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From the hottest deserts to the freezing polar regions, microorganisms keep turning up in Earth’s most extreme environments. And if that’s the case, why wouldn’t it hold that life can do the same on other planets? To test whether certain hardy microbes can survive the harsh conditions of space or Mars, colonies were placed on the outside of the International Space Station (ISS) for almost 18 months – and many managed to survive. For the project, known as the Biology and Mars Experiment (BIOMEX), several hundred samples of Earthly microbes, including bacteria, archaea, mosses, lichens, fungi and algae, were placed in containers attached to the outside of the Russian Zvezda module on the ISS. Some samples were kept in soil and air that mimicked that of Mars, to see whether they could survive on the Red Planet. For 533 days between October 2014 and February 2016, the microorganisms were exposed to the extreme conditions of space, enduring a vacuum, wild temperature swings and intense ultraviolet radiation. The bugs were returned to Earth in June 2016, and have been extensively studied ever since. At least some members of every species in the experiment managed to survive, with some thriving and others only just scraping by. Several archaea and bacteria species fared the best, while more complex, multicellular organisms like fungi and lichens struggled a bit more.  “Some of the organisms and biomolecules showed tremendous resistance to radiation in outer space and actually returned to Earth as ‘survivors’ from space,” says Jean-Pierre Paul de Vera, scientific manager of the BIOMEX project. The key outcome of the experiment was to show that life is hardier than we give it credit for, and as a result Mars may not be as inhospitable as once thought. Microscopic organisms could be thriving underground, or in salty liquid lakes. “Of course, this does not mean that life actually exists on Mars,” says de Vera. “But the search for life is more than ever the strongest driving force for the next generation of missions to Mars.” BIOMEX also helped define what kinds of biosignatures we should be looking for on Mars and other planets and moons. And with both NASA and the ESA launching new Red Planet rovers in 2020, an answer to one of the most profound questions humans have ever asked could be on the horizon. The research has been the subject of dozens of published papers in recent years, and it’s all summed up in a special issue of the journal Astrobiology. The final results of BIOMEX will be presented at a scientific conference this week. Source: German Aerospace Center …
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Month: March 2019
Huge Gushing Rivers Once Flowed On Mars
Our understanding of the role water played in the history of Mars has improved greatly in the last few years, with scientists uncovering evidence of vast oceans, buried ice fields and complex networks of rivers that once sprawled across its surface. A new study has examined the lattermost of these geographical features in close detail and found these Martian waterways were far thicker and dried out far later than previously thought, suggesting that for billions of years, Mars was home to gushing rivers even wider than those on Earth today.
Today, traces of water on Mars can be found in the form of vapor in the atmosphere and stowed away underground in ice sheets and lakes. But the plentiful dried-out riverbeds filled with smooth pebbles that snake their way around the Red Planet provide useful clues about its watery past. By studying these through imagery captured by orbiting spacecraft, scientists are slowly piecing together a very complex puzzle.
While the evidence is clear that the deep, ancient channels seen on Mars were carved out by water, the type of climate that facilitated these conditions remains very much a mystery. This is because of the planet’s very thin atmosphere (and therefore weak greenhouse effect), and that in the planet’s early history the Sun was far fainter and weaker, providing around 25 to 30 percent of the luminosity that it does today. And less heat, presumably, means less liquid water.
“Indeed, even on ancient Mars, when it was wet enough for rivers some of the time, the rest of the data looks like Mars was extremely cold and dry most of the time,” says study author Edwin Kite, assistant professor of geophysical sciences at the University of Chicago.
Looking to fill in the blanks, Kite and his team studied photographs and elevation models of more than 200 ancient Mars riverbeds. By looking at characteristics such as their width, steepness and the size of gravel chunks within them, the scientists were able to draw some conclusions about the force of water that once flowed through them.
According to the team, this provided evidence that strong and persistent water flow existed possibly as recently as two billion years ago, far beyond when the planet’s last wet climate is thought to have wrapped up around 3.5 billion years ago. What’s more, analysis of the catchment areas indicates that these ancient rivers were wider than the rivers found on Earth today. This adds to our understanding of the ancient climate on Mars, but it throws up a few curveballs, too.
“Our work answers some existing questions but raises a new one,” says Kite. “Which is wrong: the climate models, the atmosphere evolution models, or our basic understanding of inner solar system chronology?”
The research was published in the journal Science Advances.
Astronaut’s DNA No Longer Matches His Twin’s DNA
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Astronaut’s DNA no longer matches his identical twin
Astronaut Scott Kelly had an identical twin brother when he ventured into space and set the record for most consecutive days spent in orbit, but not anymore.
