fighting for humans to Mars with those who will make the decisions to write the checks to get us there. Details will follow. On Saturday night, the banquet was held, and attendees were regaled with the space ballads of Robert McNally and the humorous pro-science songs of the San Diego based band "The Opossums of Truth." Mars Society President Robert Zubrin then gave a short fundraising speech. Zubrin cited the many accomplishments of the Society, and the dramatic improvements in our prospects since the Society's founding in 1998. "When we were founded in 1998, the political sophisticates were all saying that a humans to Mars program was a political impossibility. As later as the summer of 2003, cynical insiders were still saying the same thing. Well, humans to Mars is now the official goal of the US government. We proved the wise guys wrong. They said that politics is the art of the possible. They were wrong. Politics is not the art of the possible. Politics is the art of making the impossible possible. We have done that. We have made the impossible possible. Now we need to make it actual." Twenty eight thousand dollars was raised on the spot. The Sunday morning plenaries were led off by Jerry Stone, a director of the Mars Society UK. Stone presented the conference with the dramatic and welcome news that the Mars Society UK has finally raised the funds to move the European Mars Arctic Research Station (EuroMARS) from its current location in storage in Chicago, across the Atlantic to Swindon in England (which is near Bath), where it will be assembled and placed on display at a major science museum for a five month exhibit. A pledge of $50,000 in matching funds has also been obtained, which if put together with the same amount in donations, will allow us to move the EuroMARS to Iceland in the spring of 2006 for deployment. Stone also announced that the European Mars Society chapters will be holding a pan-European conference near Swindon Nov 4-6 in conjunction with the opening of the EuroMARS exhibit. All are invited. Information on the conference can be found at www.marssociety.co.uk, with more details to follow. The next talk was given by University of Arizona Professor Peter Smith, the Principal Investigator of the Phoenix mission to the North polar regions of Mars in 2007. Prof. Smith described the mission, underscoring its importance as part of the search for life on Mars, and broached a number of possibilities on how members of the Mars Society can participate as part of the Phoenix and just launched Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions. We will be following up on this overture, with details to be published shortly. The final speaker of the morning session was Dr. Penelope Boston, who gave a fascinating talk her work underground in caves, exploring on Earth environments that may be very similar to places on Mars where life may yet thrive. Dr. Boston also made a case that caves or lava tubes may also be an ideal place in which to locate extraterrestrial settlements, and showed designs of such settlements that her team has developed. In the afternoon, four more nine-paper tracks were held, covering Long Range Mobility on Mars in track 1, Mars Analog Studies in Track 2, Terraforming and Environmental Studies in Track 3, and Theological and Philosophical Considerations in Track 4. At the end of the day, attendees got together for a final plenary, which Jerry Stone opened in a lighthearted tone by presenting a very humorous monologue entitled "an alternate history of the space age." As part of this talk, Stone quoted from an early 20th Century New York Times editorial which mocked Robert Goddard for being so foolish as to believe that rockets could generate propulsion in the vacuum of space. Zubrin then closed the conference by quoting from the New York Times editorial from that very day, which called for limiting the Space Station program so that funds could be switched sooner to enable human exploration of the Moon and Mars. "You've come a long way, baby," Zubrin said, commenting on the Times' shift. "But we've still got a long way to go. On to Washington. On to Mars." The entire conference was videotaped, and DVDs of all talks will soon be available for sale. Details will follow. For further information about the Mars Society, visit our website at www.marssociety.org. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050808/full/050808-15.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050818_moon_mars.html _____________________________________________________________________ INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND EVOLUTION AT THE WHITE HOUSE By Edna DeVore From Space.com 18 August 2005 On August 1, 2005, a group of reporters from Texas met with President Bush in the Roosevelt room for a roundtable interview. The President's remarks suggest that he believes that both intelligent design and evolution should be taught so that "people are exposed to different schools of thought." ...The reporter got it right: there is an ongoing debate over intelligent design vs. evolution, at least in the media and in politics. There is not a debate in the greater scientific community about the validity of evolution. Further, the vast majority of scientists do not consider intelligent design as a viable alternative to evolution. Dr. John Marburger III, Presidential Science Advisor, tried to dispel the impact of the President's comments. On August 2, The New York Times quoted a telephone interview with Marburger in which he said, "evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology" and "intelligent design is not a scientific concept." Certainly, no one doubts where Marburger stands. One might question whether the President takes Marbuger's scientific advice seriously, or is simply more concerned about pleasing a portion of the electorate. Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_bush_id_050818.html. _____________________________________________________________________ TINY MICROBE HAS HUGE ROLE IN OCEAN LIFE, EARTH'S CARBON CYCLE By David Stauth Oregon State University release 18 August 2005 Researchers at Oregon State University and Diversa Corporation have discovered that the smallest free-living cell known also has the smallest genome, or genetic structure, of any independent cell--and yet it dominates life in the oceans, thrives where most other cells would die, and plays a huge role in the cycling of carbon on Earth. In nature, apparently, bigger is not always better. In a publication today in the journal Science, scientists outlined the growing knowledge about SAR11, a group of bacteria so dominant that their combined weight exceeds that of all the fish in the world's oceans. In a marine environment that's low in nutrients and other resources, they are able to survive and replicate in extraordinary numbers - a milliliter of sea water off the Oregon coast, for instance, might contain 500,000 of these cells. "The ocean is a very competitive environment, and these