Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology NewsletterVolume 12, Number 4, 2 February 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.

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows an impact crater in Chryse Planitia, not too far from the Viking 1 lander site, that to seems to resemble a bug-eyed "alien" head. The two odd depressions at the north end of the crater (the "eyes") may have formed by wind or water erosion. This region has been modified by both processes, with water action occurring in the distant past via floods that poured across western Chryse Planitia from Maja Valles, and wind action common occurrence in more recent history. This crater is located near 22.5°N, 47.9°W. The 150 meter scale bar is about 164 yards long. Sunlight illuminates the scene from the left/lower left. Image credit: NASA/JPL/MSSS. [http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/26/2005.01.26.M0204443.gif]

Articles and News

Page 1 THEORY PROPOSES NEW VIEW OF SUN AND EARTH'S CREATION Arizona State University release

Page 3 ASTROBIOLOGIST KEVIN HAND HELPS IMAX DIRECTOR FILM ALIENS OF THE DEEPBy Kenneth M. Dixon

Page 4 SIMILAR, BUT DIFFERENT: HUYGENS PROBE UNLOCKS ANOTHER PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEMBy Cynthia Phillips

Page 4 WHY DO WE HAVE A SPACE PROGRAM ANYWAY? By Richard Godwin

Page 4 "MOSS IN SPACE" PROJECT SHOWS HOW SOME PLANTS GROW WITHOUT GRAVITYBy Holly Wagner

Page 6 UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR MIGHT BE NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND ET By Douglas Vakoch

Page 6 SICKENING SOLAR FLARES By Tony Phillips

Page 7 TITAN'S METHANE NOT PRODUCED BY LIFE, SCIENTISTS SAY By Melissa Eddy

Page 7 TEMPLATING OURSELVES (INTERVIEW WITH NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, PART 2)By Leslie Mullen

Page 9 THE SANDS OF MARSBy Trudy E. Bell and Tony Phillips

Page 10 RADIO FREE EARTH (INTERVIEW WITH NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, PART 3)By Leslie Mullen

Announcements

Page 11 EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL MARS SOCIETY CONVENTION Mars Society release

Page 13 NIAC STUDENT FELLOWS WANTEDBy Robert Cassanova

Page 13 ARE WE EARTHLINGS ALONE?SETI Institute release

Mission Reports

Page 13 CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 20-26 JANUARY 2005NASA/JPL release

Page 14 NASA SENDS FIRST GENESIS EARLY-SCIENCE SAMPLE TO RESEARCHERSNASA release 05-030

Page 15 MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGESNASA/JPL/MSSS release

Page 15 MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGESNASA/JPL/ASU release

THEORY PROPOSES NEW VIEW OF SUN AND EARTH'S CREATION Arizona State University release21 May 2004

[I realize that this article is somewhat old. Somehow I missed it when it was originally released. DJT]

Like most creation stories, this one is dramatic: we began, not as a mere glimmer buried in an obscure cloud, but instead amidst the glare and turmoil of restless giants. Or so says a new theory, supported by stunning astronomical images and hard chemical analysis. For years most astronomers have imagined that the Sun and Solar System formed in relative isolation, buried in a quiet, dark corner of a less-than-imposing interstellar cloud. The

new theory challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing instead that the Sun formed in a violent nebular environment—a byproduct of the chaos wrought by intense ultraviolet radiation and powerful explosions that accompany the short but spectacular lives of massive, luminous stars.

The new theory is described in a "Perspectives" article appearing in the May 21 issue of Science. The article was written by a group of Arizona State University astronomers and meteorite researchers who cite recently discovered isotopic evidence and accumulated astronomical observations to argue for a history of development of the Sun, the Earth and our Solar System that is significantly different from the traditionally accepted scenario. If borne out by future work, this vision of our cosmic birth could have profound implications for understanding everything from the size and shape of our solar

Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 4, 2 February 2005

system to the physical makeup of the Earth and the development of the chemistry of life.

Annotated photo of the Trifid Nebula showing the formation of low-mass stars (YSO's—Young Solar Objects). Image credit: NASA/ Hubble Space Telescope/Jeff Hester.

Illustration showing a high-mass star's effect on a nearby molecular cloud, resulting in the formation of a low-mass star like our Sun. Image credit: Jeff Hester.

"There are two different sorts of environment where low-mass stars like the Sun form," explained ASU astronomer Jeff Hester, the essay's lead author. "In one kind of star-forming environment, you have a fairly quiescent process in which an undisturbed molecular cloud slowly collapses, forming a star here, a star there. The other type of environment in which Sun-like stars form is radically different. These are more massive regions that form not only low-mass stars, but luminous high-mass stars, as well." 

More massive regions are very different because once a high-mass star forms, it begins pumping out huge amounts of energy that in turn completely changes the way Sun-like stars form in the surrounding environment. "People have long imagined that the Sun formed in the first, more quiescent type of environment," Hester noted, "but we believe that we have compelling evidence that this is not the case."

Critical to the team's argument is the recent discovery in meteorites of patterns of isotopes that can only have been caused by the radioactive decay of iron-60, an unstable isotope that has a half life of only a million and a half years. Iron-60 can only be formed in the heart of a massive star and thus the presence of live iron-60 in the young Solar System provides strong evidence that when the Sun formed (4.5 billion years ago) a massive star was nearby.

Hester's coauthors on the Science essay include Steve Desch, Kevin Healy, and Laurie Leshin. Leshin is a cosmochemist and director of Arizona State University's Center for Meteorite Studies. "One of the exciting things about the research is that it is truly transdisciplinary, drawing from both astrophysics and the study of meteorites—rocks that you can pick up and hold in your hand—to arrive at a new understanding of our origins," noted Leshin.

The Eagle Nebula, as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. This famous photo, often known as "The Pillars of Creation," shows giant nebular clouds being evaporated by the ferocious energy of massive stars, exposing emerging solar systems, much like our own. Image credit: NASA/HST/Jeff Hester and Paul Scowen.

When a massive star is born, its intense ultraviolet radiation forms an "HII region"—a region of hot, ionized gas that pushes outward through interstellar space. The Eagle Nebula, the Orion Nebula, and the Trifid Nebula are all well-known examples of HII regions. A shock wave is driven in advance of the expanding HII region, compressing surrounding gas and triggering the formation of new low-mass stars. "We see triggered low-mass star formation going on in HII regions today," said Healy, who recently completed a study of radio observations of this process at work.

The star does not have much time to get its act together, though. Within 100,000 years or so, the star and what is left of its small natal cloud will be uncovered by the advancing boundary of the HII region and exposed directly to the harsh ultraviolet radiation from the massive star. "We see such objects

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emerging from the boundaries of HII regions," Hester said. "These are the 'evaporating gaseous globules' or 'EGGs' seen in the famous Hubble image of the Eagle Nebula."

EGGs do not live forever either. Within about ten thousand years an EGG evaporates, leaving behind only the low-mass star and its now-unprotected protoplanetary disk to face the brunt of the massive star's wrath. Like a chip of dry ice on a hot day, the disk itself now begins to evaporate, forming a characteristic tear-drop-shaped structure like the "proplyds" seen in Hubble images of the Orion Nebula. "Once we understood what we were looking at, we realized that we had a number of images of EGGs caught just as they were turning into proplyds," said Hester. "The evolutionary tie between these two classes of objects is clear."

The Trifid Nebula. Image credit: NASA/HST/Jeff Hester.

