Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology NewsletterVolume 12, Number 9, 11 March 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

Page 1 WE'RE HERE, WE'RE WARMING, CAN WE GET USED TO IT?Pacific Northwest National Laboratory release

Page 2 HYDROGEN AND METHANE PROVIDE RAW ENERGY FOR LIFE AT "LOST CITY"University of Washington release

Page 4 FSU ANTHROPOLOGIST LEADS INCREDIBLE JOURNEY THROUGH "HOBBIT" BRAINBy Libby Fairhurst

Page 4 CHINESE PLANNING FOR SECOND MANNED SPACEFLIGHTBy Stephen Clark

Page 4 SEARCH FOR A SECOND GENESISBy Chris McKay

Page 5 WHERE DOES INTELLIGENT LIFE COME FROM?By Jeff Barbour

Page 5 SPELUNKING ON MARS: CAVES ARE HOT SPOTS IN SEARCH FOR LIFEBy Tariq Malik

Page 5 SUPER VOLCANO WILL CHALLENGE CIVILIZATION, GEOLOGISTS WARNBy Robert Roy Britt

Page 6 MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE BIG BANGFrom Scientific American

Page 6 NASA SCIENTISTS CREATE A "GENE MAP" FOR HEALTHIER KIDNEYSNASA/ARC release 05-15AR

Page 6 SUPERGLUE OF PLANET FORMATION: STICKY ICEPacific Northwest National Laboratory release

Page 7 THE MISSING METHANEBy Jonathan Lunine

Page 8 RURAL ARIZONA SCHOOLS TEACH READING, WRITING AND ROBOTSBy Lori Stiles

Page 9 LYON COLLEGE ASTROBIOLOGIST DEMONSTRATES PHOTOSYNTHESIS UNDER PRIMORDIAL CONDITIONSLyon College release

Announcements

Page 10 THIRD INTERNATIONAL SPACE PIONEER SONG CONTEST TO BE HELDMars Society release

Page 10 NASA LAUNCHES NEW EXPLORATION LECTURE SERIES SEASONNASA/ARC release 05-13AR

Mission Reports

Page 10 CASSINI UPDATESNASA/JPL releases

Page 12 MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATESNASA/JPL releases

Page 13 MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGESNASA/JPL/MSSS release

Page 13 MARS ODYSSEY THEMIS IMAGESNASA/JPL/ASU release

Page 14 ROSETTA PERFORMS ESA'S CLOSEST-EVER EARTH FLY-BYESA release 13-2005

WE'RE HERE, WE'RE WARMING, CAN WE GET USED TO IT?Pacific Northwest National Laboratory release21 February 2005

Global warming conversations have shifted from whether climate is changing to how we will deal with the inevitable consequences. And the price you pay will depend on where you live and how well you prepare, suggests one of the most detailed studies to date on global warming and its likely effect on human activity.

"Like politics, global climate change is local," said Michael J. Scott, a staff scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA. "Our behavior where we live must change with the climate if we are to meet the challenge Mother Nature may hand us in the next few years."

Scott presented findings Sunday from his and colleagues' decade-long case study—on water availability past, present and future in the Yakima River Valley of south-central Washington—at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, during a session he organized on adapting to climate change.

The Yakima River Valley is a vast fruit basket, with 370,000 irrigated acres of orchards, vineyards and other crops covering 6,150 square miles from the river's headwaters in the Cascade Range east of Seattle to the Yakima's terminus at the Columbia River in Richland. In a typical year, five reservoirs and stream runoff provide agriculture with 2.7 million acre-feet of water. In a typical year at mid-century, that amount will fall an average of 20 to 40 percent.

"The expected losses to agriculture alone in the Yakima Valley over the next several decades will be between $92 million at 2 degrees centigrade warming

Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 9, 11 March 2005

and $163 million a year at 4 degrees"—or up to nearly a quarter of total current crop value, Scott said.

Those losses will result from a projected shortage of water for irrigation. That water comes from reservoirs and runoff that are, in turn, tied directly to the amount of snow that accumulates in the Cascades over the winter—the snowpack.

Apples and grapes are just two of the major Washington State crops that could be seriously affected by climate change. Image credit: PNNL.

Scott, a natural resources economist, and colleagues at PNNL and Washington State University extrapolated the effects of warming to the region by applying data from bad drought seasons going back 80 years to computer projections of diminishing snowpack this century. Models predict up to 70 percent reduction in snowpack for the entire West Coast, including the Cascades. The model they ran assumed no change in precipitation. The key is availability of water when it is needed, not just for agriculture but also for salmon runs and municipal water supplies. The entire system is predicated on water being stored as snow in the mountains becoming available in spring with the thaw.

Scott has pinned many of those drought years to El Niño, a disruption of the ocean-atmosphere system in the Tropical Pacific that affects global weather and climate. We have learned from El Niño that small things we can control can help with big things that we cannot, he said. For example, seasonal climate forecasts enable several months' warning that could prevent millions in losses, Scott said. In a typical El Niño year like this one, water managers who monitor reservoir and snowpack levels can assay the likelihood of a coming shortage before January. Unless it snows and rains excessively between now and April (when the official water-availability forecast is made public by the federal Bureau of Reclamation) we can expect water shortages in the Yakima Valley.

Climate change could have severe consequences for irrigation farming in the Pacific Northwest. Image credit: PNNL.

This information can be put to good use if it comes early enough. If, say, a farmer in an irrigation district that is low in the pecking order—there is a

crazy quilt of water districts, and water claims are based on district seniority—knows the spigot will run dry during the coming growing season, he or she can choose to sit out the year. Or that farmer's district can strike a deal with more senior districts to buy their water at a premium and farmers in the senior districts can let low-value crops like alfalfa go fallow, Scott said.

El Niño occurs roughly every three to seven years. If there were no El Niño, a severe drought would occur roughly one year in 50. Add El Niño to the mix, and the average frequency for severe drought rises to 1 in 7. The El Niño years themselves average a severe drought year in every three. By conservative estimates, global warming will approximate El Niño severe drought conditions "once every two years," Scott said.

With this information, policymakers and farmers can plan ways to adjust practices not just for the next season but for the next several decades. Mitigations can be costly and contentious, such as a proposal to divert water from the Columbia River over the Saddle Mountains into the Yakima Valley (estimated cost: $3.5 billion, but even this is a moving target). More modest and widespread measures could include improved water conservation, water trading and moving up planting and harvesting dates or switching from apples and other water-loving fruits to grapes, which do better than apples on less water.

"You're not going to grow apples if you're getting clobbered one season in two," Scott noted. "But you have to plan. It can take years to establish a new crop like grapes."

Scott's study has received funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Read the original news release at http://www.pnl.gov/news/2005/05-14.htm.

HYDROGEN AND METHANE PROVIDE RAW ENERGY FOR LIFE AT "LOST CITY"University of Washington release3 March 2005

The hydrothermal vents were miles from where anyone could have imagined. One massive seafloor vent was an unheard of 18 stories tall. And all were creamy white and gray, suggesting a very different composition than vent systems studied since the 1970s. Scientists who named the spot Lost City knew they were looking at something never seen before when the field was serendipitously discovered in December 2000 during a National Science Foundation expedition to the mid-Atlantic.

The top few feet of an actively venting carbonate chimney shows the development of delicate, fingerlike crystals. To the left is the sampling arm of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's submersible Alvin. Image credit: University of Washington.

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This week in Science, researchers publish for the first time findings about the gases produced at Lost City and the organisms that make their living off them. Both are so different from so-called black-smoker hydrothermal vents that they may provide a whole new avenue for looking for the earliest life on Earth and for signs of life on other planets, according to Deborah Kelley, University of Washington oceanographer and lead author of the Science article.

Microorganisms at Lost City are living in fluids with alkaline pH that ranges from 9 to 11, which is nearly as caustic as Liquid-Plumr, Kelley says. This compares to the previously studied black-smoker vents where organisms are well adjusted to acidic pHs. Further, she says, Lost City microbes appear to live off bountiful methane and hydrogen. Absent is carbon dioxide, the key energy source for life at black-smoker vents. And there is little hydrogen sulfide and only very low traces of metals, on which many of the microbes at the other kind of vents depend.

