Daily Archives: November 25, 2021

Mars may be covered in dozens of different nonbiological "false fossils," which could interfere with the search for life on the Red Planet, two researchers say.

NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on Mars in February, and the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Rosalind Franklin rover in 2022. Both will scour the Martian surface for biosignatures traces of past life left behind from around 4 billion years ago, when the planet may have been habitable.

However, a new paper suggests a possible complication in that search.

Related: 6 reasons astrobiologists are holding out hope for life on Mars

"There is a real chance that one day, we will observe something on Mars that looks really biological, only to realize several years later, after further research, that this thing was actually formed by nonbiological processes," co-author Julie Cosmidis, a geobiologist at the University of Oxford in England, told Live Science.

Cosmidis teamed up with Sean McMahon, an astrobiologist at The University of Edinburgh in Scotland, to itemize these potential false biosignatures before the rovers find them.

A biosignature can be evidence of either an organism itself or any product it creates. By definition, such biosignatures can't be made by natural physical or chemical processes. For decades, astrobiologists have identified biosignatures on Earth in order to recognize potential forms of primitive life on other worlds.

But this hunt for biosignatures has a major limitation. "We are so good at spotting life that we see it even when it isn't there," McMahon told Live Science.

Specifically, many things that look like biosignatures at first glance can also be created without life.

"The range of structures, materials and chemical compositions that can be produced nonbiologically overlaps quite closely with the range of things that can be produced biologically," McMahon said. "Some phenomena have been debated for decades, and we're still not sure if they're biological or not."

Paleontologists have often been confused by these fake fossils, Cosmidis said. Evidence of ancient bacteria and other single-celled organisms, like algae, can be especially tricky to identify.

In 1996, scientists claimed to have found fossils of microscopic organisms in a Martian meteorite. Their discovery was hailed as the first proof of alien life and even prompted a speech from President Bill Clinton. However, further tests revealed that these fossils were completely abiotic, meaning they were not made by life-forms.

On Mars, this confusion will be even more problematic because scientists won't be able to test samples properly until they are returned to Earth, meaning it could take years to vet the Martian samples.

"The problem is that these false biosignatures are often disproved only after further analysis by different researchers, using different techniques," Cosmidis said. "But for Mars, we won't have this option" until years after the samples get collected.

"There is a wide diversity of potential false biosignatures on Mars," Cosmidis said.

One of the best examples is carbon-sulfur biomorphs tiny spheres, "similar in size to bacteria," that can form spontaneously from reactions between carbon and sulfide, Cosmidis said. Both of these reactants may have been abundant on ancient Mars, and the resulting biomorphs would also "fossilize very well in rock types that are common on Mars," she added.

"If one day we find microscopic organic filaments and spheres in Martian rocks, it will be very tempting to interpret them as fossil bacteria, but they could very well just be carbon-sulfur biomorphs," Cosmidis said.

Another example are pseudo-microbialites, which mimic physical structures created by microbes, such as stromatolites which are large structures left behind by photosynthetic algae that grow upward as cones, domes and columns. Such structures could be left behind from marine life in Mars' past oceans, but near-identical structures can also form naturally without any microbes so it will be hard to tell if they are genuine.

McMahon and Cosmidis recreated previously known false biosignatures in Martian conditions and tried to come up with new examples not yet encountered on Earth. In total, they listed more than a dozen potential fake fossils in their new paper, but many more may be out there.

The researchers hope their work will help to prevent an erroneous discovery and the resulting disappointment, which would undermine decades of work in the search for alien life.

"These errors and their corrections are a normal process in science," Cosmidis said. "But on a topic that is receiving as much attention from the public as the search for life on Mars, there is a risk that they could generate public mistrust in scientists."

However, despite their caution, the researchers say that they are fully committed to the search for life on Mars.

"We are not trying to dismiss all the efforts that NASA and ESA are currently putting into finding traces of life on Mars," Cosmidis said. "We want to support these efforts by helping the researchers involved in these missions make better and more informed interpretations of the objects they will observe."