Within another ten thousand years or so the proplyd, too, is eroded away. All that remains is the star itself, surrounded by the inner part of the disk (comparable in size to our Solar System), which is able to withstand the continuing onslaught of radiation. It is from this disk and in this environment that planets may form. The process leaves a Sun-like star and its surrounding disk sitting in the interior of a low density cavity with a massive star close at hand. Massive stars die young, exploding in violent events called "supernovae". When a supernova explodes it peppers surrounding infant planetary systems with newly synthesized chemical elements—including short-lived radioactive isotopes such as iron-60.

"This is where the meteorite data come in," said Hester. "When we look at HII regions we see that they are filled with young, Sun-like stars, many of which are known to be surrounded by protoplanetary disks. Once you ask the question, 'what is going to happen when those massive stars go supernova?' the answer is pretty obvious. Those young disks are going to get enriched with a lot of freshly-made elements." 

"When you then pick up a meteorite and find a mix of materials that can only be easily explained by a nearby supernova, you realize that you are looking at the answer to a very longstanding question in astronomy and planetary science," Desch added.

"So from this we now know that if you could go back 4.5 billion years and watch the Sun and Solar System forming, you would see the kind of environment that you see today in the Eagle or Trifid nebulas," said Hester.

"There are many aspects of our Solar System that seem to make sense in light of the new scenario," notes Leshin. "For example, this might be why the outer part of the Solar System—the Kuiper Belt—seems to end abruptly. Ultraviolet radiation would also have played a role in the organic chemistry of

the young solar system, and could explain other peculiar effects such as anomalies in the abundances of isotopes of oxygen in meteorites." 

One of the most intriguing speculations is that the amount of radioactive material injected into the young solar system by a supernova might have profoundly influenced the habitability of Earth itself. Heat released by the decay of this material may have been responsible for "baking out" the planetesimals from which the earth formed, and in the process determining how much water is on Earth today.

"It is kind of exciting to think that life on Earth may owe its existence to exactly what sort of massive star triggered the formation of the Sun in the first place, and exactly how close we happened to be to that star when it went supernova," mused Hester. "One thing that is clear is that the traditional boundaries between fields such as astrophysics, meteoritics, planetary science, and astrobiology just got less clear-cut. This new scenario has a lot of implications, and makes a lot of new predictions that we can test."

If it is accepted, the new theory may also be of use in looking for life in the universe beyond. "We want to know how common Earth-like planets are. The problem with answering that question is that if you don't know how Earth-like planets are formed—if you don't understand their connection with astrophysical environments—then all you can do is speculate," Hester said. "We think that we're starting to see a very specific causal connection between astrophysical environments and the things that have to be in place to make a planet like ours."

Read the original news release at http://www.asu.edu/asunews/research/sun_earth_creation.htm.

An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1419.html.

ASTROBIOLOGIST KEVIN HAND HELPS IMAX DIRECTOR FILM ALIENS OF THE DEEPBy Kenneth M. DixonStanford University release14 January 2005

Graduate student Kevin Hand explores the potential for life on Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, for his doctoral work with geological and environmental sciences Associate Professor Christopher Chyba. Like most astrobiologists and planetary scientists, Hand must do his research from afar. He can't ride a rocket 365 million miles to Europa, drill into the ice-capped ocean and scuba dive to find signs of life. Recently, however, film director and exploration enthusiast James Cameron (Titanic, Aliens) gave Hand a chance to search for "alien" life a bit closer to home—a mere 2 miles below the ocean surface—as part of Cameron's IMAX documentary, Aliens of the Deep, which opens January 28. The communities studied by Hand and presented in the film are as close to alien as anything on Earth. "We can then begin to understand the task ahead of us as we search for life beyond Earth," Hand says.

Kevin Hand traveled to the bottom of the Atlantic in a submersible to shoot Aliens of the Deep. Image credit: Kevin Hand.

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Funded and distributed by Disney, the film takes audiences to the ocean floor for a glimpse at the bizarre creatures living near hydrothermal vents—gushing underwater hot springs powered by the volcanic activity underlying mid-ocean ridges. Working with a small crew of astrobiologists, marine biologists, planetary scientists and geophysicists from NASA and other institutions, Hand made eight trips in a submersible rover to six vent sites. Logging dives in both the Pacific and the Atlantic to spots with names like "Lost City" and "Snake Pit," he spent up to 15 hours at a time in the tiny vessel, slowly descending toward the ocean floor to capture stunning images of 6-foot tubeworms, blind white crabs and incredible masses of white shrimp that can "see" heat.

But what do these curious creatures have to do with the search for extraterrestrial life? In short, the harsh conditions near hydrothermal vents mirror those found on other planets and moons, so life that exists at vents may tell us what to look for in space.

"This perhaps reflects the most important lesson learned from the discovery of the vents back in the late 1970s," explains Hand. The surprising existence of life "caused the biological community to scratch its head and rethink things."

A submersible rover is lowered into the water during the Atlantic leg of the expedition. Image credit: Kevin Hand.

Scientists had assumed that nothing could live in the extreme environment, where scorching 345 degree Celsius temperatures, strange water chemistry and zero sunlight cannot support a typical ocean food web. Consider that a cloudy black flare of iron, copper, zinc and hydrogen sulfide sustains the ecosystem. It's an upside-down power plant where microbes eat scalding exhaust. Will a similar or equally extraordinary system be discovered under the Europan ocean or in the martian fossil record? If so, it will probably resemble simple microbial life on Earth and nothing more, Hand says. But these aliens of the deep prove it's always worth checking.

A National Geographic companion book and a guide for educators wishing to incorporate the material into their curricula are available to accompany the spectacular film footage. Says Hand, "The target audience is third graders, though I think [James Cameron] and his team have done a nice job of making it great for all ages."

Find out more about Aliens of the Deep at http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/aliensofthedeep/.

Read the original news release at http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/january19/imax-011905.html.

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1420.htmlhttp://cl.exct.net/?ffcd16-fe6615747565037d7211-fe28167073670175701c72

SIMILAR, BUT DIFFERENT: HUYGENS PROBE UNLOCKS ANOTHER PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEMBy Cynthia PhillipsFrom The SETI Institute20 January 2005

With the successful landing of the European Space Agency's Huygens probe on Saturn's moon Titan, we can now bring the number of bodies in the solar system that have been landed on by a spacecraft up to four (or five, if you count the soft-crash-landing of the NEAR spacecraft on the asteroid Eros). The Moon has been the most visited, with robotic landers from the former Soviet Union and from NASA, as well as six successful landings with astronauts in the late 1960's and 1970's. The planet Venus was visited by four successful unmanned landers from the former Soviet Union in the 1970's, and the planet Mars has been visited successfully by a variety of NASA robotic landers starting in the 1970's with the two Viking landers, 1997's Mars Pathfinder, and 2004's Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

So what have we learned from this planetary exploration? While orbiting spacecraft can map the surfaces of planets, and provide big-picture geological context, there's no substitute for actually landing on the surface of another world to get an idea of what it's really like there. Especially for us humans, it's much easier to picture ourselves on the ground of an alien world with pictures taken from the surface than with pictures taken from orbit. You can imagine that you're really there, and sometimes there's just no substitute, scientifically, for a little pretended sightseeing.

Read the full article at http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=352221.

WHY DO WE HAVE A SPACE PROGRAM ANYWAY? By Richard GodwinFrom Ad Astra and Space.com27 January 2005

Why do we have a space program anyway? Many people in the past have asked this very same question. They usually continue on, "We should spend the money fixing our problems here on Earth first."