University of Washington oceanographer Deborah Kelley contrasts the white porous (almost wasp-nest-like) texture of a sample from the Lost City's carbonate chimneys with a sample from the sulfide chimneys studied since the 1970s. Image credit: University of Washington.

The difference in what's available is because water circulates through the Lost City hydrothermal vent field via serpentinization, a chemical reaction between seawater and the mantle rock on which Lost City sits. The resulting fluids are 105°F to 170°F. At the other kind of field, first discovered in the early 1970s, volcanic activity or magma drives venting and fluids can reach 700°F. The vents at such sites are often referred to as black smokers because some emit hot, mineral-laden fluid that looks like dark, billowing smoke when it hits the icy cold seawater.

Carbonate minerals from fluids at Lost City drape nearby cliffs in brilliant white and form vents ranging in shape from tiny toadstools to the 18-story column, named Poseidon, which dwarfs most known black smoker vents by at least 100 feet. Some places resemble the sort of deposits one might see in spectacular caves with spires and smoothly rippled surfaces in a complex three-dimensional array, says Duke University's Jeffrey Karson, co-author on the paper.

Another marked difference being published for the first time this week concerns the diversity of life. The fluids at Lost City harbor large amounts of

microorganisms—comparable to what's found in rich organic sediments. However the diversity of species is low with, for example, just a handful of methane-producing and methane-consuming Archaea. In surprising contrast, researchers discovered Lost City has a diversity of "larger" organisms that's as high, or higher, than any known black-smoker vent sites. Missing from Lost City are the tubeworms, abundant shrimp and other readily observed organisms that heavily blanket some black smokers. The high diversity revealed itself only after a 2003 expedition when the biology team led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Timothy Shank analyzed water samples "vacuumed" from around the vents.

"There aren't a lot of each kind of animal, most are only a centimeter in size and have translucent or invisible shells so it's no wonder we didn't suspect the actual diversity," says Kelley, who was chief scientist on the expedition, which like the 2000 voyage was funded by the National Science Foundation. Other large organisms include crabs, corals and fish.

Kelley will be co-principal investigator on another science expedition to Lost City this summer without leaving the UW. She'll use state-of-the-art communication technology to help direct investigations at sea during a mission with co-PI Bob Ballard, his Institute for Exploration, the Jason Foundation for Education and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's ship and funding. Audiences at participating aquariums, museums and 20 Boys and Girls Clubs across the nation will have access to satellite transmissions during the journey.

Although nobody has yet found another field like Lost City, Kelley says she's 100 percent sure others exist because there are so many other places mantle rock has been thrust up through the seafloor, exposing it to seawater and serpentinization. Even more such rocks were present on early Earth, Kelley says.

"We don't, in most places, have access to early Earth conditions so if we can understand the chemical reactions, sources of energy and how fluids circulate through Lost City, it may give us insight into how life started on this planet," Kelley says.

She says Lost City could be compared to places on land with similar rock that is very old, such as that exposed in Barberton, South Africa, which is 3.5 billion years old. Perhaps Lost City can provide additional biomarkers, the chemical remnants of organisms, with which to look for life in those ancient rocks or on other planets.

The work being published was funded by the NSF, NASA Astrobiology Institute and a Swiss national science grant.

"The findings are an exciting example of NSF's commitment to discovery through basic research," said Bilal Haq, director of NSF's marine geology and geophysics program. "Lost City shows us that geological, chemical and biological processes are intimately linked at a primal environment, and lends strong support to the need for interdisciplinary approaches to scientific research."

Other co-authors are Gretchen Früh-Green, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; Dana Yoerger, John Hayes, Kate Buckman, Sean Sylva and Mike Jakuba, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; David Butterfield and Kevin Roe, University of Washington and Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory's Joint Institute for the Study of Atmosphere and Ocean; Matthew Schrenk, Eric Olson, Giora Proskurowski, Ben Larson, Kristin Ludwig, Deborah Glickson, William Brazelton, Marvin Lilley and John Baross of the University of Washington; and Alex Bradley and Roger Summons, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The field was named Lost City in part because it sits on a seafloor mountain named the Atlantis Massif and because researchers were using the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's vessel the Atlantis when the field was discovered. The field is about 300 by 1,000 feet, has 30 large vents, some 30 to 180 feet tall, and hundreds of smaller structures. Steep cliffs behind the field are shingled with carbonate.

Journal reference:D. S. Kelley et al., 2005. A serpentinite-hosted ecosystem: the Lost City hydrothermal field. Science, 307(5714):1428-1434.http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5714/1428

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Read the original news release at http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=8583.

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1470.html

FSU ANTHROPOLOGIST LEADS INCREDIBLE JOURNEY THROUGH "HOBBIT" BRAINBy Libby FairhurstFlorida State University release4 March 2005

Florida State University professor and chair of anthropology Dean Falk led an international team of scientists on an incredible virtual journey through the tiny brain of an 18,000-year-old hobbit-sized human. What they found has upended conventional evolutionary wisdom on the relationship of brain size to intelligence. Findings from "The Brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis" appear in the March 3 edition of Science Express, the online version of the journal Science, and will be featured in a March 13 special edition of Explorer on the National Geographic Channel at 8:00 PM EST/PST.

"The discovery of this species has flummoxed the field of anthropology," said Falk. "I believe it equals or surpasses the identification of other ancestors such as the Taung hominin in 1925, which marked the birth of modern paleoanthropology and sparked an ongoing debate on human evolution."

Right frontal view with red brain cast of LB1 encased in transparent image of LB1’s skull. Image credit: Washington University in St. Louis.

Last October, skeletal remains of a bipedal adult female barely 36 inches tall were unearthed by Australian and Indonesian researchers on the Indonesian island of Flores. The new dwarf human species was catalogued as LB1, Homo floresiensis, and nicknamed "hobbit." With a brain one-third the size of a contemporary human's, LB1 had a blend of Homo erectus traits—like a sloping forehead—and more familiar Homo sapiens characteristics. It co-existed during the 25,000 millennia that Homo sapiens was presumed, until recently, to be Earth's sole human inhabitant. Given the hobbit's small brain, Falk, a paleoneurologist, was intrigued by the sophisticated tools and evidence of fire that archaeologists uncovered near the remains.

With funding from the National Geographic Society, Falk and a team at Washington University Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology in St. Louis used a process to reproduce the hobbit's external brain features, creating an endocast—a three-dimensional model—based on computer tomography (CT) data gathered in Indonesia. Falk also created a physical endocast out of latex.

Together they provided a detailed map of imprints left on LB1's braincase that corresponded to the once-living organ's shape, grooves, vessels and sinuses.

"I thought the Homo floresiensis brain would look like a chimp's," Falk said. "I was wrong. There were fancier things on LB1's brain."

The endocasts revealed a surprising and significant swelling of the frontal lobe, along with other anatomical features consistent with higher cognitive processes. Those features, which correlate to initiative-taking and advanced planning, might explain the tools and signs of cooperative activities in LB1's cave despite the primitive size of its brain. Researchers verified blood vessels and other markings to make sure they were relevant brain components and not simply artifacts left by a post-mortem impact. The intricate images were compared to other endocasts from a variety of sources such as chimpanzees, an adult female Homo erectus, a contemporary woman, an adult female pygmy and a microcephalic—a human with an abnormally small skull.

Falk contends that her team's exhaustive analysis refutes skeptics' suppositions that Homo floresiensis was either a pygmy or a microcephalic. "The scaling of brain to body isn't at all what we'd expect to find in pygmies, and the shape is all wrong to be a microcephalic. This is something new."

The brain study supports the notion that the evolution of Homo floresiensis, a new species but closely related to Homo erectus, either reflected island dwarfing in response to limited food supplies or indicated that the two species may have shared an unknown, small-bodied and small-brained ancestor.

Co-authors include Falk, FSU; Charles Hildebolt, Kirk Smith, Barry Brunsden and Fred Prior, Mallinckrodt Institute; Peter Brown and Michael J. Morwood, University of New England, Australia; and Thomas Sutikna, Jatmiko and E. Wayhu Saptomo, Indonesian Centre for Archeology.

