NASA Chooses MAVEN as the Next Mars Scout Mission

September 15, 2008 / Written by: NASA Press Release

NASA has selected a Mars robotic mission that will provide information about the Red Planet’s atmosphere, climate history and potential habitability in greater detail than ever before.

Called the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft, the $485 million mission is scheduled for launch in late 2013. The selection was evaluated to have the best science value and lowest implementation risk from 20 mission investigation proposals submitted in response to a NASA Announcement of Opportunity in August 2006.

“This mission will provide the first direct measurements ever taken to address key scientific questions about Mars’ evolution,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Mars once had a denser atmosphere that supported the presence of liquid water on the surface. As part of a dramatic climate change, most of the Martian atmosphere was lost. MAVEN will make definitive scientific measurements of present-day atmospheric loss that will offer clues about the planet’s history.

“The loss of Mars’ atmosphere has been an ongoing mystery,” McCuistion said. “MAVEN will help us solve it.”

The principal investigator for the mission is Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The university will receive $6 million to fund mission planning and technology development during the next year. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will manage the project. Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., will build the spacecraft based on designs from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and 2001 Mars Odyssey missions. The team will begin mission design and implementation in the fall of 2009.

Launched in August 2005, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is a multipurpose spacecraft that carries the most powerful telescopic camera ever flown to another planet. The camera can show Martian landscape features as small as a kitchen table from low orbital altitudes. The mission is examining potential landing sites for future surface missions and providing a communications relay for other Mars spacecraft.

The 2001 Mars Odyssey, launched in April of that year, is determining the composition of the Red Planet’s surface by searching for water and shallow buried ice. The spacecraft also is studying the planet’s radiation environment.

After arriving at Mars in the fall of 2014, MAVEN will use its propulsion system to enter an elliptical orbit ranging 90 to 3,870 miles above the planet. The spacecraft’s eight science instruments will take measurements during a full Earth year, which is roughly equivalent to half of a Martian year. MAVEN also will dip to an altitude 80 miles above the planet to sample Mars’ entire upper atmosphere. During and after its primary science mission, the spacecraft may be used to provide communications relay support for
robotic missions on the Martian surface.

“MAVEN will obtain critical measurements that the National Academy of Science listed as being of high priority in their 2003 decadal survey on planetary exploration,” said Michael Meyer, the Mars chief scientist at NASA Headquarters. “This field of study also was highlighted in the 2005 NASA Roadmap for New Science of the Sun-Earth System Connection.”

The Mars Scout Program is designed to send a series of small, low-cost, principal investigator-led missions to the Red Planet. The Phoenix Mars Lander was the first spacecraft selected. Phoenix landed on the icy northern polar region of Mars on May 25, 2008. The spacecraft completed its prime science mission on Aug. 25, 2008. The mission has been extended through Sept. 30.

NASA’s Mars Exploration Program seeks to characterize and understand Mars as a dynamic system, including its present and past environment, climate cycles, geology and biological potential.

For more information about NASA’s exploration of Mars, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/mars

NASA's Carl Sagan Fellows to Study Extraterrestrial Worlds

September 8, 2008 / Written by: NASA Press Release

NASA announced Wednesday the new Carl Sagan Postdoctoral Fellowships in Exoplanet Exploration, created to inspire the next generation of explorers seeking to learn more about planets, and possibly life, around other stars.

Planets beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, are being discovered at a staggering pace, with more than 300 currently known. Decades ago, long before any exoplanets had been found, the late Carl Sagan imagined such worlds, and pioneered the scientific pursuit of life that might exist on them. Sagan was an astronomer and a highly successful science communicator.

NASA’s new Sagan fellowships will allow talented young scientists to tread the path laid out by Sagan. The program will award stipends of approximately $60,000 per year, for a period of up to three years, to selected postdoctoral scientists. Topics can range from techniques for detecting the glow of a dim planet in the blinding glare of its host star, to searching for the crucial ingredients of life in other planetary systems.

“We are investing in our nation’s best and brightest in an emerging field that is tremendously inspiring to the public,” said Jon Morse, Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The Sagan Fellowship will join NASA’s new Einstein Postdoctoral Fellowship in Physics of the Cosmos and the Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cosmic Origins. All three fellowships represent a new theme-based approach, in which fellows will focus on compelling scientific questions, such as “are there Earth-like planets orbiting other stars?”

“NASA’s science-driven mission portfolio, its cultivation of young talent to pursue cutting-edge research, and the decision to commit its genius to a question of transcendent cultural significance, would have thrilled Carl,” said Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow and collaborator, who continues to write and produce.