This is a good question and a reasonable assertion regarding where we spend our science dollars. Some of the old answers such as "Because exploring is in our souls," or "Because it is our destiny", seem a little trite to the concerned taxpayer. So why do we go?

Exploring, in the past, has almost always delivered much more in economic or scientific benefits than the original explorers could ever have imagined. Think of Lewis or Clark standing in downtown Portland Oregon today, or even better, Christopher Columbus standing in Times Square. It would be beyond their imaginations. There would be the same feeling of amazement if Neil Armstrong could look up at the enormous pressurized structures that will probably exist on the moon in a hundred years time. Exploring really IS what we do. If we hadn't pushed out from the plains of Africa those thousands of years ago, we probably wouldn't have survived until now and we certainly wouldn't have been as widespread and successful a species as we now are. Space is just the next big step that we have to take if we are to survive and develop as a species. To do otherwise will result in stagnation and our eventual demise.

Read the full article at http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_whyspace_050127.html.

"MOSS IN SPACE" PROJECT SHOWS HOW SOME PLANTS GROW WITHOUT GRAVITYBy Holly WagnerUniversity of Ohio release27 January 2005

Experiments on moss grown aboard two space shuttle Columbia missions showed that the plants didn't behave as scientists expected them to in the near-absence of gravity. The common roof moss (Ceratodon purpureus) grew in striking, clockwise spirals, according to Fred Sack, the study's lead investigator and a professor of plant cellular and molecular biology at Ohio State University. He and his colleagues noted this even in moss cultures grown aboard the second of the two space shuttle missions, STS-107, which had disintegrated upon its reentry in early 2003. Most of the hardware that

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contained the moss was later recovered on the ground, with some of the moss cultures still intact. The researchers expected random, unorganized growth, as seen with every other type of plant flown in space.

"We don't know why moss grew non-randomly in space, but we found distinct spiral patterns," Sack said. He and his colleagues report their findings in the current online edition of the journal, Planta.

The image above shows the the spiral formation of a moss culture gown during the 2003 Space Shuttle missions. Researchers suspect that those spirals resulted from a residual spacing mechanism intended to control colony growth and the distribution of branches, a mechanism that is normally suppressed by the stronger influence of gravity on Earth. Image credit: Volker Kern.

Common roof moss is a relatively primitive plant in which certain cells, called tip cells, are guided by gravity in their growth. This gravity response is only seen when moss is kept in the dark, as light overrides gravity's effect. Moss originates from chains of cells with growth only taking place in the tip-most cell of a chain. When grown in the dark, the tip cells grow away from gravity's pull this gets the cells out of the soil and into the light.

The way these tip cells respond to gravity is exceptional, Sack said. In most plants, gravity guides the growth of roots or stems, which are made up of many cells. But in moss it is just a single cell that both senses and responds to gravity.

Common roof moss was grown in Petri dishes in lockers aboard two Columbia shuttle missions the first in 1997 and the other in early 2003. Although most of the experimental moss hardware from this mission was later recovered on the ground, only 11 of the 87 recovered cultures grown on this flight were usable.

Astronauts followed similar experimental procedures on both flights. The astronauts chemically fixed the moss cultures before each mission reentered Earth's atmosphere. This process stopped all growth in the moss.Control studies conducted at Kennedy Space Center in Florida used hardware and procedures similar to those used aboard each flight. However, these moss cultures were either kept stationary or turned at a slow spin on a clinostat a machine that resembles a record turntable placed on its edge, and is used to negate the effects of gravity.

On earth gravity controls the direction of moss growth so thoroughly that it grows straight away from the center of the earth, just like shoots in a field of corn. In space, scientists expected the cells to grow erratically in all directions since there was no gravity cue. Instead, the moss grew non-randomly in two successive types of patterns. The first pattern resembled that of spokes in a wheel, where the cells grew outward from where they were originally sown.

An image of the common roof moss (Ceratodon purpureus) used in the experiments aboard both Columbia missions. Image credit: Fred Sack.

Moss grew in these canisters while in orbit. These particular canisters were recovered by ground crews after the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry into Earth's orbit. Image credit: David Reed.

Later, the tips of the filaments grew in arcs so that the entire culture showed clockwise spirals. The same patterns were found when the moss was grown on a clinostat on the ground. Even with the limited data from STS-107, 10 of the 11 salvageable moss cultures showed this kind of strong radial growth and spiraling. Ground controls grown in normal conditions of gravity grew as moss normally would on earth.

The results are unusual, Sack said, as this is the first time researchers report seeing this kind of plant growth response in space. "Unlike the ordered response of moss cells in space, other types of plants grow randomly," he said. "So in moss, gravity must normally mask a default growth pattern. This pattern is only revealed when the gravity signal is lost or disrupted. The fascinating question is why would moss have a backup growth response to conditions it has never experienced on earth? Perhaps spirals are a vestigial growth pattern, a pattern that later became masked when moss evolved the ability to respond to gravity."

Sack conducted the study with Volker Kern, who is now at Kennedy Space Center and was at Ohio State at the time of the study; David Reed, with Bionetics Corporation based at Kennedy Space Center; with former Ohio State colleagues Jeanette Nadeau, Jochen Schwuchow and Alexander Skripnikov; and with Jessica Lucas, a graduate student in Sack's lab. Support for this research came from the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Mosses were grown inside the canisters in these small, square Petri dish fixation units, which allowed for chemical fixation in microgravity. Image credit: David Reed.

Contacts:Fred SackPhone: 614-292-0896E-mail: Sack.1@osu.edu

Holly WagnerPhone: 614-292-8310E-mail: Wagner.235@osu.edu

Read the original news release at http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/spiragro.htm.

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-05h.htmlhttp://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/moss_grows_spiral.html

UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR MIGHT BE NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND ET By Douglas VakochFrom Space.com27 January 2005

Will we ever find a primer for decoding messages from extraterrestrials? Last month, anthropologists who gathered for a major conference in Atlanta, Georgia heard some news that will be sobering for SETI enthusiasts: it may be much more difficult to understand extraterrestrials than many scientists have thought before. Among the sessions held during December's annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association was one called "Anthropology, Archaeology, and Interstellar Communication: Science and the Knowledge of Distant Worlds." The session included papers by scholars from such diverse fields as astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, and psychology. Is there a Cosmic Rosetta Stone, they asked, drawing parallels to Earth's own Rosetta Stone, which provided the key to decoding Egyptian hieroglyphics? Will we ever find a comparable primer for decrypting any messages we might receive some day from extraterrestrials?

Read the full article at http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_translator_050127.html.

SICKENING SOLAR FLARES By Tony PhillipsFrom NASA Science News27 January 2005

NASA is returning to the Moon—not just robots, but people. In the decades ahead we can expect to see habitats, greenhouses and power stations up there. Astronauts will be out among the moondust and craters, exploring, prospecting, building. Last week, though, there were no humans walking around on the Moon—good thing.

On January 20th, 2005, a giant sunspot named "NOAA 720" exploded. The blast sparked an X-class solar flare, the most powerful kind, and hurled a billion-ton cloud of electrified gas (a "coronal mass ejection") into space. Solar protons accelerated to nearly light speed by the explosion reached the Earth-Moon system minutes after the flare—the beginning of a days-long

"proton storm". Here on Earth, no one suffered. Our planet's thick atmosphere and magnetic field protects us from protons and other forms of solar radiation. In fact, the storm was good. When the plodding coronal mass ejection arrived 36 hours later and hit Earth's magnetic field, sky watchers in Europe saw the brightest and prettiest auroras in years: (http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01jan05_page4.htm). The Moon is a different story.