Journal reference:Falk et al., 2005. The brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis. Science Express, 3 March 2005.http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1109727v1

Read the original news release at http://www.fsu.edu/~rd2005/news/2005/03/04/hobbit.brain/.

An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1471.html.

CHINESE PLANNING FOR SECOND MANNED SPACEFLIGHTBy Stephen ClarkFrom Spaceflight Now6 March 2005

Now well over a year since China's first manned spaceflight, more information is slowly being released about their next foray into space. Dubbed Shenzhou 6, the flight is currently scheduled for launch this fall. There has been much speculation about this mission almost since the moment astronaut—or yuhangyuan for "space voyager"—Yang Liwei landed aboard Shenzhou 5 in October 2003. Reports from Chinese media quoting senior officials seem to confirm previous rumors that the next flight will occur before the end of 2005.

Read the full article at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/06shenzhou6/.

An additional article on this subject is available at http://www.spacedaily.com/news/china-05x.html.

SEARCH FOR A SECOND GENESISBy Chris McKayFrom Astrobiology Magazine7 March 2005

Chris McKay, a planetary scientist at the Ames Research Center, has long been investigating the coldest and driest places on Earth. These harsh environments—and the ability of life to adapt there—could point the way to finding life on Mars. McKay presented this lecture, entitled "Drilling in Permafrost on Mars to Search for a Second Genesis of Life," at a NASA Astrobiology Institute Director's Seminar on November 29, 2004. In this part of his lecture, McKay touches on the fascination with what might be not just

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another branch on the tree of life, but a new tree. He describes where to look for relic biology in frozen places on Mars.

To find a new biology, a combination of human, machine and the right conditions may be needed for tilling the garden. Image credit: ESA.

In its early evolution Mars was wetter, but it was too small to hold onto that water. Now we are looking for life on Mars, hoping to find a second genesis for life. A second genesis would provide us with a comparative biochemistry. It would also tell us that life in the universe is common. It could also tell us about the early environment on Mars. These are big questions that are right at the heart of astrobiology.

On Earth, all life is connected in a single tree or web. On Mars, we may be looking for something that's not on that tree. Why do we need another example of life? If we had only apples and no oranges, then we might not understand fruit. So we want to find fruit that's similar but not identical.

We used to think that if we found life on Mars, it would have to be different. But now we know that there is interplanetary transport. We know, for instance, that the Allen Hills meteor came from Mars.

One activity of life is radiation repair. Bugs in the martian permafrost may not have the ability to repair the higher radiation on Mars. So, "it's dead, Jim." But that's okay, because corpses have proteins we may be able to grind up and detect. They may also be capable of reviving.

Where might we find martian life? Maybe in the soil, in subsurface aquifers. It could be in salt, or in amber. I want to look for preserved life in permafrost.

Left: The wide angle view of the martian north polar cap was acquired on March 13, 1999, during early northern summer. The light-toned surfaces are residual water ice that remains through the summer season. The nearly circular band of dark material surrounding the cap consists mainly of sand dunes formed and shaped by wind. The north polar cap is roughly 1100 kilometers (680 miles) across. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems. Right: Concept artwork shows the Active Thermal Probe (Mars Cryobot) melting downg through the northern ice cap on Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

We find viable bacteria preserved in Siberian permafrost that is 3.5 million years old. At first we thought the Siberian bacteria were dormant. We were both right and wrong. For about two years, we've looked at the radioactive uptake of carbon into the lipids of the Siberian organisms. Their growth phase is limited by temperature. When they grow at zero degrees, they go through rapid phases in only a few days. At minus 20 degrees, the organisms take hundreds of days to double their uptake.

At higher temperatures their growth slows down—we think because they run out of food. At higher temperatures, the nutrient pool of liquid water is bigger, but molecular diffusion doesn't give them nutrients as fast. At minus ten degrees, the organisms are inactive as expected, but they are starving because they cannot expand their nutrient pool in the frozen water matrix. The average temperature on Mars today is a lot lower than minus ten degrees. But we don't know if Mars was warmer or colder in the past.

If you want to find ancient places on Mars, you look for craters, and they are in the south. If you want old, ice-rich ground, you go even further south.

An unexpected discovery of the Mars Global Surveyor was that, in certain places, the crustal magnetic fields are almost as strong as Earth's. The temperature and pressure has not be raised enough to erase the magnetic fields there, although where there are large craters, these fields may be erased. But the magnetic field tells us these regions are well preserved, and they may be the oldest phenomena we see on Mars. We may have to drill for old, frozen ice up to 100 meters, maybe 1,000 meters, deep below the surface, where we might find the frozen remains of ancient organisms.

Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1474.html.

WHERE DOES INTELLIGENT LIFE COME FROM?By Jeff BarbourFrom Universe Today8 March 2005

Biologists—and all parents—have a pretty good idea that "life begets life". Beginning with the most primitive anaerobic bacteria and leading up to the most sophisticated and accomplished astronomer, it's pretty clear that offspring don't necessarily resemble their parent(s) in all particulars. Meanwhile exobiologists are unlikely to ever disprove the fact that life exists beyond the Blue Planet because disproving something is much harder than proving it. After all if intelligent life could happen here, it could happen elsewhere...

Read the full article at http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/where_intelligent_life.html.

SPELUNKING ON MARS: CAVES ARE HOT SPOTS IN SEARCH FOR LIFEBy Tariq MalikFrom Space.com8 March 2005

The hunt for some form of life elsewhere in our universe may spur a veritable fleet of robot orbiters, landers and rovers to study the surface of Mars in the coming years. But they might look in the wrong place. Instead of probing for signs of alien life on Mars' harsh surface, some researchers have suggested looking inside the planet, where there is mounting evidence of water ice near the equator and the potential for underground aquifers that could support basic, microbial organisms.

Spirit and Opportunity, the two robots currently exploring the red planet under NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, have proved that water shaped the development of rocks on the planet's surface. Meanwhile, Europe's Mars Express spacecraft now orbiting the planet is preparing to unfurl a radar instrument that, researchers say, might find pockets of liquid water in subsurface caves or voids.

Read the full article at http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/scitues_marscaves_050308.html.

SUPER VOLCANO WILL CHALLENGE CIVILIZATION, GEOLOGISTS WARNBy Robert Roy BrittFrom LiveScience.com8 March 2005

The eruption of a super volcano "sooner or later" will chill the planet and threaten human civilization, British scientists warned Tuesday. And now the bad news: There's not much anyone can do about it. Several volcanoes around the world are capable of gigantic eruptions unlike anything witnessed in recorded history, based on geologic evidence of past events, the scientists

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said. Such eruptions would dwarf those of Mount St. Helens, Krakatoa, Pinatubo and anything else going back dozens of millennia.

"Super-eruptions are up to hundreds of times larger than these," said Stephen Self of the United Kingdom's (U.K.) Open University.

"An area the size of North America can be devastated, and pronounced deterioration of global climate would be expected for a few years following the eruption," Self said. "They could result in the devastation of world agriculture, severe disruption of food supplies, and mass starvation. These effects could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilization."

Self and his colleagues at the Geological Society of London presented their report to the U.K. Government's Natural Hazard Working Group.

Read the full article at http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050308_super_volcano.html

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE BIG BANGFrom Scientific American8 March 2005

The COBE and WMAP projects have shown us images of the infant universe shortly after the Big Bang.

The expansion of the universe may be the most important fact we have ever discovered about our origins. Cold molecular things such as life-forms and terrestrial planets could not have come into existence unless the universe, starting from a hot big bang, had expanded and cooled. Forty years ago this July, scientists announced the discovery of definitive evidence for the expansion of the universe from a hotter, denser, primordial state. They had found the cool afterglow of the big bang: the cosmic microwave background radiation. Since this discovery, the expansion and cooling of the universe has been the unifying theme of cosmology, much as Darwinian evolution is the unifying theme of biology, but many misconceptions still persist.

Read the full article at http://cl.exct.net/?ffcd16-fe5e15757363027e7717-fe28167073670175701c72.