The paper was published online Nov. 17 in the Journal of the Geological Society.

Originally published on Live Science.

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'False fossils' littered across Mars may complicate the search for life on Red Planet - Livescience.com

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity has aced yet another Red Planet flight, the little chopper's 16th sortie.

The Mars helicopter Ingenuity made its latest hop on Sunday (Nov. 21), about two weeks after its previous flight. According to a description of plans for the flight published on Nov. 16, the sortie was designed to carry Ingenuity one step closer to its original airstrip, dubbed Wright Brothers Field.

"#MarsHelicopter continues to thrive!" mission personnel wrote in a tweet posted Monday (Nov. 22). "The mighty rotorcraft completed its 16th flight on the Red Planet last weekend, traveling 116 meters northeast for 109 seconds. It captured color images during the short hop, but those will come down in a later downlink."

Related: It's getting harder to fly the Ingenuity helicopter on Mars

Ingenuity's first four flights on Mars, way back in April, all began and ended from Wright Brothers Field. And as originally designed, the mission was not meant to do much more: Ingenuity launched as a technology demonstration mission meant to fly only five times within a month.

But the chopper's early flights went so smoothly that NASA decided to extend its mission and send the little helicopter to scout out ahead of its larger companion, the Perseverance rover. Recent flights have seen Ingenuity cover regions dubbed Raised Ridges and South Stah, which feature quite rough terrain for the rover to tackle but are particularly intriguing to geologists, hence the use of the airborne scout.

Ingenuity's current series of flights is hopping the little helicopter back to the Perseverance rover's landing site at Octavia E. Butler Landing in preparation for making a new excursion to a location dubbed "Three Forks" for the rover's second science campaign, according to a NASA plan published in June.

Although Ingenuity is showing no signs of flagging, the helicopter's journey has become more difficult during recent flights. The chopper, along with the rest of NASA's Mars fleet, was grounded for a few weeks earlier this autumn as the sun interrupted communications between Earth and the Red Planet.

Meanwhile, as the Martian seasons change, the atmosphere around Ingenuity is thinning, forcing the helicopter crew to increase the spin rate of the chopper's blades.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her on Twitter @meghanbartels. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Mars helicopter Ingenuity soars on 16th Red Planet flight - Space.com

Snag up a popular spacefaring game and five of its expansion boards now on sale and get savings as high as 33% this week ahead of Black Friday.

The objective of Terraforming Mars is written in the game's name. One to five players can compete with one another to gain the most points towards raising the habitability of the Red Planet for future human visitors. Players gain points by raising Mars' temperature, the planet's oxygen level and by creating and expanding oceans.

The game features several card categories that allow the players some control about their play level of difficulty. Project cards stimulate the imagination by tasking players to do things like introduce plant life and build cities, and there are more than 200 different projects to complete.

The Terraforming Mars Board Game is now on sale at Amazon for $49.85, which is 29% off its usual retail price.

Terraforming Mars is an upgradable game, too. One of the unique characteristics of Terraforming Mars are its tiles, which players can place across the board illustration of the Red Planet. One available upgrade lets players add a higher visual element to their game.

Known as the Big Box, this upgrade comes with 90 special tiles to dress up the game, including a set of 3D terrain tiles. Big Box also serves as a storage solution for the main game and its expansions (which are also on sale this week).

Terraforming Mars: Big Box is now available for $121.30 at Amazon, which is a 19% savings off its retail price of $149.99.

Once you are ready for an expansion kit, there are many to choose from.

One option is Prelude, which allows players to move through the backstory of the corporations that terraform Mars. This kit offers about 90 to 120 minutes of average playtime, according to the manufacturer Stronghold Games. And just like the original game, it is intended for ages 12 and older.