Astronauts on the Moon are less protected against solar flare radiation than we are on Earth. Image credit: NASA/Dennis Davidson.

"The Moon is totally exposed to solar flares," explains solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. "It has no atmosphere or magnetic field to deflect radiation." Protons rushing at the Moon simply hit the ground—or whoever might be walking around outside.

The January 20th proton storm was by some measures the biggest since 1989. It was particularly rich in high-speed protons packing more than 100 million electron volts (100 MeV) of energy. Such protons can burrow through 11 centimeters of water. A thin-skinned spacesuit would have offered little resistance.

Giant sunspot 720 (and a passing airplane) photographed by amateur astronomer Jan Koeman of the Netherlands on January 15, 2005.

"An astronaut caught outside when the storm hit would've gotten sick," says Francis Cucinotta, NASA's radiation health officer at the Johnson Space Center. At first, he'd feel fine, but a few days later symptoms of radiation sickness would appear: vomiting, fatigue, low blood counts. These symptoms might persist for days.

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Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS), by the way, were safe. The ISS is heavily shielded, plus the station orbits Earth inside our planet's protective magnetic field. "The crew probably absorbed no more than 1 rem," says Cucinotta.

One rem, short for Roentgen Equivalent Man, is the radiation dose that causes the same injury to human tissue as 1 roentgen of x-rays. A typical diagnostic CAT scan, the kind you might get to check for tumors, delivers about 1 rem. So for the crew of the ISS, the January 20th proton storm was no worse than a trip to the doctor on Earth.

On the Moon, Cucinotta estimates, an astronaut protected by no more than a space suit would have absorbed about 50 rem of ionizing radiation. That's enough to cause radiation sickness. "But it would not have been fatal," he adds.

To die, you'd need to absorb, suddenly, 300 rem or more. The key word is suddenly. You can get 300 rem spread out over a number of days or weeks with little effect. Spreading the dose gives the body time to repair and replace its own damaged cells. But if that 300 rem comes all at once... "we estimate that 50% of people exposed would die within 60 days without medical care," says Cucinotta. Such doses from a solar flare are possible. To wit, the legendary solar storm of August 1972.

It's legendary (at NASA) because it happened during the Apollo program when astronauts were going back and forth to the Moon regularly. At the time, the crew of Apollo 16 had just returned to Earth in April while the crew of Apollo 17 was preparing for a moon-landing in December. Luckily, everyone was safely on Earth when the sun went haywire.

"A large sunspot appeared on August 2, 1972, and for the next 10 days it erupted again and again," recalls Hathaway. The spate of explosions caused, "a proton storm much worse than the one we've just experienced," adds Cucinotta. Researchers have been studying it ever since.

Cucinotta estimates that a moonwalker caught in the August 1972 storm might have absorbed 400 rem. Deadly? "Not necessarily," he says. A quick trip back to Earth for medical care could have saved the hypothetical astronaut's life.

Surely, though, no astronaut is going to walk around on the Moon when there's a giant sunspot threatening to explode. "They're going to stay inside their spaceship (or habitat)," says Cucinotta. An Apollo command module with its aluminum hull would have attenuated the 1972 storm from 400 rem to less than 35 rem at the astronaut's blood-forming organs. That's the difference between needing a bone marrow transplant, or just a headache pill.

Modern spaceships are even safer. "We measure the shielding of our ships in units of areal density—or grams per centimeter-squared," says Cucinotta. Big numbers, which represent thick hulls, are better:* The hull of an Apollo command module rated 7 to 8 g/cm2.* A modern space shuttle has 10 to 11 g/cm2.* The hull of the ISS, in its most heavily shielded areas, has 15 g/cm2.* Future moon bases will have storm shelters made of polyethylene and aluminum possibly exceeding 20 g/cm2.

A typical space suit, meanwhile, has only 0.25 g/cm2, offering little protection. "That's why you want to be indoors when the proton storm hits," says Cucinotta.

But the Moon beckons and when explorers get there they're not going to want to stay indoors. A simple precaution: like explorers on Earth, they can check the weather forecast—the space weather forecast. Are there any big 'spots on the sun? What's the chance of a proton storm? Is a coronal mass ejection coming? All clear? It's time to step out.

Read the original article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/27jan_solarflares.htm.

TITAN'S METHANE NOT PRODUCED BY LIFE, SCIENTISTS SAY By Melissa EddyFrom Associated Press and Space.com27 January 2005

Saturn's largest moon contains all the ingredients for life, but senior scientists studying data from a European probe ruled out the possibility Titan's abundant

methane stems from living organisms. More than a week after the Huygens probe plunged through Titan's atmosphere, researchers continue to pore over data collected for clues to how the only celestial body known to have a significant atmosphere other than Earth came to be and whether it can provide clues to how life arose here.

Initial findings have revealed an abundance of methane on the surface of Titan—the first moon other than Earth's to be explored-which is crucial to supporting its thick atmosphere. But scientists are still puzzling over the origin of the methane.

Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/ap_huygens_update_050127.html.

TEMPLATING OURSELVES (INTERVIEW WITH NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, PART 2)By Leslie MullenFrom Astrobiology Magazine31 January 2005

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and also a Visiting Research Scientist at Princeton University's Department of Astrophysics. He writes a monthly column called "Universe" for Natural History magazine, and is the author of several books, including One Universe: At Home in the Cosmos and The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures in an Urban Environment. His most recent project is the NOVA four-part series, Origins. As host of the PBS miniseries, Tyson guides viewers on a journey into the mysteries of the universe and the origin of life itself. In this interview with Astrobiology Magazine editor, Leslie Mullen, Tyson discusses the human tendency of being self-centered, and how that can shape our reality and cloud our vision of the truth.

Left: If life does occur outside of earth, is it limited to single-celled microbial life such as bacteria? Image credit: BioMEDIA. Right: "Life might have originated in Europa early in the solar system's history (and may live there still." —Peter Ward. Image credit: NASA.

Astrobiology Magazine (AM): One interesting point you make in the Origins companion book is that while we are just a tiny part of the galaxy, UFO and alien stories imply we are the center of attention in the universe. You also note that, because of the vast interstellar distances between possible civilizations, contact may never be possible. If that's true, then how would our "self-centered" viewpoint be harmful? Just how bad is it that we're so self-centered?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (NT): I think our big human ego can blind us from making or accepting certain kinds of scientific discoveries. It's why it was hard to accept the decentralization of our position in the cosmos: that the Earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa. There's no reason why this information should be hard to accept unless you have an ego or dogma that's fighting it.

But I think a consequence of greater impact is in view around the world today. So much of the world's problems come about because some people see themselves as more important than others. The simple notion—"I'm more important than you"—can lead to devastating political social consequences, like war and other forms of bloodshed like civil unrest. An attitude of self-importance can show up politically, culturally, religiously, spiritually, or in whatever way people divide themselves. They choose up sides, one side thinks they're better than the other, and go to war over it.

I don't know if I'm just a hopeless dreamer, but I'd like to believe that the cosmic perspective, which is brought about by any kind of study of our smallness in the universe, makes you vastly more humble as a citizen of the

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planet. And from my reading, it makes you less likely to take up arms against one another, or to invade another nation. The world might just be compelled to live in greater peace when we're made aware of our statistical, temporal, and spatial insignificance in the cosmos.

When the book, Rare Earth, was first published several years ago, it raised a great deal of controversy among astrobiologists. Written by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee, the book's hypothesis suggests that complex life is rare in the universe, and may even be unique to Earth. Image credit: SETI League.