NASA SCIENTISTS CREATE A "GENE MAP" FOR HEALTHIER KIDNEYSNASA/ARC release 05-15AR8 March 2005

NASA scientists and academic colleagues are studying tiny hairs inside microorganisms to find clues about kidney disease. Researchers at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, in collaboration with the

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), created the first complete map of the gene activity of flagella (microscopic hairs) on single-cell microorganisms.

"To accomplish the Vision for Space Exploration, NASA has to ensure astronauts' health by studying biological processes to develop treatments for potential physical problems," said NASA Ames Research Center Director of Science Dr. Guenter Riegler. "By collaborating with academia, NASA will be able to derive the best research possible to benefit people in space and on Earth," he added.

"Hairs on the cell surface in algae are virtually identical to human cilia, short hairs inside a human body that drive fluids across the surface of a cell," said Dr. Viktor Stolc, director of the NASA Ames Genome Research Facility.

"Understanding the genetic make-up of the cilia-like structures, through studying the complete genetic code in microorganisms, helps scientists gain a better understanding of polycystic kidney disease (PKD)," Stolc said.

According to the PKD Foundation, "Polycystic kidney disease is the most common genetic, life-threatening disease affecting more than 600,000 Americans... regardless of sex, age, race or ethnic origin." Numerous cysts grow and multiply on a kidney, causing the mass of the kidney to increase. Ultimately, the diseased kidney shuts down.

"Gene PKGD1 encodes a protein that is responsible for polycystic kidney disease among human subjects and is also a component of primary cilia in the kidney," said Stolc.

"In fact, several of the genes identified in the study are known to be involved in control of cell behavior and other tissues, raising the possibility that these same genes could be the missing link between cilia and polycystic kidney symptoms," said Dr. Wallace Marshall, assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF.

Using advanced micro-array technology, researchers were able to attach short pieces of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) to specially-patterned glass slides to study genes throughout the algae's DNA blueprint, called the genome. The slide arrays were used to measure levels of ribonucleic acid (RNA), biochemical copies of the DNA, to identify the gene's functions and changes.

Scientists believe understanding cilia functions may lead to the development of countermeasures to prevent PKD, which is one cause of kidney stone formation. Mapping genome activity is creating important new knowledge that is being used for health care. The research results are applicable to astronauts on long-term space missions and to improving quality of life on Earth. The study results are in this week's on-line version of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For more information on the Internet about this research, visit http://phenomorph.arc.nasa.gov. For more information on the Internet about NASA's space research, visit http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov/.

Journal reference:V. Stolc, M. P. Samanta, W. Tongprasit and W. F. Marshall, 2005. Genome-wide transcriptional analysis of flagellar regeneration in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii identifies orthologs of ciliary disease genes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(10)3703-3707.http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/102/10/3703

Contact:Victoria SteinerNASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CAPhone: 650-604-0176

SUPERGLUE OF PLANET FORMATION: STICKY ICEPacific Northwest National Laboratory release8 March 2005

How dust specks in the early solar systems came together to become planets has vexed astronomers for years. Gravity, always an attractive candidate to explain how celestial matter pulls together, was no match for stellar winds. The dust needed help coming together fast, in kilometer-wide protoplanets, in the first few million years after a star was born, or the stellar wind would blow it all away.

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Soft-landing: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers armed with a high-speed camera observed that ceramic bb's consistently rebounded about 8 percent of their dropped height from so-called fluffy ice grown at 40 Kelvin; the rebound on the much-higher-temperature ice people encounter on Earth, which is also much more compact, is 80 percent. This cushioning feature of extreme low-temperature ice is a key attribute in planet formation. Image credit: PNNL.

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, reporting in the current issue of Astrophysical Journal, offer a cool answer to the planet-formation riddle: micron-wide dust particles encrusted with molecularly gluey ice enabled planets to bulk up like dirty snowballs quickly enough to overcome the scattering force of solar winds.

"People who had calculated the stickiness of dust grains found that the grains didn't stick," said James Cowin, laboratory fellow who led the research. "They bounce, like two billiard balls smacked together."

Cowin's team has spent years studying, among other things, the chemical and physical properties atmospheric dust and water ice, using an array of instruments suited to the task at the PNNL-based W. R. Wiley Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. Many of the pre-planetary dust grains were either covered by or largely composed of water ice, having condensed at temperatures close to absolute zero, at 5 to 100 Kelvin. Evidence of this icy solar system can be seen in comets, and in planets and moons a Jupiter's distance or father from a star.

"This ice is very different from the stuff we chip off our windows in winter," Cowin said. "For example, we saw that at extreme cold temperatures vapor-deposited ice spontaneously becomes electrically polarized. This makes electric forces that could stick icy grains together like little bar magnets."

PNNL staff scientist Martin Iedema, a member of Cowin's group with an astronomy undergraduate degree, surveyed the astrophysics literature and found that the planet growth mystery resided in the same cold temperatures of the lab ices. Iedema found that the high background radiation in the early solar system would have neutralized a polarized, micron-sized ice grain in days to weeks—or hundreds of thousands of years before it could accrete a critical mass of material and grow to the size of a medicine ball, enabling it to

get over the critical size hurdle in planet formation. But, Iedema said, ice grains colliding into each other would have chipped and broken in two to upset electrical equilibrium thus, in essence, recharging the ice grains and restoring their clinginess. Then he discovered an additional feature that gave the sticky ice theory a new bounce.

"More of an anti-bounce," Cowin emended, "from the cushioning, or fluffiness, of this ice. The more technical phrase is 'mechanical inelasticity.' We knew that ice, when grown so cold, isn't able to arrange its molecules in a well-ordered fashion; it becomes fluffy on a molecular scale."

Cowin conjured an image of "billiard balls made of Rice Krispies." Such balls would barely bounce. "Colliding fluffy ice grains would have enough residual electrical forces to make them stick, and survive subsequent collisions to grow into large lumps."

To test this, PNNL postdocs Rich Bell and Hanfu Wang grew ice from the vapor in a chamber that reproduced primordial temperatures and vacuum. They measured bounce by dropping hard, 1/16- inch hard ceramic balls on it. With a high-speed camera, they observed the balls consistently rebound about 8 percent of their dropped height from fluffy ice grown at 40 Kelvin, whereas on the hard, warmer and much more compact ice that forms naturally on Earth, the ice rebound was as high as 80 percent.

"This huge inelasticity provides an ideal way for fluffy icy grains to stick and grow eventually to protoplanets," Cowin said.

Cowin and colleagues further speculate that similar electrical forces, minus the fluffy cushioning, were at work during the infancy of hotter inner planets like Earth, involving silicate dust grains instead of ice.

Journal reference:H. Wang, R. C. Bell, M. J. Iedema, A. A. Tsekouras and J. P. Cowin, 2005. Sticky ice grains aid planet formation: unusual properties of cryogenic water ice. Astrophysical Journal, 620(2)1027-1032.http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJ/v620n2/60356/brief/60356.abstract.html

Read the original news release at http://www.pnl.gov/news/2005/05-15.htm.

An additional article on this subject is available at http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/08stickyice/.

THE MISSING METHANEBy Jonathan LunineFrom Astrobiology Magazine9 March 2005

Jonathan Lunine, a professor of planetary science and physics at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, is also an interdisciplinary scientist on the Cassini/Huygens mission. Lunine presented a lecture entitled "Titan: A Personal View after Cassini's first six months in Saturn orbit" at a NASA Director's Seminar on January 24, 2005. This edited transcript of the Director's Seminar is Part 2 of a 4-part series.

How much methane is really in the surface and atmosphere of Titan today? How much has been there in the history of Titan? Methane is a carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms, and it can be broken apart by ultraviolet light at wavelengths of about 1600 Angstroms. The fragments, or radicals, that are produced from this process are very chemically reactive. They're things like CH, CH2, and in some cases CH3. And then of course there is hydrogen that's been knocked off, because this fragmentation process removes one, two or three hydrogen atoms. In the atmospheres of the giant planets, the hydrogen stays around because of the high gravity of those planets. Their atmospheres are primarily hydrogen anyway, and after the fragmentation occurs, the products sink into the deeper atmosphere, and methane is reconstituted. It's a complete chemical cycle.