bacteria apparently won the race," said Stephen Giovannoni, an OSU professor of microbiology. "Our analysis of the SAR11 genome indicates that they became the dominant life form in the oceans largely by being the simplest." The new study outlines how SAR11 has one of the most compact, streamlined genomes ever discovered, with only 1.3 million base pairs--the smallest ever found in a free-living organism and a number that's literally tiny compared to something like the human genome. "SAR11 has almost no wasted DNA," Giovannoni said. "This organism is extremely small and efficient. Every genetic part serves a purpose, more so than any other genome we've studied." The organism is able to survive as an unattached cell in a hostile environment, has a complete set of biosynthetic pathways, and can reproduce efficiently by consuming dissolved organic matter. "By comparison, humans are mostly junk DNA, with large parts of the human genome having no important function," Giovannoni said. This type of genome streamlining, researchers say, appears to be a major factor in the evolutionary success of SAR11, which they believe may have been thriving for a billion years or more. One scientific hypothesis holds that natural selection acts to reduce genome size because of the metabolic burden of replicating "junk" DNA with no adaptive value--SAR11 supports that theory. Researchers are particularly interested in SAR11, Giovannoni said, because of the critical role it plays in geochemistry. Photosynthesis is a process used by plants to convert sunlight energy into organic molecules, creating the foundation of the food chain and producing oxygen. About half of photosynthesis and the resulting oxygen on Earth are produced by algae in the ocean, and microbes like SAR11 recycle organic carbon--producing the nutrients needed for algal growth. "Ultimately, SAR11 through its sheer abundance plays a major role in the Earth's carbon cycle," Giovannoni said. "Quite simply, this is something we need to know more about. SAR11 is a major consumer of the organic carbon in the oceans, which nearly equals the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The carbon cycle affects all forms of plant and animal life, not to mention the atmosphere and fossil fuel formation." SAR11 was first discovered at Oregon State University in 1990. Since then researchers have learned that populations of SAR11 increase during the summer and decrease during the winter, in a cycle that correlates to the ebb and flow of organic carbon in the ocean surface. Molecular probes, gene cloning, sequencing techniques and other tools have been used in this exploration. Collaborators on the new study included the University of Hawaii and Diversa Corporation of San Diego. Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation, Diversa Corporation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the OSU Center for Gene Research and Biotechnology. Journal reference: Stephen J. Giovannoni et al., 2005. Genome streamlining in a cosmopolitan oceanic bacterium. Science, 309(5738):1242-1245, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5738/1242. Contacts: David Stauth Phone: 541-737-0787 Stephen Giovannoni Phone: 541-737-1835 Read the original news release at http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2005/Aug05/genome.htm. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.terradaily.com/news/life-05zzzz.html _____________________________________________________________________ THE ENDS OF THE EARTH By Pamela Conrad From Astrobiology Magazine 18 August 2005 Pamela Conrad, an astrobiologist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has traveled to the ends of the Earth to study life. Conrad recently appeared in James Cameron's 3-D documentary, Aliens of the Deep, where she and several other scientists investigated strange creatures that inhabit the ocean floor. On June 16, 2005, Conrad gave a lecture entitled, "A Bipolar Year: What We Can Learn About Looking for Life on Other Planets by Working in Cold Deserts." In part 1 of this edited transcript, Conrad describes what sort of signs we could look for to see if there is life in an alien environment. In the past three years, I've been engaged in a project with several of my colleagues that takes us to hot and cold deserts. We want to observe the signatures of life, and see if we can tell the difference between places where life is and where life isn't. The reason we go to deserts is to cut down on the number of confounding variables that are introduced by all kinds of life. Basically, we don't want to be scraping away the dog poop to find the bacteria in the dirt. This past year we were privileged to go to both the Arctic and the Antarctic. So this is my bipolar year, and what we were doing there is relevant to space exploration because, like a desert, the conditions on the surface of other planets are very harsh. We look at rocks because, if life had been and is already gone--in other words, it's dead, or it's so dead it's been fossilized and altered--you can find that in the rock record. To detect life anywhere, you need to be able to investigate the environment and find measurable clues. If it's not something you can define in measurable terms, it's not science. So by definition, we're kind of out in the cold, so to speak. One of the challenges is coming up with measurable terms by which you could define life. The terms have to be universal enough to not miss life on another planet, if it was unlike the life we have here. We have a sample set of one: the biosphere on the Earth. We try to use the knowledge we have about life here to come up with those terms, and so we try to think about life in the most general descriptive terms we can. We look for life in places that are habitable; places that are capable of supporting life. But habitability is difficult to define, because we only have a vague notion of what makes an environment habitable. At NASA, we're very big on looking for water as one of the facets of habitability. Water is as important to life in the desert as it is to us. After a fresh snowfall, when rocks get heated up and melt the ice, you see a bloom of cyanobacteria on the surface of the rock. Yet they are able to maintain a minimal existence when there's not much precipitation. One reason metabolism has to slow down in the Antarctic winter is because the water is in a solid phase and it's not accessible. Living things can only use ice when it melts and becomes a good solvent. Using ice is like using a mineral in the crystal phase-- when it's in the solid form, you've got to use some energy to bust up those bonds to do something with it. There are organisms in Antarctica that have antifreeze types of molecules in them, fish that possess molecules called glycoproteins. When an ice crystal forms in the fish, the molecule grabs hold of the ice crystal as it starts to grow, and doesn't let it grow in the direction that its energetically most easily grown. Because it can't grow, the