AM: Moving aside from the politics of it, do you think an Earth-centered viewpoint could affect the direction of science? For instance, I know a lot of people criticized Peter Ward's book, Rare Earth, for being too Earth-centered in its thinking. Such a viewpoint may then limit our search for life by causing us to only look for planets that are Earth-like.

NT: Yes, that's a good example. You end up writing books like Rare Earth when you've convinced yourself of the idea that we are something special. There's another book called Privileged Planet, but that one has a clearer religious agenda.

AM: In Origins you mention the four elements necessary for life to appear anywhere: a source of energy, a type of atom that can build complex structures (in our case, carbon), a liquid solvent (in our case, water), and enough time for life to appear and evolve. Since this describes elements necessary for "life as we know it," do you think this list commits the crime of being too Earth-centered in our thinking?

"In places like Io (left) and Titan (right), we may find the first evidence of other biochemistries that are beyond our powers of prediction." —Frank Drake. Image credit: NASA.

NT: No. There's nothing wrong with that approach in the search for life "as we know it." Rare Earth, on the other hand, is saying, "we are the only life as we know it," which is a very different perspective.

AM: Don't you think some would say that we're just limiting ourselves by looking for life as we know it?

NT: Life probably exists in more ways then we can think of. Of all those other ways, in an environment of limited funds, you want to start with what you know has already worked—you start with life as we know it. Then, if you're successful or not, you build up evidence for either finding it or not finding it. You say, "OK, we were unsuccessful this way, or we were successful this way, now let's see what other variations we can find." It's just how to be efficient in this or any scientific investigation of the unknown.

But you're right, it could be limiting. We're looking for Earth-like planets around sun-like stars, because we know there is life around at least one Earth-like planet around at least one sun-like star. You can't fault us for using ourselves as a template. But like I said that's very different from saying we're alone in the universe.

"Even though it's been three decades, there is a good chance that hearty bacteria live and reproduce inside encapsulated small damp places [on the moon] and survive the monthly cycles of heat and cold as well as the effects of solar flares, ultraviolet light, and hard vacuum." —Don Brownlee.

AM: My reading of Rare Earth was not that we're alone, but that you need all these things on Earth that makes complex life possible, like tectonics, oxygen, liquid water, iron—all these qualifications which need to come together. So many qualifications, in fact, that while it could all come together somewhere else, it's probably pretty rare.

NT: The arguments in Rare Earth are indeed compelling, and I'm not even disagreeing with most of them. But throughout the history of writings on this subject, if you read anyone's account of the rarity of life or even human life, they all sounded compelling. Read Ptolemy. He said the sun, the other planets, and the stars all go around the Earth. But that's wrong; we're going around the sun, not vice-versa, and that fact undermines the entire foundation of the argument, even though it read really well at the time.

Every time we think something is rare we find it to be common. For example, there's the idea of a habitable zone around a host star. If you read the early accounts of this, people would remark, "The planet's got to be just right!" Then you learn there's a greenhouse effect, and you can have various levels of greenhouse effect and surface reflectivity, which can make your planet either colder or warmer than what the native temperature would be if it just sat there, bare, at a given distance from the host star. All of a sudden, your habitable zone is considerably broader than you had originally imagined it to be.

Then you read our early biology textbooks that said, "Life requires sunlight to survive." But no, life simply requires energy. Out there on Europa we have

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an energy source traceable in part to the tidal forces of Jupiter, rendering liquid what would otherwise be completely frozen. So that net you use to search for life has grown. And then you learn about the whole branch of life called extremophiles, and how hardy life actually is. Bacteria and other creatures living in the extremes of temperature, pressure, radiation and liking it. So once again, your definitions are broader, not narrower, than what you had originally imagined, because nature is cleverer than we are. In other words, just because you haven't figured it out doesn't mean nature hasn't figured it out. That is the history of these lines of reasoning.

So I see Rare Earth-type books as the next attempts to try and make us all feel special. If you want life exactly as you have it here on Earth, then it seems like you'd have to produce all those series of events. But we haven't done the experiment where you change some of those variables. What happens if carbon isn't subducted down into the limestone with plate tectonics? Will life find some other way to survive and thrive that we haven't yet even thought of?

Biologists, who revel in the diversity of life on Earth, at the end of the day, confess to themselves that life on Earth has hardly any diversity at all. We all have some amount of common DNA. If you want diversity, then find a life form that started on another planet—life with no DNA in common, or perhaps more likely, no DNA at all. Then you're talking "biodiversity". That would imply that life doesn't need this long string of specific complicated events. Then we can have a whole new kind of conversation.

AM: So when you cite these four things life needs, you see those as the bare bones.

NT: Bare bones! That's exactly it. You boil it down and say, "I don't know or care about the tectonics, or the green zone, or this or that, just give these fundamental ingredients, and let the chemistry take care of the rest.

AM: David Grinspoon said to me in an interview once that a planet and its life forms co-evolve.

NT: Yes! Perfect way to say it! Whereas here you are looking at us, and you look at the string of events, and you say, "Gosh, that'll never happen ever again for the rest of all of the cosmos." Well, calm down, take a deep breath, and look at what you haven't thought of.

So it's restricted creative thinking that allows people to ride their ego longer than they ought to, and deeper than they ought to. It's the absence of creative thinking that centralizes us. And by the way, I don't have any idea what life would look like if it didn't have these "special conditions", but carbon chemistry is remarkably fertile. Given the behavior of carbon in the universe, I'm pretty sure life elsewhere will have carbon chemistry. As we remind the reader in our Origins book, carbon can form more kinds of molecules that all other kinds of molecules combined. So there are things we can bet on, like the four conditions I outlined. As for the rest, I'm not impressed.

Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1423.html.

THE SANDS OF MARSBy Trudy E. Bell and Tony PhillipsFrom NASA Science News31 January 2005

Imagine this scenario. The year is 2030 or thereabouts. After voyaging six months from Earth, you and several other astronauts are the first humans on Mars. You're standing on an alien world, dusty red dirt beneath your feet, looking around at a bunch of mining equipment deposited by previous robotic landers.

Echoing in your ears are the final words from mission control: "Your mission, should you care to accept it, is to return to Earth—if possible using fuel and oxygen you mine from the sands of Mars. Good luck!"

It sounds simple enough, mining raw materials from a rocky, sandy planet. We do it here on Earth, why not on Mars, too? But it's not as simple as it sounds. Nothing about granular physics ever is. Granular physics is the science of grains, everything from kernels of corn to grains of sand to grounds of coffee. These are common everyday substances, but they can be vexingly difficult to predict. One moment they behave like solids, the next like liquids. Consider a dump truck full of gravel. When the truck begins to tilt, the gravel remains in a solid pile, until at a certain angle it suddenly becomes a thundering river of rock. Understanding granular physics is essential for

designing industrial machinery to handle vast quantities of small solids—like fine martian sand.

Explorers on Mars will have to contend with "soil" physics unlike that of Earth. Image credit: NASA/John Frassanito and Associates.

The problem is, even here on Earth "industrial plants don't work very well because we don't understand equations for granular materials as well as we understand the equations for liquids and gases," says James T. Jenkins, professor of theoretical and applied mechanics at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. "That's why coal-fired power plants operate at low efficiencies and have higher failure rates compared to liquid-fuel or gas-fired power plants." So "do we understand granular processing well enough to do it on Mars?" he asks.

