Daily Archives: July 14, 2022

View larger. | A portion of Yellowknife Bay in Gale Crater on Mars. Curiosity captured this view on February 14, 2013. Curiositys analysis of mudstone rock samples shows relatively high amount of organic carbon here. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ MSSS.Organic carbon key life ingredient in Mars rocks

On June 27, 2022, NASA announced that the Mars Curiosity rover has measured the amount of organic carbon in a sample of 3.5-billion-year-old rocks drilled from the site of an ancient lake on Mars Gale crater. Organic carbon is carbon bound to a hydrogen atom. Its the basis for organic molecules, and a building block of all known forms of life. NASA space scientist Jennifer Stern is lead author of paper on the findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 27, 2022. She said:

Total organic carbon is one of several measurements [or indices] that help us understand how much material is available as feedstock for prebiotic chemistry and potentially biology.

We found at least 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon. This is comparable to, or even more than, the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites.

The rover drilled the samples of rock called mudstone from the site of an ancient, now-dry lake in the Yellowknife Bay formation of Mars Gale crater. Scientists say the mudstone formed 3.5 billion years ago, when very fine sediment from weathering of volcanic rocks settled to the bottom of the lake and was buried. Both active Mars rovers, Curiosity and Perseverance, have detected organic carbon molecules on Mars before, but this is the first time the amount of organic carbon has been quantified. Stern told EarthSky:

The big deal here is that we are reporting the total organic carbon in the sample We consider this a measurement of the amount of abiotic [not derived from living organisms] organic carbon that would be available for organic chemistry. Previously detections were really crucial to telling us what kind of carbon is in Mars surface rocks, while our work presents how much carbon was there, and tries to address the question of the carbon source.

On Earth, organic carbon found in, say, a soil sample, indicates the presence of life. Thats because, on our planet, organic carbon is produced when plants and animals decompose. But its not so straightforward on Mars. There, organic carbon can also come from non-living sources, such as meteorites and volcanoes. Stern told EarthSky:

Meteorites range in organic carbon but average around 20 ppm. But theres lots of carbon that can come in from extraterrestrial sources, so its likely that we are measuring those sources in addition to whatever is the Mars carbon from igneous rocks.

When doing our calculations, we made assumptions in such a way that the reported amount is the most conservative estimate, really a lower limit, so it is likely there is more organic carbon in these rocks Even when you do that, though, the amount of carbon is still in the range of what is calculated to be contributed from the infall of extraterrestrial material on Mars. Still, the amount of carbon would have been enough to sustain very low levels of life, had it ever evolved and been present in this location on Mars.

After Curiosity drilled samples from rocks, the rover deposited the powder into its Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. An oven in SAM heats the samples to increasingly high temperatures. Oxygen and heat convert any organic carbon that exists to carbon dioxide (CO2). SAM then measures the amount of the gas to determine the amount of total organic carbon in the rocks.

When the samples are heated, minerals that contain carbon decompose, releasing the carbon. The oxygen and heat break apart the carbon molecules, which react with the oxygen to make carbon dioxide. This experiment cannot be conducted very often. In fact, the mission team has performed it only once so far, in 2014. It then took researchers years to analyze the resulting data.

SAM is also capable of determining the source of the organic carbon, at least to some extent. It does this by measuring the isotopic ratios of the carbon. Isotopes are different versions of the same element. The difference is in the weight (mass) of the elements. This is due to the presence of one or more extra neutrons in the nucleus of the atoms.

Living organisms, on Earth anyway, tend to have lighter isotopes of carbon, known as carbon-12. The carbon in minerals, carbon-13, is heavier.

Could any of the organic carbon actually be biological in origin? The results are a bit inconclusive. According to Stern:

In this case, the isotopic composition can really only tell us what portion of the total carbon is organic carbon and what portion is mineral carbon. While biology cannot be completely ruled out, isotopes cannot really be used to support a biological origin for this carbon, either, because the range overlaps with igneous (volcanic) carbon and meteoritic organic material, which are most likely to be the source of this organic carbon.