ice crystal gives up the ghost and turns back into water. Besides water, we think that certain kinds of chemical elements are important for life elsewhere. Life on Earth is made of carbon and hydrogen and phosphorus and a few other important things, and we need the oxygen in the air. But there are microbes on Earth that breathe metal, and they don't care about oxygen. So habitability is really habitable in the eyes of the beholder. When you're defining it, you've got to think about the broadest set of terms you can in order to encompass any kind of life you might be able to imagine. The ultimate assessment of whether a place is habitable is, of course, to see if it is inhabited. You ask one set of questions if you want to know, "Can I set up housekeeping here?" You might ask another set of questions if you want to know, "Is anybody home?" But at the heart of it all, whether or want to live there or just see if anyone's home, you have to know something about the neighborhood. You've still got to do all the experiments that tell you about the geophysical, mineralogical, and atmospheric properties of the planet. If you're looking for life, you've got to have some notion about what sort of thing you're trying to support with that environment. So what would constitute proof? If you want to say that something has been proven, you have to achieve a certain level of consensus in the scientific community, otherwise your peers will tear you into little bits and pieces in the literature. Of course, there is never a complete consensus: that's why we nasty scientists fight with each other endlessly. But we have to at least come up with terms. We can agree or disagree with each other's theories, but we have to agree on the terms and the measurements. So what kind of measurements could we make if we were looking for life? Does a planet look different if life has been there? For example, if you go into my kitchen after I've eaten, you might see a plate or a crumb. That's a clue that I was there. There are clues at the planetary level too. A biomarker--a clue that says life was there--can be anything that was produced by life. The clue can be chemical, because chemicals comprise everything. I am a sack of chemicals, just like this podium is a sack of chemicals. Just what chemicals there are, and in what proportion to each other, and how they're arranged in 3-D, is what distinguishes me from this. It's a simple way of distinguishing categories of things. Chirality is a biomarker as well. What chirality means is that some molecules are mirror images of each other, and the living molecules tend to be a certain handedness. When it comes to amino acids, which are the constituents of the proteins that make up life, living things like to use the left-handed form. And when it comes to the sugars, living things like to use the right-handed form. There are exceptions to these, but that's a general case. Isotopes also can be a biomarker. Some molecules come in different isotopic flavors, where some are slightly heavier than others. Living things like the lighter variety, probably because it's energetically less expensive to process. Complex polymers also could be biomarkers. Of course, plastic is a complex polymer. Then again, we made the plastic. So this whole distinction between natural and unnatural--if humans made it--it's still biogenic. So think about that. My car is a biosignature. What kind, I'm not sure. If you're going to define life in measurable terms, I'd like to keep it really simple. You could define life by what it's made of, or you could define life by what it does. I like to define life by what it's made of, because as soon as you say the "does" word, you're talking about a process. A process is something that happens through time. Then you've got to figure out what the sampling rate should be. How often should you look, and how long should the whole experiment take? A process is a little more problematic because it takes time, and you may be wrong about how often to look, or how long you should look for. Processes--making stuff, reproducing, or evolving--can take place over different time scales. So if you're only looking at processes, and you have two that are vastly different in their time scales, you won't be able to do the same experiment to look at them both. So I like to look at life in terms of what it is. Not to say we couldn't add in a little bit of process-based stuff, but when you look at what life is, it gets simple really fast. It's unique chemistry, some kind of proportionate chemicals, arranged in some way, and the "arranged in some way" is what I call structure. If I were looking for life on another planet or a moon, I would look for places where interesting chemistry could happen, so that the ultimate evolution of that chemistry could create a living system. I would think about places like Europa, which has an ocean beneath ice. I would think about other places where ice exists, like comets. I would think about Titan, Saturn's moon. I would think about all those places where interesting chemistry occurs, because chemistry is clever. You can get all kinds of interesting molecules. Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1683.html. _____________________________________________________________________ SJI CALLS FOR PAPERS, REVIEWERS AND EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS By Neil Armand Scientific Journals International release 12 August 2005 Every researcher, writer or artist deserves a fair consideration to be published. Scientific Journals International (SJI) provides a one-stop efficient forum for publishing research and creative work from all disciplines. Our open access electronic journals are available free of charge to over 800 million Internet users from around the world. Unlike other online journals we do not limit access through registration or subscription. There is no other journal in the world that aims to have this scope. This initiative is driven by an overriding passion to assist researchers, writers and artists to cope with the publish or perish reality that has been created by the policies of the academia and funding agencies. According to several surveys, a large majority of authors and researchers cite slow review process and publication delays in the current system as a major obstacle to their publishing objectives. Many have also expressed concerns about the fairness and integrity of the peer review process in traditional scholarly publishing. Some scholars have argued that there is a need to free the publication process for broader and fairer access. Scientific Journals International (SJI) is the first global initiative to accomplish this objective. Due to its massive database and electronic archival capacity, SJI maintains a significantly higher acceptance rate for research papers and creative works. We sincerely believe that researchers, writers and artists who have devoted months or years to a research/creative project, should not be shut out of the