In a groundbreaking new study, NASA scientists found that Kelly’s DNA had been altered upon his return to earth — with 7 percent of his genes experiencing an “unexpected change,” according to the agency.
Research teams from around the country had been analyzing the New Jersey native’s condition and genetic makeup following his year-long stay aboard the International Space Station as part of NASA’s “Twins Study.”
Kelly said on Twitter that he didn’t find out about the results until he saw media reports this week about the DNA change.
“What? My DNA changed by 7%! Who knew?” he tweeted. “I just learned about it in this article. This could be good news! I no longer have to call @ShuttleCDRKelly my identical twin brother anymore.”
According to NASA, Kelly’s 340 days in orbit may have ultimately activated what scientists describe as “space genes.”
“This is thought to be from the stresses of space travel, which can cause changes in a cell’s biological pathways and ejection of DNA and RNA,” the agency said. “Such actions can trigger the assembly of new molecules, like a fat or protein, cellular degradation; and can turn genes on and off, which change cellular function.”
Researchers said the long-term changes were related to Kelly’s immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia and hypercapnia.
“By studying how space travel can influence chemical changes in RNA and DNA, new ‘space genes’ were reported, indicating significant cell stress and correlations with changes noted by other Twins Study investigators,” explained NASA. “Whole-genome sequencing showed each twin has hundreds of unique mutations in their genome, more than expected, and some were found only after spaceflight.”
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Robert Zubrin: “Give ‘Em Hell Harry!!!”
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Stuck Mars Insight Lander Has A Big Problem
Stuck Mars InSight lander to conduct short burst of hammering in search of answers
Digging into the surface of another planet for the first time is going to bring some surprises, you’d just hope that those surprises don’t include your digging being brought to a halt before things have even begun. This is the problem scientists working on the Mars InSight mission have been forced to contend with, though they are now moving ahead with new plans to shed light on the blockage.
The digging operations of the Mars InSight lander are hoped to greatly improve our understanding of the Red Planet. By burrowing into the planet’s surface further than any scientific instrument before it, its drilling device will measure thermal conductivity and subsurface materials in the soil, adding to our understanding of how rocky planets like Mars were formed.
But soon after commencing its digging operations in late February, the lander’s drilling device, known as “the mole” ground to a halt during the hammering phase, only making it around three quarters of the way out of its housing structure before stopping altogether. The team resumed hammering two days later, but without success.
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The data indicated that the mole was healthy and functioning properly, though it was resting at a 15-degree tilt. The operation was then paused while the team investigated the issue, suspecting that some hard rock or gravel beneath the surface is what stopped the device in its tracks.
The mole forms part of a larger instrument called the Heat and Physical Properties Package (HP3), which was built by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Engineers there and at NASA will work with replicas of the HP3 in the lab to better understand the problem, and are planning a short hammering test on Mars to try and uncover new clues.
This test will take place over 10 to 15 minutes later in the month, and InSight’s seismometer will be used to “listen” in on the hammering to try and help determine the source of the blockage. A camera mounted on the lander’s robotic arm, meanwhile, will snap images of the support structure to capture any motion that might be triggered throughout.
“With a special filter applied to the short period data directly onboard the SEIS instrument, we will get a much better time resolution of the signals and should be able to diagnose whether or not the mole is stuck or even slowly moving forward or is rebounding,” writes DLR’s Tilman Spohn, instrument lead. “Knowing this will help us greatly in designing our
strategy.”
Source: NASA
2020 Mars Rover Gets Hit With Cost Over Runs
Mars: Missing Water
Missing Water
The mystery surrounding Mars’ missing water will not be resolved anytime soon.
Even so, scientists recently uncovered evidence that a massive groundwater network may have once existed below the red planet’s surface, the Smithsonian Magazine reported.
Researchers studied images of 24 craters in the planet’s northern hemisphere and found relief features on the floors that they believe might have been caused by rising and falling groundwater.
They posit that these pockets of groundwater may have been interconnected at one point as a vast underground reservoir, which may have in turn linked to a Martian ocean that could have existed three to four billion years ago.
“We found the first geological evidence of a planet-wide groundwater system on Mars,” according to lead author Francesco Salese.
A massive, interconnected water system would have been possible because Mars is thought to be a “one-plate planet” – meaning that its crust is composed of one solid piece.
Such interconnectivity, however, wouldn’t be possible on Earth, because of the various tectonic plates that make up its outer shell.
The research team also found that some of the craters housed minerals that are linked to the emergence of life on Earth.
The team made no claims about whether life ever existed on Mars but its findings could help identify the most promising regions of the planet to hunt for it.