“That this knowledge will be pursued in his name, as he joins a triumvirate of the leading lights of 20th century astronomy, is a
source of infinite pride to our family,” said Druyan. “It signifies that Carl’s passion to engage us all in the scientific experience, his daring curiosity and urgent concern for life on this planet, no longer eclipse his scientific achievements.”

A call for Sagan Fellowship proposals went out to the scientific community earlier this week, with selections to be announced in February 2009.

“There is an explosion of interest in the field,” said Charles
Beichman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Now we are going down a scientific path that Carl Sagan originally blazed, torch in hand, as he led us through the dark.” Beichman is executive director of NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, which will administer the fellowship program.

Recently, NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have made landmark observations of hot, Jupiter-like planets orbiting other stars. The telescopes detected methane and water in the planets’ atmospheres — the same molecules that might serve as tracers of life if discovered around smaller, rocky planets in the future. In a 1994 paper for the journal Nature, Sagan and colleagues used these and
other molecules to identify life on a planet — Earth. They used NASA’s Galileo spacecraft to observe the molecular signatures of our “pale blue dot,” as Sagan dubbed Earth, while the spacecraft flew by.

“Only a select few scientists carry the insight, vision and
persistence to open entire new vistas on the cosmos,” said Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and Frederick P. Rose director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “We know about Einstein. We know about Hubble. Add to this list Carl Sagan, who empowered us all — scientists as well as the public — to see planets not simply as cosmic objects but as worlds of their own that could harbor life.”

NASA’s Kepler mission, which Sagan championed in his last years, will launch next year and will survey hundreds of thousands of nearby stars for Earth-like worlds, some of which are likely to orbit within the star’s water-friendly “habitable zone” favorable for life as we know it.

More information about NASA’s Sagan Fellowships is available on the Web at:

http://nexsci.caltech.edu/sagan

Looking for Life on Mars – in a Canadian Lake

September 8, 2008 / Written by: Henry Bortman

On the surface, Pavilion Lake, nestled among the peaks of Canada’s Marble Range, looks like a thousand other mountain lakes. It’s not unusually large or deep. It’s not especially acidic, or alkaline; it’s not overly salty; nor are there high concentrations of minerals dissolved in its water. Locals come here to fish, to boat, to swim, and to watch the summer clouds drift by.

But underwater lies an astonishing discovery that has drawn astrobiologists from around the world to this rural corner of British Columbia. Pavilion Lake is host to an underwater “forest” of microbialites, coral-like structures, in a variety of shapes and sizes, that may help guide the search for life on Mars.

“The size of these microbialites is unlike anything else that’s ever been documented,” said Darlene Lim of NASA Ames Research Center. Lim is the principal investigator for the Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP). “On a micro scale, there might be a lot of similarities to what you see in other lakes, other ponds, around the world, and also in marine environments. But on a macro scale, they look very different. And the fact that they’re in this very accessible, sort of regular, recreational lake is curious.”

Scientists have been studying the Pavilion Lake formations for nearly a decade. Scuba divers have retrieved samples from as deep as 100 feet below the surface for analysis. But the lake is too deep – more than 200 feet at some points – and the microbialites structures too varied for divers to survey it thoroughly. So this summer, a team of researchers went through a rigorous training program to become submarine pilots and then spent a week exploring the lake in DeepWorker submarines built by Nuytco Research of North Vancouver, British Columbia. Their goal was to map the distribution of microbialites in the lake, and to bring back a more-extensive set of samples, including samples from the deepest regions.

The streamlined, shiny black DeepWorkers – there were two of them – looked more like George Jetson’s flying car than a typical Hunt-for-Red-October-type submarine. There was just enough room for one person to fit inside and the pilot’s head stuck up into a Plexiglas bubble that hinged open for access. The unit was operated entirely by foot pedals.

At the start of each run, a custom-built barge, pushed by a small motorboat lashed to its back end, hauled the DeepWorkers into position. The pilots climbed inside, the hatches were sealed and the subs, assisted by a pair of divers, were lowered through a hole in the floor of the barge into the water.

The pilots then “flew” the subs along a course decided upon during lengthy scientific discussions earlier in the day. The runs typically lasted 2 to 3 hours. The pilots were guided by another pair of team members, who tracked the subs’ movements from CapComm, a rectangular flat-bottom watercraft with a metal roof decked out in Christmas lights. Although the pilots had excellent visibility, they literally didn’t know where they were going without continuous navigational updates from CapComm.

The microbialites, composed of calcium carbonate, range in size from small bumps just a few centimeters across to enormous structures as much as 12 feet high. They come in a variety of shapes; some have been described as looking like cauliflower, others like broccoli, still others like asparagus, or fingers. Some contain central columns that resemble chimneys.