Scientists first announced the discovery of enriched amounts of carbon-12 on Mars, which is crucial for life on Earth, back in January. This is carbon-12 in the same mudstone rocks in Yellowknife Bay, analyzed by Curiosity. The fact that carbon-12 exists on Mars is exciting, since on Earth, it would point to life. As this newest study shows, however, determining its origin on Mars is more difficult.

EarthSky asked Stern what shed like to find out next:

I really want to know how much carbon the rocks higher up on Mount Sharp have. Our results are from the base of Gale Crater, where we believe there was an ancient lake. As we move through the layered clays and sulfates and into clays, we are looking at a very different geological, climatic, and depositional environment. Is there more carbon here, or less? By how much? Its always so hard to extrapolate about a whole planet from one single measurement.

Getting more data on bulk organic carbon abundance could reveal how much abiotic organic chemistry was going on in the ancient atmosphere and surface, and help us understand what the baseline amount of organic carbon is, so that if we come across a sample with much more organic carbon than we expect from abiotic processes, we know that something out of the ordinary was going on, and that we should investigate further.

Bottom line: For the first time, scientists measured the amount of organic carbon a key life ingredient in rocks on Mars. NASAs Curiosity rover analyzed samples taken from ancient mudstones. The results are comparable to levels of organic carbon in the Atacama Desert on Earth. The findings are inconclusive, however, as to whether any of the carbon came from ancient life.

Source: Organic carbon concentrations in 3.5-billion-year-old lacustrine mudstones of Mars

Via NASA

Paul Scott Anderson has had a passion for space exploration that began when he was a child when he watched Carl Sagans Cosmos. While in school he was known for his passion for space exploration and astronomy. He started his blog The Meridiani Journal in 2005, which was a chronicle of planetary exploration. In 2015, the blog was renamed as Planetaria. While interested in all aspects of space exploration, his primary passion is planetary science. In 2011, he started writing about space on a freelance basis, and now currently writes for AmericaSpace and Futurism (part of Vocal). He has also written for Universe Today and SpaceFlight Insider, and has also been published in The Mars Quarterly and has done supplementary writing for the well-known iOS app Exoplanet for iPhone and iPad.

Eleanor Imster has helped write and edit EarthSky since 1995. She was an integral part of the award-winning EarthSky radio series almost since it began until it ended in 2013. She and her husband live in Tennessee, where they enjoy guitar playing and singing. They have 2 grown sons.

Excerpt from:

Mars rover measures key life ingredient - EarthSky

NASAs Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19, 2021, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the rovers mission. The image is made up of 21 individual images stitched together and color corrected so that the scene appea

To better understand Mars and its atmosphere, NASA is asking for help spotting clouds on the Red Planet.

Scientists are inviting the public to identify Martian clouds as part of a new project to learn why Mars has lost its atmosphere over time.

'Cloudspotting on Mars' may help researchers figure out why the planet's atmosphere is just one percent as dense as Earth's. They say that this is important because evidence suggests the planet once had a much thicker atmosphere.

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE'S FIRST IMAGES OF UNIVERSE USHER IN 'NEW ERA OF ASTRONOMY,' SCIENTISTS SAY

Similar to Earth, clouds on Mars are made of ice crystals, but there are major differences.

NASA says some clouds on the Red Planet are made up of carbon dioxide. Scientists say that these clouds form when it gets cold enough for the Martian atmosphere to freeze locally, similar to dry ice.

"We want to learn what triggers the formation of clouds especially water ice clouds, which could teach us how high water vapor gets in the atmosphere and during which seasons," said Marek Slipski from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Cloudspotting on Mars Citizen Science Project has people spot clouds in Mars' middle atmosphere. (NASA)

Figuring out how clouds form on Mars will help scientists better understand the structure of Mars' middle atmosphere, which is located about 30 to 50 miles above the planet.

FATE OF SEISMIC AND WEATHER MONITORING ON MARS DEPENDS ON DUST DEVIL

"We now have over 16 years of data for us to search through, which is very valuable it lets us see how temperatures and clouds change over different seasons and from year to year," said Armin Kleinboehl, Mars Climate Sounder's deputy principal investigator at JPL. "But it's a lot of data for a small team to look through."