Let's start with excavation: "If you dig a trench on Mars, how steep can the sides be and remain stable without caving in?" wonders Stein Sture, professor of civil, environmental, and architectural engineering and associate dean at the University of Colorado in Boulder. There's no definite answer, not yet. The layering of dusty soils and rock on Mars isn't well enough known.

Some information about the mechanical composition of the top meter or so of martian soils could be gained by ground-penetrating radar or other sounding devices, Sture points out, but much deeper and you "probably need to take core samples." NASA's Phoenix Mars lander (landing 2008) will be able to dig trenches about a half-meter deep; the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory will be able to cut out rock cores. Both missions will provide valuable new data.

Mars-cranes might use vibrating buckets for excavation. Image credit: Stein Sture.

To go even deeper, Sture (in connection with the University of Colorado's Center for Space Construction) is developing innovative diggers whose business ends vibrate into soils. Agitation helps break cohesive bonds holding compacted soils together and can also help mitigate the risk of soils collapsing. Machines like these might one day go to Mars, too.

Another problem is "hoppers"—the funnels miners use to guide sand and gravel onto conveyor belts for processing. Knowledge of martian soils would be vital in designing the most efficient and maintenance-free hoppers. "We

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don't understand why hoppers jam," Jenkins says. Jams are so frequent, in fact, that "on Earth, every hopper has a hammer close by." Banging on the hopper frees the jam. On Mars, where there would be only a few people around to tend equipment, you'd want hoppers to work better than that. Jenkins and colleagues are researching why granular flows jam.

And then there's transportation: The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity have had little trouble driving miles around their landing sites since 2004. But these rovers are only about the size of an average office desk and only about as massive as an adult. They're go-carts compared to the massive vehicles possibly needed for transporting tons of martian sand and rock. Bigger vehicles are going to have a tougher time getting around.

Mars rover Spirit, an artist's rendition. Spirit and her twin Opportunity have been roaming Mars since January 2004. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Maas.

Sture explains: As early as the 1960s when scientists were first studying possible solar-powered rovers for negotiating loose sands on the Moon and other planets, they calculated "that the maximum viable continuous pressure for rolling contact pressure over martian soils is only 0.2 pounds per square inch (psi)," especially when traveling up or down slopes. This low figure has been confirmed by the behavior of Spirit and Opportunity.

A rolling contact pressure of only 0.2 psi "means that a vehicle has to be light-weight or has to have a way of effectively distributing the load to many wheels or tracks. Reducing contact pressure is crucial so the wheels don't dig into soft soil or break through duricrusts [thin sheets of cemented soils, like the thin crust on windblown snow on Earth] and get stuck."

That requirement implies that a vehicle for moving heavier loads—people, habitats, equipment—might be "a huge Fellini-type thing with wheels 4 to 6 meters (12 to 18 feet) in diameter," says Sture, referring to the famous Italian director of surreal films. Or it might have enormous open-mesh metal treads like a cross between highway-construction backhoes on Earth and the lunar rover used during the Apollo program on the Moon. Thus, tracked or belted vehicles seem promising for carrying large payloads.

A final challenge facing granular physicists is to figure out how to keep equipment operating through Mars' seasonal dust storms. Martian storms whip fine dust through the air at velocities of 50 m/s (100+ mph), scouring every exposed surface, sifting into every crevice, burying exposed structures both natural and manmade, and reducing visibility to meters or less. Jenkins and other investigators are studying the physics of aeolian [wind] transporting of sand and dust on Earth, both to understand the formation and moving of dunes on Mars, and also to ascertain what sites for eventual habitats might be best protected from prevailing winds (for example, in the lee of large rocks).

An experimental Elastic Loop Mobility System that might work on worlds with dusty soil like Mars and the Moon. Image credit: Stein Sture.

Returning to Jenkins's big question, "do we understand granular processing well enough to do it on Mars?" The unsettling answer is: we don't yet know. Working with imperfect knowledge is okay on Earth because, usually, no one suffers much from that ignorance. But on Mars, ignorance could mean reduced efficiency or worse preventing the astronauts from mining enough oxygen and hydrogen to breathe or use for fuel to return to Earth. Granular physicists analyzing data from the Mars rovers, building new digging machines, tinkering with equations, are doing their level best to find the answers. It's all part of NASA's strategy to learn how to get to Mars, and back again.

Read the original article at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/31jan_sandsofmars.htm.

RADIO FREE EARTH (INTERVIEW WITH NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, PART 3)By Leslie MullenFrom Astrobiology Magazine2 February 2005

In this interview with Astrobiology Magazine editor, Leslie Mullen, Tyson discusses the limits of radio searches for alien life.

Astrobiology Magazine (AM): You say in the Origins companion book that the Earth's radio emission is now comparable to or stronger than the sun's. So for aliens looking in the radio frequency, we should be the brightest spot in the solar system. Do you think this indicates that SETI is futile—that we are bright enough in radio that we should be a beacon to any aliens looking in our direction, and they should have contacted us by now?

Neil deGrasse Tyson (NT): We're broadcasting in very specific frequencies. So if you have a tunable receiver on another planet, we would be the loudest source in any of those various frequencies. But all collected together, the sun is a much brighter source than the Earth. It depends on how you measure. There's a total energy, and then there's what we call a specific intensity, which is in a given band. And in any given band, Earth dominates.

Left to right: Arecibo, the world's largest dish telescope; Allen telescope array (ATA); square kilometer array (SKA).

AM: So for the aliens, as they look toward us, the sun would still be brighter to them because they're not looking in a particular band?

NT: Well, we're looking in particular bands. That's what SETI is. So why wouldn't they?

AM: OK, well if we're so bright in every band, doesn't that argue that if they are trying to contact us, they should have by now?

NT: Possibly, however the frontier of those broadcasts is only 60 or 70 light years away. Most stars are farther away than that. So if they are looking in our direction, we would be radio quiet until our radio broadcasts turn on in time for them.

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SIM, scheduled for launch in 2009, will determine the positions and distances of stars several hundred times more accurately than any previous program. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

AM: What do you think of the idea that more advanced civilizations will be radio silent, just as we are becoming more radio silent due to satellite transmission and fiber optics and that sort of thing?

NT: That's correct. That's a scary, very realistic notion. Not only that, but our TV waves aren't escaping Earth anymore because a growing number are receiving their signals via cable. So the total broadcast universe is shrinking.

Also, if you communicate in a scrambled way, if you send a radio signal that is decrypted, the more successfully encrypted it is, the less noticeable it is, the less it rises above the background noise. And so if a civilization is so advanced that it encrypts all of its radio transmissions, then while we were observing that civilization, it would seem to just shut itself off.

AM: I had this idea that maybe they heard all our radio noise, but they said, "Oh, they're still back there in the radio age, we've got to wait awhile before we contact them."

NT: Yeah! They're just waiting for us to get more advanced before they even deign to have a conversation with us. There's a lot of interesting speculation that you can come up with about why they haven't contacted us. But it presupposes that they exist at the same time that we do. Most of the time that anyone would have contacted Earth, we wouldn't have had the technology to know we were being contacted.

Suppose ancient Rome received radio signals from space. They would've concluded there was no intelligent life on Earth. The technology has just come so late in the history of civilization.

Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1425.html.

EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL MARS SOCIETY CONVENTION Mars Society release26 January 2005

Eighth International Mars Society Convention August 11-14, 2005University of Colorado, Boulder

The Mars Society was founded to further the exploration and settlement of the Red Planet. The International Mars Society convention presents a unique opportunity for those interested in Mars to come together and discuss the technology, science, social implications, philosophy and a multitude of other aspects of Mars exploration.