But it’s not just their varied shapes that makes them so interesting. It’s the fact that no one knows how they formed.

“We are sure that the structures are here. We’re sure that they vary significantly with depth. And we’re sure that they’re not found in other analogous lakes. Those are the facts, the observational facts,” said Chris McKay of NASA Ames Research Center. McKay was one of the first scientists to scuba dive in Pavilion Lake. “When you look at structures like this, the standard hypothesis is that organisms are playing a role in creating them. But we haven’t proven that here.”

Present-day bacteria are playing some role in forming calcium carbonate structures in the lake, Lim said. “There’s trash down there. And the trash is fairly recent; at most it’s like 100 years old, but probably less than that. We know that there’s carbonate deposition happening on the trash. We know that there is microbial growth of some sort on the trash, there are microbial crusts that are developing on trash.”

Some cyanobacteria excrete calcium carbonate, so one possibility is that the crusts are composed of this bacterial waste. Or perhaps, the bacteria build up an electric charge along their cell walls, which attracts calcium carbonate in the lake water; or they secrete slime that the carbonates bind to.

But whether or not the process that is forming the modern-day carbonate crusts is the same process that formed the bulk of the large structures, “that’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Lim said.

The working hypothesis is that bacteria were involved in some way in creating the large structures. But it’s also possible that, although bacteria form crusts on the surfaces of the structures, the structures themselves were the product of a purely chemical, rather than a biological, process.

Cyanobacteria in other locations are famous for building a variety of structures, from thick rubbery mats to layered dome-like structures known as stromatolites, which are thought to have been the dominant form of life on early Earth. Today, though, they are rare, existing only in extreme environments.

The shallow waters of Shark’s Bay, in Western Australia, for example, are home to large fields of dome-shaped stromatolites. But Shark’s Bay is too salty for the tiny worms that like to snack on the bacteria. That’s why the stromatolites can thrive: there’s nothing around to eat them.

Pavilion Lake, however, is “normal.” It has all kinds of larger organisms living in it. It’s even stocked with fish. And therein lies the mystery. There are smaller, less diverse, carbonate structures in another nearby lake, Kelly Lake, but none have been found in any of the other lakes in the region. Something makes Pavilion Lake unique. It’s just that no one has figured out yet what that something is.

Researchers are approaching the problem from a number of different angles. Some are looking at the chemistry of the water and trying to understand the lake’s topography and underground water sources. Others are doing DNA analysis of the slime that coats the microbialites to learn what organisms are living there, and what they eat – and excrete.

Still others are comparing the carbon in calcium-carbonate samples from the slime layer to that in samples taken from the hard core of the structures, to determine whether there is a clear biological signature in the core. Living organisms prefer to use the lighter isotope of carbon, C-12, so they tend to leave the environment around them enriched in the heavier C-13.

Results on that front remain inconclusive, says Greg Slater of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. Slater is a co-PI of PLRP. “The carbonate in the surface community has a signature of biological activity. But when you go in deeper and down into the structure, that signal doesn’t seem to be preserved.”

Which is odd, because if the structures were built by microorganisms, there should be some isotopic evidence of their biological origin. Slater plans to use powerful microscopes to compare the crystal structure of calcium carbonate from different depths within the microbialites. It’s possible that, over time, the structures have dissolved and recrystalized, in the process changing from one form of calcium carbonate to another – and losing their biological carbon-isotope signature in the process. If this avenue of research pans out, the results could provide new insight into how biosignatures are modified and preserved over time, and that understanding, in turn, could aid in future efforts to look for biosignatures on Mars.

Lim and her colleagues plan to return to Pavilion Lake in future years to continue their work – perhaps with an even more unusual submarine. Although the DeepWorkers enabled researchers to collect samples from the deepest parts of the lake, it’s difficult to maneuver them precisely enough to avoid damaging the microbialites. Lim is hopeful that a new combination-submarine-and-pressurized-underwater-suit, under development by Nuytco, will make it possible for divers to work in the deepest parts of the lake without having to resort to dangerous compression diving.

The Pavilion Lake Research Project 2008 field work was supported by the Canadian Space Agency, NASA, McMaster University, the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Parks, the Pavilion First Nations Band and Nuytco Research Ltd.

Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]

Mars Research in Polar Bear Country

September 3, 2008 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Interview with Hans Amundsen

Hans Amundsen is a Norwegian geologist and the expedition leader of AMASE (Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition). AMASE is an international, interdisciplinary scientific research project that since 2003 has traveled to Svalbard, a group of islands in the High Arctic that provides some of the best sites on Earth for doing Mars-related field research. Among the most valuable geologic discoveries there are carbonate globules similar to those found in the martian meteorite ALH84001. Many of the scientific instruments slated for future Mars rovers, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) and ESA’s ExoMars, have been field-tested in Svalbard. Astrobiology Magazine’s field research editor Henry Bortman recently spoke with Amundsen about the history of AMASE.