Thanks to theMars Climate Sounder (MCS)on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, you'll be presented with images from observations over four hours.

Cloudspotting on Mars Citizen Science Project: To decide if something is an arch, look for two distinct legs and a peak.(NASA)

You can take the tutorial, showing you how to scan the images from left to right, looking for arches. NASA says that the clouds appear to rise from behind the atmosphere to a higher altitude and then fall again. This leads to an arch-like shape in the data. The peak of the arch is the actual location of the cloud.

Cloudspotting on Mars Citizen Science Project: Mark the peaks of all the arches you find with the point tool. (NASA)

You can zoom in to see if the arches have distinct legs and a peak. If so, you can mark the peaks of all the arches with the arch peak marker.

LINK: Cloudspotting on Mars

The tools on the site also allow you to invert colors to see the arches better and even provide a field guide for examples that will help with the task.

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Weather watchers needed to locate clouds on Mars - FOX 7 Austin

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After much searching under extremely difficult conditions, researchers have found microbes that have never been identified before.

The microbes are from about 900 kilometers (about 559 miles) south of the North Pole. They could provide a blueprint for the kind of life forms that may once have existed, or may still exist, on Mars.

The extremely salty, very cold, and almost oxygen-free environment under the permafrost of Lost Hammer Spring in Canadas High Arctic is the one that most closely resembles certain areas on Mars.

In a paper in ISME, the scientists demonstrate, for the first time, that microbial communities found living in Canadas High Arctic, in conditions analogous to those on Mars, can survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds of a kind that have been detected on Mars (such as methane, sulfide, sulfate, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide).

This discovery is so compelling that samples of the Lost Hammer surface sediments were selected by the European Space Agency to test the life detection capabilities of the instruments they plan to use on the next ExoMars Mission.

Lost Hammer Spring, in Nunavut in Canadas High Arctic, is one of the coldest and saltiest terrestrial springs discovered to date. The water which travels up through 600 meters (1,968.5 feet) of permafrost to the surface is extremely salty (~24% salinity), perennially at sub-zero temperatures (~5 C) and contains almost no oxygen (<1ppm dissolved oxygen). The very high salt concentrations keep the Lost Hammer spring from freezing, thus maintaining a liquid water habitat even at sub-zero temperatures.

These conditions are analogous to those found in certain areas on Mars, where widespread salt deposits and possible cold salt springs have been observed. And while earlier studies have found evidence of microbes in this kind of Mars-like environmentthis is one of a very few studies to find microbes alive and active

To gain insight into the kind of life forms that could exist on Mars, researchers, led by Lyle Whyte of the natural resource sciences department at McGill University, used state-of-the-art genomic tools and single cell microbiology methods to identify and characterize a novel, and more importantly, an active microbial community in this unique spring. Finding the microbes and then sequencing their DNA and mRNA was no easy task.

It took a couple of years of working with the sediment before we were able to successfully detect active microbial communities, explains Elisse Magnuson, a PhD student in Whytes lab, and the first author of the paper.

The saltiness of the environment interferes with both the extraction and the sequencing of the microbes, so when we were able to find evidence of active microbial communities, it was a very satisfying experience.

The team isolated and sequenced DNA from the spring community, allowing them to reconstruct genomes from approximately 110 microorganisms, most of which have never been seen before. These genomes have allowed the team to determine how such creatures survive and thrive in this unique extreme environment, acted as blueprints for potential life forms in similar environments. Through mRNA sequencing, the team was able to identify active genes in the genomes and essentially identify some very unusual microbes actively metabolizing in the extreme spring environment.

The microbes we found and described at Lost Hammer Spring are surprising, because, unlike other microorganisms, they dont depend on organic material or oxygen to live, adds Whyte.

Instead, they survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds such as methane, sulfides, sulfate, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, all of which are found on Mars. They can also fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen gasses from the atmosphere, all of which makes them highly adapted to both surviving and thriving in very extreme environments on Earth and beyond.