Another expansion board option takes players to the other side of the Red Planet. The Terraforming Hellas & Elysium: The Other Side of Mars Expansion Board consists of a double-sided game board. Each side represents two new areas of Mars for gameplay: they include the opposite side of Mars' equator and the south polar region of the planet. This expansion kit is now 30% off its retail price, selling for $29.18 at Walmart.

Terraforming Mars Turmoil is one of the highest-rated expansions. This set is suitable for experts of the original game. It comes with a new card type called global events, which features things like dust storms and riots, plus new project cards too. You can now save 15% on this expansion, available for $29.54 at Amazon.

The Venus Next expansion kit takes the game to Earth's other celestial neighbor. Players can work to build flying cities, reduce Venus' greenhouse effect, or introduce life to the planet. Like the original game, this expansion is recommended for ages 12 and up and offers about 90- to 120-minute play. Terraforming Mars: Venus Next is now 17% off on Walmart, available now for $24.95.

One extension of the Terraforming Mars is Ares Expedition, a standalone game inspired by the original that features faster gameplay. Ares Expedition is also on sale for Black Friday, now $39.99 on Walmart (originally $49.99).

Be sure to check out Space.com'sBlack Friday space deals, or our guide to thebest Black Friday space board game deals.

Today's best Terraforming Mars deals

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Space-themed board game Terraforming Mars and its expansion sets are now on sale for Black Friday - Space.com

The Mars Hill University Department of Theatre Arts and the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre (SART) will present two co-produced events for the 2021 holiday season: A Southern Appalachian Christmas Concert and A Christmas Carol. Both productions will be presented in-person at Owen Theatre on the university campus, and A Christmas Carol also will be available in an on-demand online format.

A Southern Appalachian Christmas Concert is Saturday, December 4, at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, December 5, at 2 p.m. It will feature professional performers alongside the MHU theatre arts performance ensemble, Showstoppers. This fundraiser concert is pay-what-you-can at the door, benefiting both the theatre arts department and SARTs programming.

In-person performances of A Christmas Carol will be December 9-19, and virtual performances will be available on-demand from December 20-26. Based on the classic tale by Charles Dickens, these performances are a new adaptation of the beloved classic adapted by Dwight Chiles. The productions will be directed by Dominic Michael Aquilino and will feature Michael Lilly in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

All patrons in Owen Theatre will be required to wear a mask upon entering the facility and for the duration of the production.

Tickets for A Christmas Carol are available atwww.sartplays.com. Standard seats are $28, premium seats are $32, and the virtual pass is $25. For more information, contact the SART box office at (828) 689-1232 orsart@mhu.edu.

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Mars Hill Theatre Arts and SART Present Two Holiday Productions - WKYK

Last time we checked in on Kid Rockthe heir to a car dealership empire who reinvented himself two decades ago as a trailer park kid who rockshe was assuring us that his gay friends were totally cool with him casually throwing around homophobic slurs. Five months later, in an apparent bid to remind everyone of his alleged solidarity with the queer community, the conceptual artist straddled a gigantic penis-shaped middle finger rocket and blasted himself so hard into the air that he now resides on the planet Mars.

Or, at least, that seems to be the general gist of Kid Rocks new music video for a song called Dont Tell Me How To Live, which is about people who dont like it when other people ask them to please stop confusing ideas like patriotism and independence with blind contrarianism. Also, to please stop using homophobic slurs.

Based around the hook (and title) of a 2016 single from the Southern rock (by way of Canada) band, Monster Truck, who appear to be a Jet-meets-Lynyrd Skynyrd situation, Dont Tell Me How To Live ascends to levels of self-parody not seen since Insane Clown Posses Miracles. In fact, its so willfully, preposterously ignorant that even Weird Al chimed in to assure everyone that this was not his doing.

Kiss my ass, then you can suck a dick, rasps Kid Rock before reminding us that Aint nothing changed here, I still dont give a fuck. And yet, he subsequently ponders what the fucks up with all the backlash? before reminding us snowflakes that, as you may have already guessed, aint nobody gonna tell him how to live.