On Titan, as far as we understand, that does not occur. Because the gravity is low, hydrogen should escape. The Voyager ultraviolet spectrometer saw a corona of hydrogen around Titan, which is a good indication that hydrogen is escaping. Now, if hydrogen is going away, the products that can be made from the methane are going to have a higher carbon to hydrogen ratio than methane itself, and you're not going to be able to remake methane. So as far as we understand the photochemistry, Titan should be destroying methane and making more carbon-rich products, the simplest of which are acetylene (C2H2)

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and ethane (C2H6). These are made directly from methane, although in some models the acetylene is the source of ethane through a secondary photochemical cycle.

Left: Shoreline horizon during descent to Titan. Image credit: ESA. Right: Do surface features suggest some relic or present tectonic activity? Image credit: ESA.

Ground-based spectroscopy done since the 1970s has shown us that Titan's atmosphere does contain acetylene and ethane. There is also propane, hydrogen cyanide, methyl acetylene, diacetylene, ethylene, and so on. There is an abundance of organic molecules in the atmosphere of Titan. The products of the methane photolysis are less volatile than methane. So as this stuff is being made, it's condensing out in the form of aerosols. These aerosols will appear at different altitudes, depending upon what's being made. At the highest altitude, there's a tendency for the chemistry to drive toward the highest carbon to hydrogen ratio, and you get this very orange, high molecular weight material that Carl Sagan first called "tholin".

Left: The haze of an atmospheric layer on Saturn's moon, Titan. Image credit: Voyager Project/JPL/NASA. Right: Titan in different wavelengths and atmospheric depths. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

But lower down in the stratosphere there are other aerosols. There must be aerosols of ethane and acetylene, because those are the dominant products of the methane chemistry. So below the upper level orange haze that obscures Titan's surface from our view in the optical, there are other deeper layers of haze that should extend down as far as 50 or 60 kilometers above the surface. In fact, what the DISR camera shows is that they seem to extend even lower down, maybe to 20 kilometers above the surface. These aerosols sink, and they end up on the surface. At 95 degrees Kelvin, acetylene should be a solid. Ethane has almost the same freezing point of methane, about 91 degrees Kelvin. So methane, the source of the photochemistry, and ethane, one of the primary products, should both be liquid at the surface.

Since this chemistry is irreversible, we can say that products are being made and deposited on the surface. If the chemistry on Titan has gone on in steady-state over the age of the solar system, then we would predict that a layer of ethane 300 to 600 meters thick should be deposited on the surface. That would make it the biggest hydrocarbon reservoir on any of the solid bodies in the solar system. Yet the remote sensing data prior to Cassini tended to argue against very large areas of the surface being covered with liquid hydrocarbon.

The methane that's contained in the atmosphere today is limited by condensation. The atmosphere is cold enough in the troposphere—from 95 up to 70 degrees Kelvin—that methane condenses out as clouds. There have been quite a lot of Earth-based observations of these clouds. So that limits how much methane the atmosphere can hold, and that amount of methane would sustain this photochemistry for only about 1 percent of the age of the solar system. So either there are sources of methane that are underneath the

surface, or on the surface, or supplied from above. Or the chemistry is an occasional process, and we happen to be seeing Titan today at a time when chemistry is ongoing, where there is enough methane in the atmosphere.

There could be reservoirs of methane under the solid surface of ice. There are some places in the Huygens images where you see these extremely short and truncated channels, and they're associated with some bright channels that seem to cut across the higher areas. One interpretation that's been offered is that those brighter areas represent refrozen, once-liquid water—maybe liquid water ammonia flows, maybe warm ice flows—and those have mobilized methane from beneath the surface, and that's where you see those very short, less well-developed channels.

It's possible that the channels that are better developed are due to methane rain and flow. In the current epoch, it's not easy to get rain on Titan, because there's not a lot of energy available to make weather and storms. But from time to time it might rain, so you can't rule that out. The shorter channels could be from rainfall too, but they're not well developed compared to many drainage systems on the Earth.

So where are the large liquid deposits of methane and ethane? There are hints, based on the radar, that the darker areas are composed of organics. Whether these are areas that could be exposed methane and ethane but are being covered by other kinds of organic crud is an open issue. One kind of organic solid—polyacetylene—has a low enough density that could actually float on liquid. So some areas of Titan may have liquid on the surface, but they're being covered by other components."

Read the original article at http://www.astrobio.net/news/article1478.html.

RURAL ARIZONA SCHOOLS TEACH READING, WRITING AND ROBOTSBy Lori StilesUniversity of Arizona release9 March 2005

More than 200 students in Pinal County, AZ, are combining their reading, mathematics and science studies with Mars-exploring robots this year. The K-12 students in 11 rural Pinal County schools are pilot testing new curricula developed by top Arizona teachers and members of the University of Arizona Phoenix Mission team. NASA will disseminate the revised curricula nationally to more than 40,000 students—primarily inner-city African-American students—next year. First-through fourth-graders are in the "Mission to Mars" program.

"The project is a brand new effort that has the broad national educational potential because there really is no integrated reading, math, science and robotics curriculum for kids this young," said Doug Lombardi, education and public outreach manager for UA's Phoenix Mission. Phoenix is a NASA Scout mission to be launched in August 2007 and land in the northern polar region of Mars in May 2008.

Katy Wilkins, a special-education teacher who works for NASA's Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy at Central Arizona College in Coolidge, and Mary Lara, a NASA-certified "Solar System Educator" and a 5th grade teacher at DeMiguel Elementary School in Flagstaff, developed the Mission to Mars curriculum. Young students learn about Mars, the solar system and robotics through reading and through hands-on math and science activities that involve fundamental computer programming and robotic building skills.

Lombardi compiled and updated NASA educational materials for a second curriculum, called "Quest to the Red Planet," for 5 th - 12th grade students. Peter Smith of UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, who heads the $355 million Phoenix Mission, reviewed the curriculum for technical accuracy.

In "Quest to the Red Planet," students learn how scientists explore Mars and operate robots hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, Lombardi said. They look at Mars images the same way scientists do. They construct a martian landscape, and they build and program robots to explore Mars' terrain. Then they swap robots with another school and remotely operate their robot to explore the other school's Mars landscape. They study their robot's digital images to learn about the other school's martian surface.

The 200 students and 12 teachers in the pilot program come from these schools:

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Walker Butte, FlorenceMary C. O'Brien Elementary School, Casa GrandeRed Rock School, Red RockSacaton Middle School, Gila Indian ReservationMount Vista Elementary School, OracleAvenue B Elementary School, San ManuelRay Elementary School, KearnyMammoth Elementary School, MammothToltec Middle School, Arizona CitySanta Cruz High School, EloySimonton Elementary, Queen Creek

Program organizers chose rural schools because "NASA and the Phoenix Mission want to increase the number of students in underserved and underrepresented schools who pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and these rural schools have a high percentage of minority students, primarily Hispanic and Native American," Lombardi said.

Student and teacher feedback so far has been very positive, he added.Teachers' comments are important in revising parts of the curricula, he said.

"This pilot program was made possible by UA's Phoenix Mission to Mars, Central Arizona College's NASA Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Aerospace Academy program, and the Pinal County Educational Services Agency," Lombardi said. "We were all equal partners in this. If one of us would not have contributed to the program, it would not have happened. Working very closely together in a true partnership has been a really rewarding collaboration."

Contacts:Lori StilesUA News ServicesPhone: 520-621-1877

Doug LombardiUA Phoenix MissionPhone: 520-626-8973Mobile: 520-906-0743E-mail: lombardi@lpl.arizona.edu

Cyn-d TurnerPinal County Educational Services AgencyPhone: 520-866-7883 E-mail: cturner@pinalcso.k12.as.us

Katy WilkinsCentral Arizona College, CoolidgePhone: 520-876-1992 E-mail: katy_wilkins@centralaz.edu

Mary Lara, DeMiguel Elementary School, FlagstaffPhone: 928-600-4445 E-mail: mlara@apscc.org

LYON COLLEGE ASTROBIOLOGIST DEMONSTRATES PHOTOSYNTHESIS UNDER PRIMORDIAL CONDITIONSLyon College release10 March 2005

Lyon College biology professor, David Thomas, and three undergraduate students successfully grew photosynthetic microorganisms called cyanobacteria under conditions thought to exist on Earth and Mars approximately three billion years ago. The research was published in the February 2005 issue of the scientific journal, Astrobiology.