publication world simply because they did not follow certain procedural or stylistic rules and guidelines or because their work did not fit in. All traditional journals have very rigid stylistic or procedural policies that unduly create artificial barriers and in effect retard innovation and creativity. Scientific Journals International (SJI) deliberately maintains minimal procedural and stylistic rules, and accepts papers that follow any style manual such as APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. A fair peer- reviewed evaluation system is used to select papers for publication. SJI maintains a rapid electronic submission, review and publication process. Additionally, we do not set the same limitations on the length of the article as other traditional and online journals do. Another useful feature of our searchable electronic journals is that readers are able to search quickly and easily for full-text articles by particular keywords. Our capability for perpetual future accessibility and preservation is also extremely valuable to both authors and readers. All accepted and published articles remain in our databases and archives in perpetuity for worldwide exposure and visibility. Each electronic article is encoded with html meta-tags which allow for more sophisticated searching techniques. The information which is contained in an article can be intelligently structured for bibliographic access. For more information, please visit http://www.scientificjournals.org. If you have a colleague who also may enjoy serving on our volunteer Editorial Board or as a reviewer for SJI, please feel free to forward this email to him or her. _____________________________________________________________________ CASSINI FLIES BY SATURN'S TORTURED MOON MIMAS NASA/JPL image advisory 2005-129 5 August 2005 On its recent close flyby of Mimas, the Cassini spacecraft found the Saturnian moon looking battered and bruised, with a surface that may be the most heavily cratered in the Saturn system. The August 2 flyby of Saturn's "Death Star" moon returned eye-catching images of its most distinctive feature, the spectacular 140-kilometer diameter (87-mile) landslide-filled Hershel crater. Numerous rounded and worn-out craters, craters within other craters and long grooves reminiscent of those seen on asteroids are also seen in the new images. The new Mimas images are available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://ciclops.org. Also available is an approach movie showing Mimas, and a zoom and pan across the surface of one of the highest resolution images. The closest images show Mimas, measuring 397 kilometers (247 miles) across, in the finest detail yet seen. One dramatic view acquired near Cassini's closest approach shows the moon against the backdrop of Saturn's rings. A false color composite image reveals a region in blue and red of presumably different composition or texture just west of, and perhaps related to, the Hershel crater. Scientists hope that analysis of the images will tell them how many crater-causing impactors have coursed through the Saturn system, and where those objects might have come from. There is also the suspicion, yet to be investigated, that the grooves, first discovered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft but now seen up close, are related to the giant impact that caused the biggest crater of all, Herschel, on the opposite side of the moon. 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. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO. Contacts: Carolina Martinez Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-9382 Preston Dyches Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO Phone: 720-974-5859 Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1668.html http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1670.html http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050815_enceladus.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzl.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzp.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzq.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzr.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzt.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cassini-05zzu.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_flies_death_star_moon .html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_shows_northern_lights .html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_flies_by_tortured_mim as.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/epimetheus_on_the_outside.htm l http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_anti_hurricanes.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/impressions_from_cassini.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_filaments_and_vortices .html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/dawn_at_the_huygens_site.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_ring_have_own_atmosphe re.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_moon_rhea_polar_view.h tml _____________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATE NASA/JPL release 18 August 2005 Spirit has completed investigations with its robotic arm on "Assemblée" rock. The investigation included pictures taken with the microscopic imager, 92 hours of Mössbauer spectrometer integration, and alpha particle X-ray spectrometer work on the target "Gruyere." Other observations included dust devil movies and a panoramic camera image of the rock abrasion tool bit (which has worn down from extensive use because Spirit has exceeded its intended lifespan by more than 480 sols). As of sol 571 (August 11, 2005), Spirit is still approximately 100 meters (328 feet) from the summit, and the rover will continue driving towards it. Opportunity had a busy week! The rover has been using the rock abrasion tool and all of its spectrometers and imaging instruments. It has been healthy but slightly constrained in the flash memory. Last week, the rover mission had to share its Odyssey memory allocation with a project named the Mars Bi-Static UHF Radar Experiment, which had the effect of reducing the buffer space available to the rovers. This caused a backlog of data onboard Opportunity. This week the team started to offload some of that data by taking advantage of overnight Odyssey passes. The rover buffer space is back to normal. The planning team is also making sure that experiments do not create too much new data this week. The planning team wants to ensure that Opportunity has enough flash memory for next week's operations since the plan calls for a continuation of the drive toward "Erebus." The general consensus is that the rover will take the easterly route to the Erebus highway. This route is longer by about 100 meters (328 feet), but should result in much more access to outcrop during the drive. The outcrop is attractive both for rover footing and for science targeting. During the first weekend in August, there was a sequencing error