The Rover Endeavor’s Final Picture
Opportunity’s Parting Shot Was a Beautiful Panorama
Over 29 days last spring, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity documented this 360-degree panorama from multiple images taken at what would become its final resting spot in Perseverance Valley. Located on the inner slope of the western rim of Endurance Crater, Perseverance Valley is a system of shallow troughs descending eastward about the length of two football fields from the crest of Endeavor’s rim to its floor.
“This final panorama embodies what made our Opportunity rover such a remarkable mission of exploration and discovery,” said Opportunity project manager John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “To the right of center you can see the rim of Endeavor Crater rising in the distance. Just to the left of that, rover tracks begin their descent from over the horizon and weave their way down to geologic features that our scientists wanted to examine up close. And to the far right and left are the bottom of Perseverance Valley and the floor of Endeavour crater, pristine and unexplored, waiting for visits from future explorers.”
The trailblazing mission ended after nearly 15 years of exploring the surface of Mars, but its legacy will live on. Opportunity’s scientific discoveries contributed to our unprecedented understanding of the planet’s geology and environment, laying the groundwork for future robotic and human missions to the Red Planet.
The panorama is composed of 354 individual images provided by the rover’s Panoramic Camera (Pancam) from May 13 through June 10, or sols (Martian days) 5,084 through 5,111. This view combines images taken through three different Pancam filters. The filters admit light centered on wavelengths of 753 nanometers (near-infrared), 535 nanometers (green) and 432 nanometers (violet).
A few frames (bottom left) remain black and white, as the solar-powered rover did not have the time to record those locations using the green and violet filters before a severe Mars-wide dust storm swept in on June 2018.
The gallery includes the last images Opportunity obtained during its mission (black-and-white thumbnail images from the Pancam that were used to determine how opaque the sky was on its last day) and also the last piece of data the rover transmitted (a “noisy,” incomplete full-frame image of a darkened sky).
After eight months of effort and sending more than a thousand commands in an attempt to restore contact with the rover, NASA declared Opportunity’s mission complete on Feb. 13, 2019.
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, managed the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/.
For more information about the agency’s Mars Exploration program, visit:
The US Once Launched Millions Of Copper Needles Into Space
The US Once Launched Millions of Copper Needles Into Space
When it comes to imagining new technology, the sky is the limit. No point in letting your scheme get bogged down by reality when you’re just brainstorming. But sometimes, ideas that really shouldn’t make it out of the brainstorming session escape into the real world. Or worse — into low-Earth orbit. This is the story of how the U.S. once launched millions of copper needles into space on purpose.
A Wire in the Sky
For a couple of months in 1963, the Earth had one thing in common with the planet Saturn: a ring. That came down to an effort to find a novel communication strategy. Back then, the more that long-distance communications advanced, the more potential problems they ran into. In the 1950s, you could get a message across the ocean or to the other side of a continent in a matter of minutes thanks to giant undersea cables and over-the-horizon radio that bounced the signal off of the ionosphere. But underwater cables could be disrupted by enemy agents (this was during the Cold War, after all), and long-distance radio signals could be reduced to static by both terrestrial and solar storms. And that’s why the U.S. decided to try a new method of long-range communication: an Earth-sized ring of copper to conduct transmissions fast as lightning, no matter the weather.
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Project West Ford dispersal system
It was supposed to work like this: A rocket would dump hundreds of millions of tiny copper filings into low-Earth orbit, giving the radio signals something else to bounce off of besides the ionosphere. And it worked! Sort of. Within days of the mission, communications were being sent from California to the East Coast at a then-staggering speed of 20 kilobytes per second.
In short, the mission was a rousing success. For about four months. The benefits of the copper ring wore off quickly as the needles began to fall out of orbit, or worse, clump together. And that’s where the real trouble started.
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Project West Ford needles
200-Million Needle Pileup
When you’re going around the planet at 5 miles per second (8 kilometers per second), a tiny piece of debris can have a big impact. Even if they’re only a centimeter across, bits of space junk can severely damage and even destroy advanced spacecraft. Of course, the copper filaments weren’t very large — only 0.7 inches (1.8 centimeters) long, and about a quarter of the width of a human hair. But the funny thing about metal in a vacuum is that it will instantly weld to any identical metal, no heat required. That means that all of those tiny copper wires that didn’t crash land at the North and South poles long ago have the potential to fuse with each other to become major obstacles today. In 2001, a studysuggested that the several dozen clumps still in orbit were likely to stay right there for decades to come. So next time Elon Musk sends a Roadster into orbit, he should keep an eye out for any errant shards of copper on the way.
jacksmars 