Three billion years ago, Earth's environment was much different than it is today. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide dominated the atmosphere, and oxygen was virtually absent. During the same period, Mars probably had a thick atmosphere with even more carbon dioxide. On Earth, photosynthetic organisms slowly transformed the atmosphere into the oxygen-rich mixture that we have today. However, Mars lost most of its primordial atmosphere, and its present-day atmosphere is still dominated by carbon dioxide.

"During the past fifty years or so, biologists have assumed that cyanobacteria were responsible for oxygenating Earth's atmosphere," Thomas said.

"Intuitively, this made sense, but to my knowledge, nobody ever tried growing these microbes under primordial conditions. We simply put four common species of cyanobacteria to the test."

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green bacteria, are common inhabitants of aquatic environments. They were the first known organisms to produce oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis, and are responsible for making Earth's atmosphere breathable.

Plectonema boryanum, a common freshwater cyanobacterium, survives and grows in 100% CO2. Could an organism like this have evolved during Mars' past? Image credit: David J. Thomas.

"The cyanobacteria that we chose to test are very common," Thomas remarked. "They aren't from any extreme environments. You probably could find them in a neighborhood lake, pond or even in a puddle. We wanted to know whether these rather unremarkable microbes retained their putative ancestral ability to grow in high-CO2 atmospheres.

"What we found was a bit surprising. All four cyanobacteria—Anabaena, Plectonema, Synechococcus and Synehocystis—grew in 20% CO2. Plectonema grew in 100% CO2—a hardy little organism, indeed!"

"We don't know the exact composition of Earth's early atmosphere, but 20% CO2 is a reasonable estimate. Mars is even more of an unknown, but we know that its current atmosphere contains 95% CO2. For our experiments, we used 100% CO2 at standard atmospheric pressure as a primordial martian analog."

The findings from Dr. Thomas' lab have implications for the possibility of life on Mars.

"Currently, Mars' surface is inhospitable to life as we know it," Thomas said. "Mars receives much more ultraviolet radiation at its surface than Earth does—enough to kill virtually anything. Also, the low temperature and atmospheric pressure would freeze-dry anything on the surface. However, the body of research from the last few decades—and especially from the Mars Rovers—indicates that Mars used to have liquid water, and thus a thicker atmosphere. Under those conditions, a cyanobacterium like Plectonema would easily survive."

The three Lyon College students who worked with Dr. Thomas on this research were Amanda Price, Shannon Sullivan and Shawn Zimmerman. All three students have since graduated. Dr. Thomas is currently working with other students to determine why some of the cyanobacteria are more tolerant of high-CO2 atmospheres than others. Dr. Thomas' research was funded by grants from the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium.

Journal reference:D. J. Thomas, A. L. Price, S. L. Sullivan and S. M. Zimmerman, 2005. Common freshwater cyanobacteria grow in 100% CO2. Astrobiology, 5(1):66-74.http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2005.5.66

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Contacts:Dr. David J. ThomasScience DivisionPhone: 870-698-4269E-mail: dthomas@lyon.edu

Bob QuallsPublic Relations DirectorPhone: 870-698-4242E-mail: bqualls@lyon.edu

THIRD INTERNATIONAL SPACE PIONEER SONG CONTEST TO BE HELDMars Society release7 March 2005

The Mars Society is proud to announce that it will hold its Third Rouget de Lisle Award contest for songs celebrating the cause of the human exploration and settlement of space. We are asking for a tape or CD of songs, to be submitted together with a hardcopy of the lyrics by no later than April 30, 2005 to Mars Society, Box 273, Indian Hills, CO 80454. Songs can be any style: classical, folk, country, pop, jazz, rock and roll, etc. A committee of judges will then down select to ten finalists, who will be invited to play at the 8th International Mars Society Convention, University of Colorado, Boulder, Agust 11, 14, 2005. The audience will then vote for the winning songs. All finalists, however, will submitted to Prometheus Records for consideration for its next CD, and will also be forwarded to NASA for possible use as wakeup songs for crews of the International Space Station, the Mars Rovers, and the Cassini spacecraft which is now orbiting Saturn!

The winner of our first contest "The Pioneers of Mars" was recently used as wakeup music for the Mars rover Opportunity. Written by partners in life and song Karen Linsley and Lloyd Landa, "The Pioneers of Mars" was honored with the Mars Society's first Rouget de Lisle award in 2000. Co-author Landa died unexpected of a heart attack days before the song's debut at the Mars Society's August 2000 Toronto conference, after which Karen exclaimed in tears, "Get to Mars. And when the notes of this song are heard on martian soil, he will live again."

The Second Rouget de Lisle was held in 2004, with the winners awarded at the 7th International Mars Society Convention in Chicago. The winners of that contest were:Gold Medal Category: 1st place, "Thank God Dreams Survive," by Bill, Tina, and Casey Swindell; 2nd place, "On to Mars," by Robert McNally.Silver Medal Category: 3rd Place, "Lullaby for Mars," by S. Miria Jo; 4th Place, "When Mice Become Men," by Janetta Deavers.Bronze Medal Category: 5th Place, "Make this World Come Alive," written by Leslie Fish, sung by Beatriz Serrato; 6th Place, "First Footprint," by Robert McNally.

Songs from the first and second Rouget de Lisle contest have been posted and are available for downloading at the "Mars Songs" link at www.marssociety.org. So tune up your harps, space bards, turn in your songs and prepare to turn out for Boulder. Let your voices ring out into the solar system. Mars needs music, and the Boulder conference is going to be the Woodstock of Mars!

For further information about the Mars Society, visit our web site at www.marssociety.org.

NASA LAUNCHES NEW EXPLORATION LECTURE SERIES SEASONNASA/ARC release 05-13AR7 March 2005

Author and explorer John F. Ross will discuss NASA's plans to return to the moon and then explore Mars, at a free public talk on March 15 at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. Ross' talk, featuring the theme "extreme exploration: the science of risk," will kick off another season of the NASA Research Park (NRP) Exploration Lecture Series. The lecture, which will address the challenges of space radiation, micrometeorites and other environmental hazards, will take place from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM PST in Building 943's Eagle Room, located just outside the NASA Ames main gate.

"We are pleased to launch the 2005 NRP lecture season with a speaker who will focus on the rewards and challenges of exploration," said NRP division chief, Mejghan Haider. "NASA's assessment of risk is part of the 'success' equation of exploring the moon, Mars and beyond."

Ross has reported on science and exploration for Smithsonian magazine, been a producer for CBS News' "Face the Nation" and traveled the world researching stories. In 1999, he authored Living Dangerously: Navigating the Risks of Everyday Life, a book about risk and culture. A member of the Explorer's Club of New York, he has been awarded cable television's ACE award for television documentaries. As a writer, Ross has traveled extensively. He has dog-sledded with the Polar Inuit in Greenland, lived with nomadic reindeer herders in Siberia, chased scorpions in Baja, Mexico and dived 3,000 feet in the Galapagos—all in pursuit of stories. Ross' work has appeared in Reader's Digest, the New York Times and Newsweek magazine.

The NRP lecture series features top researchers and academics who have examined new technologies for human and robot-based exploration, as well as ongoing and planned space exploration missions. To reach NASA Ames, take the Moffett Field exit off Highway 101. Seating at the lectures is on a first-come, first-served basis. To find out more about future lectures in the series, please visit http://researchpark.arc.nasa.gov/.

NASA Research Park, located at NASA Ames near Mountain View, CA, is a shared-use R&D and education campus, which is based on partnerships among universities, industry and non-profits. Initial NRP research collaborations include astrobiology, information technology and nanotechnology.

Contacts:Jennifer Kremer/Mike MewhinneyNASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CAPhone: 650-604-3970 or 650-604-3937E-mail: Michael.Mewhinney@nasa.gov

CASSINI UPDATESNASA/JPL releases

Cassini Significant Events for 24 February - 2 March 2005NASA/JPL release, 4 March 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.