that failed to run the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. The team had added a miniature thermal emission spectrometer observation before starting the alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, and the added sequence ran long. The alpha particle X-ray spectrometer start sequence did not complete and the instrument did not collect any data. After discovering what happened on Monday, the team reacquired the observation on sol 548 (August 9, 2005). On sol 549 (August 10, 2005), there was a mobility fault. Under the "rules of the road," the team is required to stop the vehicle if any of the driving actuators draws more than 0.4 amperes of current for more than half a second. This protects the rover from digging into a "Purgatory Dune" situation. On sol 549, while the rover was turning into a position more favorable for communication, the front right driving actuator went above 0.4 amperes for more than half a second and stopped the drive. This is expected behavior. The turn for better communication was an optional move done at the very end of the drive. The front right drive actuator will sometimes (especially when performing a turn-in-place) pull more current than the other drive actuators. This is because the front right steering actuator is not working, and its drive motor is not turning in the same direction as the other five motors. On sols 550 and 551 (August 10 and August 11, 2005), Opportunity moved about 2 meters (nearly 7 feet) forward into a cobble field. The team has wanted to use Opportunity's alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and Mössbauer spectrometer on some cobbles, and there has never been a better chance than this location. Rover drivers were able to approach the targets in one sol and get multiple cobbles into the robotic arm's work volume. On sol 551, the rover planners successfully planted the Mössbauer on a cobble that is roughly 2.5 centimeters to 3 centimeters (1 inch to 1.2 inches) in size. This precision pointing was intended to allow the spectrometer to integrate for most of the weekend and tell the science team something new about cobbles. Get the latest MER updates at http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status.html. Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050817_spirit_summit.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzd.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzg.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzh.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzi.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzl.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05zzzm.html _____________________________________________________________________ MARS EXPRESS RADAR COLLECTS FIRST SURFACE DATA ESA release 38-2005 5 August 2005 Marsis, the sounding radar onboard ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, is collecting the first data about the surface and ionosphere of Mars. This radar started its science operations on 4 July, the same day as its first commissioning phase ended. Due to the late deployment of Marsis, it was decided to split the commissioning, originally planned to last four weeks, into two phases; the second will take place in December. It has thus been possible to begin scientific observations with the instrument earlier than initially planned, while it is still martian night-time. This is the best environmental condition for subsurface sounding, as in daytime the ionosphere is more "energized" and disturbs the radio signals used for subsurface observations. As from the start of commissioning, the two 20m-long antenna booms have been sending radio signals towards the martian surface and receiving echoes back. "The commissioning procedure confirmed that the radar is working very well and that it can be operated at full power without interfering with any of the spacecraft systems," says Roberto Seu, Instrument Manager for Marsis, of University of Rome "La Sapienza", Italy. Marsis is a very complex instrument, capable of operating at different frequency bands. Lower frequencies are best suited to probing the subsurface, the highest frequencies are used to probe shallow subsurface depths, while all frequencies are suited to studying the surface and the upper atmospheric layer of Mars. "During commissioning we worked to test all transmission modes and optimise the radar's performance around Mars," says Professor Giovanni Picardi, Principal Investigator for Marsis, of University of Rome "La Sapienza". "The result is that since we started the scientific observations in early July, we have been receiving very clean surface echoes back, and first indications about the ionosphere." The Marsis radar is designed to operate around the orbit pericenter, when the spacecraft is closer to the planet's surface. In each orbit, the radar is switched on for 36minutes around this point, spending the middle 26 minutes on subsurface observations and the first and last five minutes of the slot on active ionosphere sounding. Using the lower frequencies, Marsis has been mainly investigating the northern flat areas between the 30° and 70° latitudes, at all longitudes. "We are very satisfied with the way the radar is performing. In fact, the surface measurements taken so far match almost perfectly the existing models of the Mars topography," said Professor Picardi. Thus, these measurements have proved to be an excellent test. The scientific reason for concentrating on flat regions with the first data analysis is the fact that the subsurface layers are in principle easier to identify, though the task is still a tricky one. "As the radar appears to work so well for the surface, we have good reason to think the radio waves are also propagating correctly below the surface," added Professor Picardi. "The bulk of our work has just started, as we now have to be sure to clearly identify and isolate the echoes coming from the subsurface. To do this, we have to carefully screen all data and make sure that signals which could be interpreted as coming from different underground layers are not actually produced by surface irregularities. This will keep us occupied for a few more weeks at least." The first ionospheric measurements performed by Marsis have also led to some interesting preliminary findings. The radar responds directly to the number of charged particles composing the ionosphere (plasma). This has at times been shown to be higher than expected. "We are now analysing the data to find out if such measurements may result from sudden increases in solar activity, such as the one observed on 14July, or if we have to put forward new hypotheses. Only further analysis of the data can tell us," said Jeffrey Plaut, co-Principal Investigator, from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, USA. Marsis will carry on sending signals that hit the surface and penetrate the subsurface until the middle of August, when the night- time portion of the observations will have almost