The rest of the song, of course, is a predictable grab bag of soundbites overheard at the local Outback Steakhouse on a Wednesday night: a nation of pussies is our next generation, every opinion has a millennial offended, along with repeated extolling of Constitutional Amendments One and, more fervently, Two.

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Visually, theres the aforementioned image of a winged Kid Rock waving a gun around atop his giant, phallic middle finger as it kid rock-its into the upper atmosphere, alongside churches, pit bulls, bikers, an anonymous dive bar filled with all manner of good ol (white) boys. Rock does his trademark hop-around dance moves that make it seem like hes suffering from severe bouts of athletes foot in both cowboy boots.

Dont Tell Me How To Live seems destined for much-memed infamy in the coming weeks, which of course only pours additional moonshine atop Kid Rocks strategically constructed garbage fire of a career. And yet, we cant help but cover something this egregiously bada song thats destined to be yet another barn-burner for Kid Rocks primary fan base of Nazi face tattoo having men that smack cops in the face with colostomy bags at Mr. Rocks Big Ass Honky-Tonk & Rock n Roll Steakhouse.

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Conceptual artist Kid Rock soars to Mars on a giant middle finger - The A.V. Club

DARIEN During his five years as an engineer with NASA, Matthew Gentile helped put a rover on Mars but its his work in his hometown that earned him one of scoutings highest awards

Gentile, a Darien native who currently lives in southern California, was honored with the Outstanding Eagle Scout Award for his ongoing service to scouting as a volunteer within his community.

The ceremony was held Sunday at the Andrew Shaw Memorial Scout Cabin and featured Gentile, his family, and other adults who were honored for continued participation in scouting.

Its amazing, Gentile said. This is a fantastic honor.

Gentile, a graduate of Darien High School who became an Eagle Scout with Troop 35 in 2010, works as an engineer in the aerospace industry, taking part in the creation and launch of the Mars Rover Perseverance.

Once an Eagle, always an Eagle, said Mark Kraus, scout executive with the Connecticut Yankee Council BSA.

He and others noted the lengthy commitment becoming an Eagle Scout takes, as well as the support and help from friends, fellow scouts and family.

They cant really get there without the support of their parents, Kraus said.

Gentiles father, Patrick, spoke about his sons ambitions and experiences, and how his ongoing work with scouting has helped shape his social consciousness and sense of empathy toward others.

Our responsibility rests with making sure that our children attain the highest moral and ethical standards to use their skills to attain the greatest good, he said.

The senior Gentile also expressed his appreciation for the scouting program in Darien, which he said has given both of his sons endless possibilities through a focus on character, commitment and service leadership.

At the same time, he said the local Darien group has an ongoing responsibility to make scouting available to other under-served communities throughout Connecticut.

One of only three Eagle Scouts to be given the Outstanding award in Darien, Matthew Gentile visited the East Coast for the ceremony alongside his fiance and was joined by his older brother, Danny Gentile, who became an Eagle Scout in 2006.

Matthew Gentile attributed many of his own professional skills to what he learned through the tenets of scouting.

Its been a great opportunity, he said. He said he was looking forward to starting a new job as a senior mechanical engineer for a firm in California.

Matthew Gentile was cited for his ongoing work mentoring other scouts over the past 10 years, including extensive work during the pandemic participating in the Powahay Districts online STEM Camporee and providing help for scouts with the Space Exploration Merit Badge.

Sundays event also honored other adult Eagle Scouts who continue to give their service to scouting in Darien, including Paul Cordella, Paul Dickinson, Grant Evans, Rob Farley, Chuck Hilton, Dan Kunetz, Adam McMaster, Barry McMaster, Timothy McGraw, Brett Miller, Todd Morgan, Willis Philip, Craig Schorr, David Selph, William Shannon and Cory Visi.

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NASA engineer who put a rover on Mars got his start as a Darien Boy Scout: Once an Eagle, always an Eagle - Darien Times