This week we executed Orbital Trim Maneuver #15, wrapped up the S08 background sequence, and started S09. Science this week included Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) continued acquisition of movies of Saturn's southern hemisphere, the Composite and Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) collection of Mid-IR maps showing the temperature of Saturn's troposphere and tropopause, a CIRS stay-light calibration, and the suite of Magnetospheric and

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Plasma Science instruments continued their simultaneous low-rate magnetospheric surveys.

Thursday, February 24:

Uplink Operations completed uplinking the remaining Instrument Expanded Block files for S09. The Radio and Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) team made its first Planetary Data System (PDS) archive submission containing data from the 1999 Earth flyby. After completion of a brief PDS validation, this dataset will be available to the public through the PDS Plasma Physics Interactions Node.

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day is an image of Saturn's moon Enceladus. You can access "Ski Enceladus" at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050224.html. This is the 6th Cassini APOD this month!

Tonight and tomorrow night the Cassini Spacecraft Operations Office Manager will give JPL Von Karman Lectures on the Cassini Mission to Saturn. In conjunction, the Saturn Observation Campaign will provide telescopes and Saturn views at JPL for the Thursday night talk and in Pasadena for the Friday night talk. 400 people stopped for a look at Saturn and Titan, and many also saw Mimas, Enceladus, Iapetus, Dione, Rhea and Tethys. About 100 people showed up on Friday.

Friday, February 25:

Today the S09 background sequence was uplinked to the spacecraft. The sequence is ready and waiting for activation on Saturday night. Along with the sequence and Instrument Expanded Block files, commands to move the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) actuator, update the CAPS Electron Spectrometer high voltage step to 47, and perform an ACS reaction wheel bias were also uplinked.

Deep Space Mission Systems delivery of D33 was accepted at a delivery review today and was declared operational. Significant upgrades to both uplink and downlink software were included for support of ISS and the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer.

ISS has completed its analysis of the Integrated Test Laboratory run of ISS flight software version 1.4. All data were as expected and no issues were found. This test sequence will be executed in-flight in June for final validation of the updated software. ISS Support Imaging personnel received a new version of the ISS Science Team's Pre-commanding Tool. This version has been installed for testing and evaluation.

Another Astronomy Picture of the Day—this time "Saturn's Dragon Storm."http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050225.html

Saturday, February 26:

The final activity in S08 was a reaction wheel bias and desaturation. S09 began execution at 5:46 PM Pacific time. S09 runs for 41 days ending on April 8. Key events include six OTMs from 15 through 20, two targeted flybys - Enceladus and Titan, ten non-targeted encounters - Helene, Atlas, two of Tethys, Enceladus, Epimetheus, Mimas, Dione, and Rhea, 54 optical navigation images will be acquired, and approximately 64.5 gigabits of data will be downlinked.

Sunday, February 27:

RPWS performed a Periodic Instrument Maintenance beginning today and completing on Monday. Orbit #4 began today as Cassini passed through Saturn apoapse. Apoapse is the farthest the spacecraft will pass by Saturn. A new orbit always begins and ends with apoapse.

Monday, February 28:

Official Port 1 was completed as part of the Science Operations Plan Update for tour sequence S12. The files were merged and the resulting files made available for review. Today the Cassini Project Science Group began a weeklong series of presentations and discussions.

Raina takes the telescope control and drives to Saturn at a Saturn Observation Campaign event in Altadena, CA. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

Tuesday, March 1:

OTM-15 was successfully completed on the spacecraft this evening. This apoapsis maneuver places the spacecraft on the proper trajectory for the March 9, 500 km targeted flyby of Enceladus. The main engine burn began at 9:59 PM PST. A "quick look" immediately after the maneuver showed the burn duration was 40.1 sec long, giving a delta-V of 6.2 m/s.

ACS reported the burn termination was a "nominal complete" with an accelerometer cutoff. Navigation reported receiving ranging points before and after the maneuver. Propulsion indicated the burn was nominal. Tank pressures, temperatures, etc, were nominal. Thermal indicated performance was nominal and temperatures were recovering as expected. Power margin throughout the maneuver was nominal. There was no unexpected CDS or Fault Protection activity.

Wednesday, March 2:

The Navigation team released a reconstructed Cassini trajectory file covering the period from December 1, 2004 through January 15 of this year.This file contains the spacecraft, probe, planetary, and satellite ephemeredes and is for use for tour analysis for the period of the file.

This week there were various articles on Cassini discussing new discoveries of wandering and rubble-pile moons, new and clumpy Saturn rings and ringlets, splintering storms, rainbows on Titan, images of Saturn's radiation belt, and much more. Be sure to check out the Cassini web site http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for the latest press releases and images.

Cassini Images of Titan Reveal an Active, Earth-Like WorldNASA/JPL release 2005-041, 9 March 2005 Saturn's largest and hazy moon, Titan, has a surface shaped largely by Earth-like processes of tectonics, erosion, winds, and perhaps volcanism. The findings are published in this week's issue of the journal Nature.

Titan, long held to be a frozen analog of early Earth, has liquid methane on its cold surface, unlike the water found on our home planet. Among the new discoveries is what may be a long river, roughly 1,500 kilometers long (930 miles). Scientists have also concluded that winds on Titan blow a lot faster than the moon rotates, a fact long predicted but never confirmed until now. Tectonism (brittle fracturing and faulting) has clearly played a role in shaping Titan's surface. "The only known planetary process that creates large-scale linear boundaries is tectonism, in which internal processes cause portions of the crust to fracture and sometimes move either up, down or sideways," said Dr. Alfred McEwen, Cassini imaging team member from the University of Arizona, Tucson. "Erosion by fluids may accentuate the tectonic fabric by depositing dark materials in low areas and enlarging fractures. This interplay between internal forces and fluid erosion is very Earth-like."

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Cassini images collected during close flybys of the moon show dark, curving and linear patterns in various regions on Titan, but mostly concentrated near the south pole. Some extend up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) long. Images from the European Space Agency's Huygens probe show clear evidence for small channels a few kilometers long, probably cut by liquid methane. Cassini imaging scientists suggest that the dark, curved and linear patterns seen in the Cassini orbiter images of Titan may also be channels, though there is no direct evidence for the presence of fluids. If these features are channels, it would make the ones near the south pole nearly as long as the Snake River, which originates in Wyoming and flows across four states. Since most of the cloud activity observed on Titan by Cassini has occurred over the south pole, scientists believe this may be where the cycle of methane rain, channel carving, runoff, and evaporation is most active, a hypothesis that could explain the presence of the extensive channel-like features seen in this region. In analyzing clouds of Titan's lower atmosphere, scientists have concluded that the winds on Titan blow faster than the moon rotates, a phenomenon called super-rotation. In contrast, the jet streams of Earth blow slower than the rotation rate of our planet.

This mosaic of Titan's south polar region was acquired during Cassini's first and distant encounter with the smog-enshrouded moon on July 2, 2004. The spacecraft approached Titan at a distance of about 340,000 kilometers (211,000 miles) during this flyby. This is a contrast-enhanced version of a previously released image, which allows surface details to be seen more easily. The very bright features near the south pole are clouds. Due to Titan's thick, hazy atmosphere, the sizes of surface features that can be resolved are a few to five times larger than the actual pixel scale. At this distance, pixel scale is 2 kilometers (about 1 mile), so features larger than several kilometers across are resolved in the images. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

"Models of Titan's atmosphere have indicated that it should super-rotate just like the atmosphere of Venus, but until now there have been no direct wind measurements to test the prediction," said Cassini imaging team member Dr. Tony Del Genio of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York. DelGenio made the first computer simulation predicting Titan super-rotation a decade ago.