ended. After that, observation priority will be given to other Mars Express instruments that are best suited to operating in daytime, such as the HRSC camera and Omega mapping spectrometer. However, Marsis will continue its surface and ionospheric investigations in daytime, with ionospheric sounding being reserved for more than 20% of all Mars Express orbits, under all possible Sun illumination conditions. In December, the Mars Express orbit pericentre will enter night-time again. By then, the pericentre will have moved closer to the south pole, allowing Marsis to carry out optimal probing of the subsurface once again, this time in the southern hemisphere. Contacts: Giovanni Picardi Marsis Principal Investigator, Infocom Deparment Universita di Roma La Sapienza E-mail: picar@infocom.uniroma1.it Jeffrey Plaut Marsis co-Principal Investigator NASA/JPL E-mail: plaut@jpl.nasa.gov Roberto Seu Marsis Instrument Manager and Sharad Team Leader Infocom Department Universita di Roma La Sapienza E-mail: roberto.seu@uniroma1.it Agustin Chicarro ESA, Mars Express Project Scientist E-mail: Agustin.chicarro@esa.int Fred Jansen ESA, Mars Express E-mail: fjansen@rssd.esa.int Enrico Flamini ASI, Program Manager for Italian contribution to Mars Express E-mail: Enrico.Flamini@asi.it Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/marsexpress-05z.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/marsis_collects_1st_surface_d ata.html _____________________________________________________________________ MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGES NASA/JPL/MSSS release 28 July - 17 August 2005 The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available. South Polar Variety (Released 28 July 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/28 Sedimentary Rock Remnants (Released 29 July 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/29 Exhuming Craters (Released 30 July 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/30 Nilosyrtis Dunes (Released 31 July 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/07/31 Frozen Carbon Dioxide (Released 01 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/01 Mars at Ls 269 Degrees (Released 02 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/02 Wind-Eroded Terrain (Released 03 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/03 Dunes of Herschel (Released 04 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/04 Wind-Eroded Landscape (Released 05 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/05 Windblown Dunes (Released 06 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/06 Mid-latitude Dunes (Released 07 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/07 Defrosting Patterns (Released 08 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/08 Mars at Ls 269 Degrees (Released 09 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/09 Polar Landforms (Released 10 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/10 Severely-Dipping Layers (Released 11 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/11 Polar Layers (Released 12 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/12 Martian Gullies (Released 13 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/13 South Polar Depression (Released 14 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/14 Rugged Terrain (Released 15 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/15 Mars at Ls 269 Degrees (Released 16 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/16 Polar Cap Pits (Released 17 August 2005) http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/08/17 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 RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER UPDATES Multiple agencies' releases NASA's Next Leap in Mars Exploration Ready for Launch NASA/JPL release 2005-131, 9 August 2005 NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is ready for a morning launch on Thursday, August 11. The spacecraft will arrive at Mars in March 2006 for a mission to understand the planet's water riddles and to advance the exploration of the mysterious red planet. The mission's first launch opportunity window is 4:50 to 6:35 AM PDT, Thursday. If the launch is postponed, additional launch windows open daily at different times each morning through August. For trips from Earth to Mars, the planets move into good position for only a short period every 26 months. The best launch position is when Earth is about to overtake Mars in their concentric racing lanes around the Sun. "The teams preparing this orbiter and its launch vehicle have done excellent work and kept to schedule. We have a big spacecraft loaded with advanced instruments for inspecting Mars in greater detail than any previous orbiter, and we have the first Atlas V launch vehicle to carry an interplanetary mission. A very potent and exciting combination," said NASA's Mars Exploration Program Director Doug McCuistion. The mission will lift off from Launch Complex 41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. It is the first government launch of Lockheed Martin's Atlas V launch vehicle. "We're ready to fly, counting down through final procedures," said Chuck Dovale, director for expendable-launch-vehicle launches at NASA Kennedy Space Center, FL. When the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives in March, it begins a half-year "aerobraking" process. The spacecraft will gradually adjust the shape of its orbit by using friction from carefully calculated dips into the top of the martian atmosphere. The mission's primary science phase starts in November 2006. "Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will give us several times more data about Mars than all previous missions combined," said James Graf, project manager for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. Researchers will use the data to study the history and distribution of martian water. Learning more about what has happened to the water will focus searches for possible past or present martian life. Observations by the orbiter will also support future Mars missions by examining potential landing sites and providing a communications relay between the martian surface and Earth. The craft can transmit about 10 times as much data per minute as any previous Mars spacecraft. This will serve both to convey detailed observations of the martian surface, subsurface and atmosphere by the instruments on the orbiter and enable data relay from other landers on the martian surface to Earth. NASA plans to launch the Phoenix Mars Scout in 2007 to land on the far northern martian surface. NASA is also developing an advanced rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, for launch in 2009. The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft and is the prime contractor for the project. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center is responsible for government engineering oversight of the Atlas V, spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch day countdown management. NASA'S Mars Orbiter Ready for Launch August 11 NASA media advisory M05-135, 10 August 2005 The launch vehicle for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been cleared for flight. The launch is scheduled for Thursday, August 11. The launch window is from 7:50 AM to 9:35 AM EDT. The launch was postponed for 24 hours due to a failure of a Redundant Rate Gryo Unit (RRGU) at the manufacturer. The unit is similar to two RRGU's that are part of the flight control system on MRO's Atlas V launch vehicle. The decision to go ahead with Thursday's launch was made today by launch vehicle engineers following test and evaluation of the failed RRGUs at the manufacturer. Similar units on the Atlas V at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Complex 41 were deemed acceptable for MRO's launch. NASA'S Mars Orbiter Launch Delayed 24 Hours NASA media advisory M05-136, 11 August 2005 The launch of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been postponed. The new launch window is 7:43 to 9:43 AM EDT, Friday, August 12. The delay was called after engineers saw an anomalous reading in the hydrogen propellant loading system on the Atlas V. There was insufficient time in the launch window to fully investigate the reading. The Atlas V vehicle is being de-tanked. The rocket will remain on the launch pad, and the MRO spacecraft is secured. Tomorrow's weather forecast calls for a chance for isolated coastal showers. There is a 20 percent probability of not meeting the launch weather criteria. NASA's Multipurpose Mars Mission Successfully Launched NASA/JPL release 2005-133, 12 August 2005 A seven-month flight to Mars began this morning for NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The mission will inspect the red planet in fine detail and assist future landers. An Atlas V launch vehicle, 19 stories tall with the two-ton spacecraft on top, roared away from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:43 AM PDT. Its powerful first stage consumed about 200 tons of fuel and oxygen in just over four minutes, then dropped away to let the upper stage finish the job of putting the spacecraft on a path toward Mars. This was the first launch of an interplanetary mission on an Atlas V. "We have a healthy spacecraft on its way to Mars and a lot of happy people who made this possible," said James Graf, project manager for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. The spacecraft established radio contact with controllers 61 minutes after launch and within four minutes of separation from the upper stage. Initial contact came through an antenna at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan. Health and status information about the orbiter's subsystems were received through Uchinoura and the Goldstone, CA, antenna station of NASA's Deep Space Network. By 14 minutes after separation, the craft's solar panels finished unfolding, enabling it to start recharging batteries and operate as a fully functional spacecraft. The orbiter carries six scientific instruments for examining the surface, atmosphere and subsurface of Mars in unprecedented detail from low orbit. For example, its high-resolution camera will reveal surface features as small as a dishwasher. NASA expects to get several times more data about Mars from the orbiter than from all previous martian missions combined. Researchers will use the instruments to learn more about the history and distribution of Mars' water. That information will improve understanding of planetary climate change and will help guide the quest to answer whether Mars ever supported life. The orbiter will also evaluate potential landing sites for future missions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will use its high-data-rate communications system to relay information between Mars surface missions and Earth. Mars is 72 million miles from Earth today, but the spacecraft will travel more than four times that distance on its outbound-arc trajectory to intercept the red planet on March 10, 2006. The cruise period will be busy with checkups, calibrations and trajectory adjustments. On arrival day, the spacecraft will fire its engines and slow itself enough for martian gravity to capture it into a very elongated orbit. The spacecraft will spend half a year gradually shrinking and shaping its orbit by "aerobraking," a technique using the friction of carefully calculated dips into the upper atmosphere to slow the vehicle. The mission's main science phase is scheduled to begin in November 2006. The launch was originally scheduled for August 10, but was delayed first due to a gyroscope issue on a different Atlas V, and the next day because of a software glitch. The mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, prime contractor for the project, built both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle. NASA's Launch Services Program at the Kennedy Space Center is responsible for government engineering oversight of the Atlas V, spacecraft/launch vehicle integration and launch day countdown management. For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro. For information about NASA and other agency programs on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html. Powerful Mineral Mapper Headed To Mars Johns Hopkins University release With today's launch of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars--or CRISM--joins the set of high-tech detectives seeking traces of water on the red planet. Built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, MD, CRISM is the first visible-infrared spectrometer to fly on a NASA Mars mission. Its primary job: look for the residue of minerals that form in the presence of water, the "fingerprints" left by evaporated hot springs, thermal vents, lakes or ponds on Mars when water could have existed on the surface. With unprecedented clarity, CRISM will map areas on the martian surface down to house-sized scales--as small as 60 feet (about 18 meters) across--when the spacecraft is in its average orbit altitude of about 190 miles (more than 300 kilometers). "CRISM plays a very important role in Mars exploration," says APL's Dr. Scott Murchie, the instrument's principal investigator. "Our data will identify sites most likely to have contained water, and which would make the best potential landing sites for future missions seeking fossils or even traces of life on Mars." Though certain landforms provide evidence that water may once have flowed on Mars, Murchie says scientists have little evidence of sites containing mineral deposits created by long-term interaction between water and rock. The NASA Rover Opportunity found evidence for liquid water in Meridian Planum--a large plain near Mars' equator--but that is only one of many hundreds of sites where future spacecraft could land. Peering through a telescope with a 4-inch (10-centimeter) aperture, and with a greater capability to map spectral variations than any similar instrument sent to another planet, CRISM will read 544 "colors" in reflected sunlight to detect minerals in the surface. Its highest resolution is about 20 times sharper than any previous look at Mars in infrared wavelengths. "At infrared wavelengths, rocks that look absolutely the same to human eyes become very different," Murchie says. "CRISM has the capability to take images in which different rocks will 'light up' in different colors." CRISM is mounted on a gimbal, allowing it to follow targets on the surface as the orbiter passes overhead. CRISM will spend the first half of a two-year orbit mission mapping Mars at 650-foot (200-meter) scales, searching for potential study areas. Several thousand promising sites will then be measured in detail at CRISM's highest spatial and spectral resolution. CRISM will also monitor seasonal variations in dust and ice particles in the atmosphere, supplementing data gathered by the orbiter's other instruments and providing new clues about the martian climate. "CRISM will improve significantly on the mapping technology currently orbiting Mars," says CRISM Project Manager Peter Bedini of APL. "We'll not only look for future landing sites, but we'll be able to provide details on information the Mars Exploration Rovers are gathering now. There is a lot more to learn, and after CRISM and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter there will still be more to learn. But with this mission we're taking a big step in exploring and understanding Mars." As the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter cruises to its destination, the CRISM operations team continues to fine-tune the software and systems it will use to command the instrument and receive, read, process, and store a wealth of data from orbit--more than 10 terabytes when processed back on Earth, enough to fill more than 15,000 compact discs. The spacecraft is set to reach Mars next March, use aerobraking to circularize its orbit, and settle into its science orbit by November 2006. APL, which has built more than 150 spacecraft instruments over the past four decades, led the effort to develop, integrate and test CRISM. CRISM's co-investigators are top planetary scientists from Brown University, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Northwestern University, Space Science Institute, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Paris, the Applied Coherent Technology Corporation, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Ames Research Center and Johnson Space Center. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. For more information on CRISM and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, including instrument images, visit: http://crism.jhuapl.edu. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission Status NASA/JPL release 2005-135, 17 August 2005 NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched on August 12, has completed one of the first tasks of its seven-month cruise to Mars, a calibration activity for the spacecraft's Mars Color Imager instrument. "We have transitioned from launch mode to cruise mode, and the spacecraft continues to perform extremely well," said Dan Johnston, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA. The first and largest of four trajectory correction maneuvers scheduled before the orbiter reaches Mars is planned for August 27. For the calibration task on August 15, the spacecraft slewed about 15 degrees to scan the camera across the positions of the Earth and Moon, then returned to the attitude it will hold for most of the cruise. Data were properly recorded onboard, downlinked to Earth and received by the Mars Color Imager team at Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego. Dr. Michael Malin of Malin Space Science Systems, principal investigator for Mars Color Imager, said the image data are being processed and analyzed. This multiple-waveband camera is the widest-angle instrument of four cameras on the orbiter, designed for imaging all of Mars daily from an altitude of about 300 kilometers (186 miles). Imaged at a range of more than 1 million kilometers (620,000 miles) away, the crescent Earth and Moon fill only a few pixels and are not resolved in the image. However, this is enough useful information to characterize the instrument's response in its seven color bands, including two ultraviolet channels that will be used to trace ozone in the Mars atmosphere. This is the first of two events early in the cruise phase that check instrument calibrations after launching. The second will occur in early September when higher resolution cameras are pointed at Earth and the Moon as the spacecraft continues its flight to Mars. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will reach Mars and enter orbit on about March 10, 2006. After gradually adjusting the shape of its orbit for half a year, it will begin its primary science phase in November 2006. The mission will examine Mars in unprecedented detail from low orbit, returning several times more data than all previous Mars missions combined. Scientists will use its instruments to gain a better understanding of the history and current distribution of Mars' water. By inspecting possible landing sites and by providing a high-data-rate relay, it will also support future missions that land on Mars. More information about the mission is available online at http://www.nasa.gov/mro. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission is managed by JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, prime contractor for the project, built both the spacecraft and the launch vehicle. Contacts: Guy Webster Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Phone: 818-354-6278 George Diller NASA Kennedy Space Center, FL Phone: 321-867-2468 Dolores Beasley NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC Phone: 202-358-1753 Michael Buckley Phone: 240-228 7536 or 443-778 7536 E-mail: michael.buckley@jhuapl.edu Additional articles on this subject are available at: http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1672.html http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1677.html http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/050812_mro_launch.html http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0508/17mrostatus/ http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mro-05j.html http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mro-05m.html http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av007/status.html http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/av007/gallery/01.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/mro_launch_august_10.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/mro_delayed_to_thursday.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/nasa_multipurpose_mars_missio n_successfully_launched.html http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/apl- built_spectrometer_on_nasa_mro_.html _____________________________________________________________________ End Marsbugs, Volume 12, Number 28.