The next steps in the research will be to culture and further characterize the most abundant and active members of this strange microbial ecosystem, to better understand why and how they are thriving in the very cold, salty, muck of the Lost Hammer Spring. The researchers hope that this, in turn, will help in the interpretation of the exciting but enigmatic sulfur and carbon isotopes that were very recently obtained from the NASA Curiosity Rover in the Gale Crater on Mars.

Source: McGill University

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'Surprising' microbes shed light on how life could survive on Mars - Futurity: Research News

Deliver Us Mars will have the players in the shoes of Kathy Johanson, a young astronaut with a seemingly significant connection to the Red Planet. According to the devs, Kathy's father, Isaac, abruptly abandoned her in the past and took ARKs with him.

In order to understand the weight of these actions, we need to rewind a bit. In the game's universe, humanity has ruined Earth with pollution and climate change, which is why they are looking for a way off the once lush and beautiful planet. To that end, they created the ARKs, massive ships that are meant to give humanity a chance to colonise other planets and thus evade extinction.

Since Isaac stole what is seen as humanity's last chance, he has been declared a criminal, which obviously left Kathy in a rough spot. Around the time Deliver Us Mars kicks off, a mysterious transmission originating from Mars gets into Kathy's path and she becomes convinced Isaac could be alive. Therefore, the young astronaut goes to find him and provide humanity an opportunity to escape the dying Earth.

Overall, Deliver Us Mars may be a story about saving Earth but it's not above some good old fashioned drama to spice things up as we navigate the barren planet.

Kathy is voiced by Ellise Chappell, who is also lending the character her looks while Neil Newbon plays her father, Isaac.

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Deliver Us Mars story is all about saving Earth, but on Red Planet - AltChar

Japanese researchers have proposed constructing artificial-gravity buildings on the Moon and Mars which could help reduce health risks to humans in space.

Their proposals follow a study published earlier this month which found astronauts suffered significant bone loss while in low-gravity environments.

Only about half of this bone loss was recovered a year after the astronauts returned to Earth - raising concerns about future missions to Mars and the Moon.

Now researchers from Kyoto University and Kajima Corporation have proposed huge rotating structures that would create the effect of Earth-like gravity through centripetal force.

They propose building a living facility on the Moon called Lunar Glass which will be close to 400 metres tall and complete a full rotation every 20 seconds.

A similar facility called Mars Glass is proposed for Mars.

Renderings of these buildings shared by the SIC Human Spaceology Centre at Kyoto University are similar to the space station in the 2013 science-fiction film Elysium, although much smaller in scale.

The multi-story surfaces of the rotating buildings are surrounded by liquid water and land with trees, creating a mini-biome with water and carbo cycles to sustain human populations.

Alongside these facilities, the researchers proposed an interplanetary transportation system that maintains Earth-like gravity en route called the Hexatrack system.

The carriages of the land-based Hexatrack train would be separated at injector stations and then inserted into a rotating hexagonal pod which also generates centripetal force while travelling through space.

Rotational simulated gravity is already used in high-g centrifuges to train astronauts and aviators.

Science-fiction films including Elysium, Interstellar, and 2001: A Space Odyssey feature spacecraft that rotate to create artificial gravity - although no existing spacecraft has yet ever been designed to simulate it.

The researchers have proposed the whole system alongside announcing a joint study into achieving the plan - although they don't expect it will deliver results immediately.

"There is no plan like this in other countries' space development plans," said Yosuke Yamashiki, the director of the SIC Human Spaceology Centre.

"Our plan represents important technologies crucial to ensuring human beings will be able to move to space in the future," he added.

They caution that constructing the full-size facilities will take around 100 years, although they hope to build a simplified version on the Moon by 2050.

See the article here:

Japanese researchers unveil artificial-gravity facilities proposed for Moon and Mars - Sky News

CLEVELAND New on 3, get the latest information on what's happening and impacting you across Northeast Ohio on Thursday, July 14, 2022, on 3News Now with Stephanie Haney.

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