Highlights of the convention will include the latest results from the Spirit, Opportunity, and Mars Express missions now exploring the Red planet, as

well as reports from the sixth field season of the Devon Island Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station, and the fourth season of the Mars Desert Research Station. There will also be extensive political discussions and planning meetings on how we can turn President Bush's announcement of a new space policy into a real exploration initiative that can get humans to Mars in our time. The agenda will include a wide assortment of panels and debates concerning key issues bearing on Mars exploration and settlement, a banquet with lots of fun entertainment, and plenary addresses from many prominent leaders of the effort to get humans to Mars.

Prior conventions have drawn thousands of participants from all over the world and received extensive press coverage in many leading international media. This year's conference should be the most exciting event to date.

Conference sessions 1. The Search for Life on Mars2. Latest Findings from the Mars Probes3. Plans for the Missions of 2005, 2007 and 20094. The Cross Contamination Threat–myth or reality?5. Concepts for Future Robotic Mars missions6. Piloted Missions to Mars7. Advanced Propulsion 8. Launch Vehicles for Mars Exploration9. Long Range Mobility on Mars10. Life Support technology11. Biomedical and Human Factors Issues in Mars Exploration12. Options for Producing Power on Mars13. Methods of Martian Construction 14. In Situ Resource Utilization15. Water on Mars—Accessing the Hydrosphere16. Concepts for a Permanent Mars Base17. Colonizing Mars18. Terraforming—Creating an Ecology for Mars19. Analog Studies Relating to Mars Exploration20. The Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station 21. The Mars Desert Research Station22. The Mars Analog Rover project23. The Translife Mars Gravity Mission24. The Value of Mars Exploration to the Earth 25. Public Policy for Mars Exploration26. Concepts for Privately Funded Mars Missions27. International Cooperation in Mars Exploration28. Law and Governance for Mars29. Moonbase: Steppingstone or Stumbling Block?30. The Significance of the Martian Frontier31. Philosophical Implications of Mars Exploration.32. Mars and Education33. Mars and the Arts34. Outreach Strategy for the Mars Society35. Proposed Projects for the Mars Society36. Open Mike Martian Literature Reading, Songfest, & Gallery

Call for papers

Presentations for the convention are invited dealing with all matters (science, engineering, politics, economics, public policy, etc.) associated with the exploration and settlement of Mars. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent by June 30, 2005 to: The Mars SocietyP. O. Box 273Indian Hills, CO 80454E-mail: msabstracts@aol.com (e-mail submission preferred).

Conference Registration Fees: $150 for MS members if paid before May 31st, 2005, $210 for non-members. After June 1, 2005: $210 for members, $270 for non-members. Students and Seniors: $40 for members, $75 for non-members before May 31st, $70 for members, $105 for non members after June 1st 2005.

(The conference registration form follows.)

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EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL MARS SOCIETY CONVENTION August 11-14, 2005, University of Colorado, BoulderConference Registration Form

Name: ____________________________________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________________________________ City: _____________________ State: ________ Zip/Postal Code: _______

Country: __________________

E-mail address: __________________________

Will you be submitting an abstract? ______

Type of registration (circle amount):

Full conference registration before 5/31/05: $150 for Mars Society members, $210 for non-members Full conference registration after 6/1/05: $210 for Mars Society members, $270 for non-members Student/senior registration before 5/31/05: $40 for Mars Society members, $75 for non-members Student/senior registration after 6/1/05: $70 for Mars Society members, $105 for non-members

Banquet is included in full conference registration fee. Students/Seniors can buy a banquet ticket by adding $50 to their fee (circle if banquet ticket purchase is desired).

If you are not a member, you can save money by joining now to obtain the reduced member conference fees.Yes! Sign me up as a member! (circle one)

$50 regular $25 Student or Senior

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Payment method: Check/MO _____ Credit Card _____

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Signature: _______________________________________________________________

Mail registration to: The Mars Society, P.O. Box 273, Indian Hills, CO 80454, USA, or fax to 303-980-0753. For further information and on-line registration instructions, visit www.marssociety.org.

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NIAC STUDENT FELLOWS WANTEDBy Robert CassanovaNASA Institute for Advanced Concepts release27 January 2005

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts seeks to identify creative and innovative students who possess an extraordinary potential for developing advanced concepts in the fields of aeronautics, space and the sciences. Through an open competition described in "NIAC Student Fellows Prize" (http://www.niac.usra.edu/newsroom/announce.html), NIAC will select students to become NIAC Student Fellows. Each Student Fellow will receive a total of $9,000 for the Academic year 2005-2006.

NIAC intends for these awards to benefit talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their academic pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. We seek exceptional creativity, and the promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishment, and potential for the fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work.

Please direct any questions you might have to our web site, www.niac.usra.edu, or e-mail us at niacstudents@niac.usra.edu.

ARE WE EARTHLINGS ALONE?SETI Institute release30 January 2005

The world premiere on February 5 of the exhibit, Alien Earths, at UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science invites visitors to join the search for habitable worlds. In conjunction with the opening of the exhibit, Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer at the SETI Institute, and Dana Backman, Associate Director of SOFIA for Education and Public Outreach at the NASA Ames Research Center will speak in the museum auditorium on Sunday, February 6. SETI Institute Principal Investigator Emma Bakes will give a presentation on Sunday, March 20.

Sunday, February 6, 2005, Lawrence Hall of Science Auditorium, UC Berkeley 12:30 PM: Seth Shostak, The Hunt for Extraterrestrial Intelligence1:30 PM: Dana Backman, The Search for Earth-Like Planets Around Other Stars Sunday, March 20, 2005, Lawrence Hall of Science Auditorium, UC Berkeley2:30 PM: Emma Bakes The exhibit, Alien Earths, was developed by the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO, with funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Science Foundation. It is a hands-on exhibit that covers the search for life, as well as orients individuals to both the possibilities and the obstacles that figure into exploring space.

The exhibit is divided into four areas: Our Place in Space Star and Planet Formation Planet Quest Search for Life

Interactive and multi-media presentations in the exhibit will allow visitors to: Set planets in motion around a star and see what happens; Experiment with an infra-red camera; Listen to sounds from space; Learn about microbes, the most abundant life form on Earth and

possibly elsewhere.

Alien Earths will be at Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) February 5 through May 8. LHS is the public science center of UC Berkeley. It is located on Centennial Drive below Grizzly Peak in the Berkeley Hills. The general information number is 510-642-5132. The web site is http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/. Admission is $8.50/adults; $6.50/ youth (5-18), full-time students, senior citizens, and the disabled; $4.50/children 3-4; and free for children two and under. TeamSETI members will be admitted free on Sunday, February 6 and Sunday, March 20. The SETI Institute is a co-sponsor of Alien Earths at the Lawrence Hall of Science.

Additional information is available at http://www.lhs.berkeley.edu/exhibits/alienearths.html.

CASSINI SIGNIFICANT EVENTS FOR 20-26 JANUARY 2005NASA/JPL release28 January 2005

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired today from the Goldstone tracking station. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and is operating normally. Information on the present position and speed of the Cassini spacecraft may be found on the "Present Position" web page located at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/present-position.cfm.