Titan's winds are measured by watching its clouds move. Clouds are rare on Titan, and those that can be tracked are often too small and faint to be seen from Earth. Ten clouds have been tracked by Cassini, giving wind speeds as high as 34 meters per second (about 75 miles per hour) to the east—hurricane strength—in Titan's lower atmosphere. "This result is consistent with the predictions of Titan weather models, and it suggests that we now understand the basic features of how meteorology works on slowly rotating planets," said Del Genio. "We've only just begun exploring the surface of Titan, but what's struck me the most so far is the variety of the surface patterns that we're seeing. The surface is very complex, and shows evidence for so many different modification processes," said Dr. Elizabeth Turtle, Cassini imaging team associate in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson and co-author of one of the papers in Nature. "Throughout the solar system, we find examples of solid bodies that show tremendous geologic variation across their surfaces. One hemisphere often can bear little resemblance to the other," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader, Space Science Institute, Boulder, CO. "On Titan, it's very likely to be this and more." These results are based on Cassini orbiter images of Titan collected over the last eight months during a distant flyby of the south pole and three close encounters of Titan's equatorial region. Cassini cameras have covered 30 percent of Titan's surface, imaging features as small as 1 to 10 kilometers (0.6 to 6 miles). Cassini is scheduled to make 41 additional close Titan flybys in the next three years. For images and information on the Cassini mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://ciclops.org .

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.

Contacts:Carolina Martinez Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CAPhone: 818-354-9382

Preston Dyches Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations Space Science Institute, Boulder, COPhone: 720-974-5823

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/saturn-titan-05r.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/050310activetitan.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/050310atmosphere.htmlhttp://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_twisting_ring.htmlhttp://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/titan_similar_earth.html

MARS EXPLORATION ROVERS UPDATESNASA/JPL releases

Spirit Perched at "Larry's Lookout"—sol 408-415NASA/JPL release, 7 March 2005

Spirit's focus on sols 408 through 412 was the spectacular panorama from "Larry's Lookout." After completing that 4-sol effort, Spirit rolled to a nearby rock target called "Watchtower" and began examining it with tools on the robotic arm. Spirit is in excellent health. Skies are clearing of dust and Spirit's solar panels are angled at a high northerly-tilt. So, as Mars approaches the spring season, Spirit has had ample power and a full battery at the start of

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each recent sol. Flash memory is also in good shape despite the large panorama acquired, thanks to good downlinks and data management.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has been analyzing sulfur-rich rocks and surface materials in the "Columbia Hills" in Gusev Crater on Mars. This image shows rocky debris and dust, which planetary scientists call "regolith" or "soil," that has been churned up by the rover wheels. This 40-centimeter-wide (16-inch-wide) patch of churned-up dirt, nicknamed "Paso Robles," contains brighter patches measured to be high in sulfur by Spirit's alpha particle X-ray Spectrometer. Spirit's panoramic camera took this image on martian day, or sol, 400 (February 16, 2005). The image represents the panoramic camera team's best current attempt at generating a true color view of what this scene would look like if viewed by a human on Mars. The image was generated from a combination of six calibrated, left-eye images acquired through filters ranging from 430-nanometer to 750-nanometer wavelengths. Image credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell.

Opportunity Continues South with New Mobility Software—sol 380-388NASA/JPL release, 7 March 2005

After a busy week of driving with new mobility software, Opportunity continues to be in excellent health. The rover has traveled 450 meters (just over a quarter of a mile) in 6 sols. Opportunity took a couple of breaks from the trek south to use the tools on its robotic arm for investigating of a rock called "Russet" and to image a crater triplet. Atmospheric opacity has been stable, with tau hovering between 0.85 and 0.90.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity used its navigation camera on the rover's 381st and 382nd martian days, or sols, (February 18 and 19, 2005) to take the images combined into this 360-degree panorama. Opportunity had driven 64 meters (209 feet) on sol 381 to arrive at this location close to a small crater dubbed "Alvin." The location is catalogued as Opportunity's Site 43. This view is presented in a cylindrical projection with with geometric seam correction. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05x.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/mars-mers-05y.html

MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR IMAGESNASA/JPL/MSSS release3-9 March 2005

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

Trough Floor (Released 03 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/03/

Bright Devil Streaks ((Released 04 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/04/

Melas Chasma (Released 05 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/05/

Daedalia Lavas (Released 06 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/06/

Ascraeus Mons Summit (Released 07 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/07/

Mars at Ls 176 Degrees (Released 08 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/08/

Martian Trough (Released 09 March 2005)http://www.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2005/03/09/

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 release28 February - 4 March 2005

THEMIS Images as Art #46 (Released 28 February 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050228A.html

THEMIS Images as Art #47 (Released 1 March 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050301A.html

THEMIS Images as Art #48 (Released 2 March 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050302A.html

THEMIS Images as Art #49 (Released 3 March 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050303A.html

THEMIS Images as Art #50 (Released 4 March 2005)http://themis.la.asu.edu/zoom-20050304A.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.

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Marsbugs: The Electronic Astrobiology Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 9, 11 March 2005

ROSETTA PERFORMS ESA'S CLOSEST-EVER EARTH FLY-BYESA release 13-20055 March 2005

The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft yesterday performed ESA's closest-ever Earth fly-by, gaining an essential gravity boost in its ten-year, 7.1 billion kilometer flight to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.At closest approach, at 22:09:14 GMT, Rosetta passed above the Pacific Ocean just west of Mexico at an altitude of 1954.74 km and a velocity relative to the Earth of 38,000 kph.

The passage through the Earth-Moon system allowed ground controllers to test Rosetta's "asteroid fly-by mode" (AFM) using the Moon as a "fake" asteroid, rehearsing the fly-bys of asteroids Steins and Lutetia due in 2008 and 2010 respectively. The AFM test started at 23:01 GMT and ran for nine minutes during which the two onboard navigation cameras successfully tracked the Moon, allowing Rosetta's attitude to be automatically adjusted.

On 4 March 2005, while approaching the Earth for the first of a series of fly-bys, Rosetta turned its navigation camera to the Moon, half lit by the Sun. This image was taken at 15:10 UTC when Rosetta was 428,061 km from the surface of the Moon. Rosetta is approaching the Earth from the night side so images of our home planet would only be very dark. Image credit: ESA/ESOC.

Before and after closest approach, the navigation cameras also acquired a series of images of the Moon and Earth; these data will be downloaded early today for ground processing and are expected to be available by 8 March. In addition, other onboard instruments were switched on, including ALICE (ultraviolet imaging spectrometer), VIRTIS (visible and infrared mapping

spectrometer) and MIRO (microwave instrument for the Rosetta orbiter), for calibration and general testing using the Earth and Moon as targets.

The fly-by maneuver swung the three-tonne spacecraft around our planet and out towards Mars, where it will make a fly-by on 26 February 2007. Rosetta will return to Earth again in a series of four planet fly-bys (three times with Earth, once with Mars) before reaching Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, when it will enter orbit and deliver a lander, Philae, onto the surface. The fly-bys are necessary to accelerate the spacecraft so as to eventually match the velocity of the target comet. They are a fuel-saving way to boost speed using planetary gravity. Yesterday's fly-by came one year and two days after launch and highlights the valuable opportunities for instrument calibration and data gathering available during the mission's multi-year voyage.

In just three months, on 4 July, Rosetta will be in a good position to observe and gather data during NASA's spectacular Deep Impact event, when the Deep Impact probe will hurl a 380 kg projectile into Comet Tempel 1, revealing data on the comet's internal structure. Certain of Rosetta's unique instruments, such as its ultraviolet light instrument ALICE, should be able to make critical contributions to the American mission.

Rosetta is the first mission designed to both orbit and land on a comet, and consists of an orbiter and a lander. The spacecraft carries 11 scientific experiments and will be the first mission to undertake long-term exploration of a comet at close quarters. After entering orbit around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014, the spacecraft will release a small lander onto the icy nucleus. Rosetta will orbit the comet for about a year as it heads towards the Sun, remaining in orbit for another half-year past perihelion (closest approach to the Sun). Comets hold essential information about the origin of our Solar System because they are the most primitive objects in the Solar System and their chemical composition has changed little since their formation. By orbiting and landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Rosetta will help us reconstruct the history of our own neighborhood in space.

Contacts:ESA Media Relations DivisionPhone: +33(0)1.5369.7155Fax: +33(0)1.5369.7690

ESA Science Programme Communication ServicePhone: +31(0)71.565.3273Fax: +31(0)71.565.4101

Additional articles on this subject are available at:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/rosetta-05a.htmlhttp://www.spacedaily.com/news/eo-05zb.htmlhttp://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0503/05rosetta/http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rosetta_moon_photo.html

End Marsbugs, Volume 12, Number 9.

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