The month of January is named for the mythical Roman god Janus, who guarded the gate of heaven. Cassini spied the heavily cratered, irregularly shaped moon of Saturn as it glided along in its orbit, about 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) beyond the bright core of the narrow F ring. Only vague hints of the moon's surface morphology are visible from this distance. Janus is 181 kilometers (113 miles) across. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on January 22, 2005, at a distance of approximately 2.5 million kilometers (1.6 million miles) from Saturn. The image scale is 15 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel. The image has been contrast-enhanced and magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

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This view of the trailing hemisphere of Saturn's moon Rhea shows the region's bright wispy markings, but also shows off the moon's craters in great detail. Of particular interest to imaging scientists is the distribution and orientation of the many craters with polygonal rims. These are craters with rough, angular shapes, rather than smooth, circular ones. Rhea is 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) across. This image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on January 16, 2005, at a distance of approximately 500,000 kilometers (311,000 miles) from Rhea and at a Sun-Rhea-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 35 degrees. Resolution in the original image was about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel. The image has been rotated so that north on Rhea is up. Contrast was enhanced and the image was magnified by a factor of two to aid visibility.

In a dazzling and dramatic portrait painted by the Sun, the long thin shadows of Saturn's rings sweep across the planet's northern latitudes. Within the shadows, bright bands represent areas where the ring material is less dense, while dark strips and wave patterns reveal areas of denser material. The shadow darkens sharply near upper right, corresponding to the boundary of the thin C ring with the denser B ring. The globe of Saturn's moon Mimas (398 kilometers, or 247 miles across) has wandered into view near the bottom of the frame. A few of the large craters on this small moon are visible. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on January 18, 2005, at a distance of 1.4 million kilometers (889,000 miles) from Saturn using a filter sensitive to wavelengths of infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The image scale is 9 kilometers (5.5 miles) per pixel.

Let's take a look at what Cassini will be doing for science this week. Looks like the Magnetospheric and Plasma Science (MAPS) instruments—Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), Magnetometer Subsystem (MAG), Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI) and Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument—will be continuing the magnetospheric boundary campaign. They will be looking at boundaries on the dawn flank of the magnetosphere, including the bowshock, magnetopause and associated boundary layers. These instruments will also be monitoring the solar wind when outside the magnetosphere.

The Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) will conduct a survey of hydrogen in the interplanetary medium and the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) will monitor dust streams in or coming from Saturn's magnetosphere. The sequence team leads finished uplinking the S08 background sequence today.

The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) team at JPL began reconstructing meta-data for the earliest Cruise data to support reprocessing to make a better set of cubes for final archiving. A design is now in place for capturing this meta-data and migrating it into the cube labels.

The most recent spacecraft telemetry was acquired today from the Goldstone tracking station. The Cassini spacecraft is in an excellent state of health and all subsystems are operating normally. Don't forget to check out the Cassini web site http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for the latest press releases and images.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

NASA SENDS FIRST GENESIS EARLY-SCIENCE SAMPLE TO RESEARCHERSNASA release 05-03027 January 2005

NASA scientists have sent to academic researchers an unprecedented piece of the sun gathered by the Genesis spacecraft, enabling the start of studies to achieve the mission's initial science objectives. Scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston recently shipped a piece of the Genesis polished aluminum collector to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. The shipment marked the first distribution of a Genesis scientific sample from JSC since the science canister arrived on October 4, 2004. Preliminary examination of the sample by researchers has confirmed it contains solar ions, traces of the solar wind.

Scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston have shipped a piece of the Genesis polished aluminum collector, pictured prior to shipment, to researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, marking the first distribution of a Genesis scientific sample from JSC since the science canister arrived there October 4, 2004. The sample, the first to be allocated for Genesis early science analysis, may hold important evidence about the overall composition of the sun. Several important Genesis science objectives will be investigated as part of the Early Science Return, including studies of noble gas isotopes in bulk solar wind and nitrogen isotopes. During the mission, the collector arrays on the Genesis spacecraft were exposed to the solar wind for 29 months. Image credit: NASA/JSC.

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"Reaching this point in our work and being able to send out this first Genesis scientific sample marks a milestone in recovery efforts, following the spacecraft mishap upon re-entry last September," said Dr. Eileen Stansbery, Deputy Director of JSC's Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate. "The team has done an outstanding job of curating these precious samples, performing preliminary exams, investigating numerous techniques to reduce or eliminate contamination that occurred upon impact, and preparing the samples for distribution to researchers," she noted.

Washington University researchers Charles Hohenberg and Alex Meshik will study the sample to try to determine detailed information about the gases that make up the sun. Although most of the solar wind is comprised of hydrogen, Genesis' goal was to capture samples of all elements in the periodic table to allow a detailed study of the sun's composition. The aluminum collector was designed to capture solar wind samples that can be used to measure the amounts of neon, argon, krypton and xenon, called the noble gases, the sun contains.

"Gaining a better understanding of the noble gas elements in the sun is one of the 19 specific scientific measurement objectives originally proposed for the Genesis mission," said Stansbery. "We are delighted to provide this sample to our Washington University colleagues. We look forward to the results of the research they are already conducting in this critical area, and we are increasingly optimistic that even more science data will be obtained from Genesis samples in the coming months," she added.

The Washington University study is the first of two scientific objectives that make up the initial research program planned for Genesis. The other early science objective involves studies of nitrogen from samples.

Genesis clean-room activities are now focused on preparing the second early science sample, the gold foil, for distribution in the next few weeks to researchers at the University of Minnesota. The gold foil collected bulk solar wind and will be used to study nitrogen isotopes.

Genesis was launched August 8, 2001, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a mission to collect solar wind particles. The science phase of the mission was completed on April 1, 2004, following the collection of samples that began on December 5, 2001. Following an extensive recovery effort since its September 8 impact at a Utah landing site, the first scientific samples from the Genesis space probe arrived at JSC on October 4, 2004.

Still imagery of JSC curators preparing the polished aluminum sample for distribution is available on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/genesis/multimedia/genesis_samples_shipped.html.Information on the JSC Genesis Team is available at http://www-curator.jsc.nasa.gov/curator/genesis/.For more information about the Genesis mission on the Internet, visit http://www.nasa.gov/genesis.

Contacts:Dolores BeasleyNASA Headquarters, Washington, DCPhone: 202-358-1753

William JeffsNASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TXPhone: 281-483-5111

Susan Killenberg McGinnWashington University, St. Louis, MOPhone: 314-935-5254

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/genesis-05a.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0501/27genesis/

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGESNASA/JPL/MSSS release20-26 January 2005

The following new images taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are now available.

Dark Polar Dunes (Released 20 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/20/

Becquerel's Sediment (Released 21 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/21/

North Polar Dunes (Released 22 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/22/

Layers below Arsia (Released 23 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/23/

Opportunity Rover as Seen from Orbit (Released 24 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/24/

Mars at Ls 145 Degrees (Released 25 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/25/

Chryse "Alien Head" (Released 26 January 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/01/26/

All of the Mars Global Surveyor images are archived at http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/index.html.

Mars Global Surveyor was launched in November 1996 and has been in Mars orbit since September 1997. It began its primary mapping mission on March 8, 1999. Mars Global Surveyor is the first mission in a long-term program of Mars exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program that is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS) and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA and Denver, CO.

MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGESNASA/JPL/ASU release24-28 January 2005

Ice Surfaces in False Color (Released 24 January 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050124a.html

Polar Layers in False Color (Released 25 January 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050125a.html

Dusty Crater in False Color (Released 26 January 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050126a.html

Sand Sea in False Color (Released 27 January 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050127a.html

A Frosty Rim in False Color (Released 28 January 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050128a.html

All of the THEMIS images are archived at http://themis.la.asu.edu/latest.html.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

End Marsbugs, Volume 12, Number 4.

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