Astrobiology Magazine (AM): How did you get involved in the AMASE project?

Hans Amundsen (HA): It dates back 11 years ago when Allan Treiman at LPI and Dave Blake and Ted Bunch at NASA Ames tracked down a paper I wrote in Nature on some carbonate globules in arctic volcanoes up on Svalbard.

At that time I was working for an oil company. One day while I was surfing on the Sojourner rover website, looking at these fantastic Mars images, I got an email from Allan Treiman, asking for samples from Svalbard and if I wanted to join in on the work they were doing on the Alan Hills meteorite (ALH84001, a meteorite from Mars that some scientists argued contained signs of martian life). That was ’97. After a few years of exchanging samples and emails, we started working on the idea of getting more scientists up to this locality to try to find out more about how carbonates form on Mars, and to use it as a Mars analogue in a general sense.

In 2003, with the help of the University of Oslo, I managed to charter a small ice-breaker to go up there with a crew and the whole works. The university took the risk of chartering it and I sold out the slots onboard to Mars science people, and the word just spread. Steelie (Andrew Steele of Carnegie Institution of Washington) called me up a couple weeks before the expedition was setting out and asked if there were any vacant slots and I had two, so he came along with his post-doc, Maia Schweizer.

People came in from all over the world. We met there for the first time, onboard ship, and just headed off. We had no funding, there was no project plan, it was just a lot of very, very enthusiastic people. Some of them are still onboard.

Steelie is the AMASE chief scientist and has become my brother-in-arms on this project. We’ve developed it together with a core team of people that came onboard during the first years. And it’s now grown so much, we had to hire a larger ship. So we have an icebreaker that we charter every year, the 900-ton R/V Lance, with room for 32 scientists. We’ve got funding from both NASA and ESA now: Steelie’s through his ASTEP project; and I got funding through ESA’s PRODEX program. The PRODEX project is designed to test ExoMars instruments, the same way we test MSL and other instruments for NASA. So now we actually have deliverables that we have to come up with; we can’t just play around any more.

AM: What makes Svalbard such a good research site?

HA: Within a fairly limited area you have access to all sorts of geology. It’s a fantastic classroom for any type of geology. And because it’s in the High Arctic, there’s no vegetation. There’s lots of fjords, so you have access to all the sites by ship. It’s comparable to Antarctica in terms of conditions and geology but it’s much cheaper to operate. I’ve been doing field work on Svalbard for the past 25 years, on and off, and I know the area very well and how to operate there. We’ve worked four or five different areas, some of them dealing with different aspects of the Alan Hills carbonate story. We’ve been looking at blueberry (hematite) concretion analogs, old stromatolites, red beds, fluvial sediments, different things that are relevant for Mars research and astrobiology in general.

AM: Where exactly is Svalbard?

HA: It’s directly north of Norway, 80 degrees north, way north of the Arctic Circle. It’s governed by the Svalbard Treaty, which was set down in 1920 and states that Svalbard is Norwegian territory, governed by Norway, but that anyone who has signed the Svalbard Treaty has access to its resources. So the Russians mine for coal there. There’s a Polish research station, and of course there’s a Norwegian research station and Longyearbyen with around 2,000 people. Actually, there’s lots of international research occurring on Svalbard.

AM: What has been the most interesting aspect for you of working on Svalbard?

HA: Gathering all these interdisciplinary scientists and putting them onboard a ship, which is a confined environment, and making them work together has been a fantastic experience. We have what we call the “polar bear factor,” which means that we have to take safety issues very seriously and focus on building teams.

Nobody’s allowed to work alone. You always work in groups of four or five people. There’s always radio communication going on. We have to know where everybody is, we have to look out for bears, and make sure that people are not dehydrated, cold, or wet.

That enables you to take all these alpha personalities and weld them into a team; they have to collaborate. People have to carry each other’s gear; they have to watch each other’s back. We always have one scientist standing guard with a rifle watching while other scientists do their work. That makes it a fantastic environment for forcing people to work together, and it actually fosters interdisciplinary science. People who normally wouldn’t even talk, they have to collaborate. It’s turned the AMASE culture into something kind of special.

AM: Is it a stressful environment?

HA: No, but because of the midnight sun, it’s daylight all the time, you can work 24/7. People tend to work, not sleep. And when they’re finished with whatever they have to do, they’ll just stand on deck and look at that fantastic scenery. So during the two weeks these things last, maybe you average 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night. You’re exhausted by the end. There’s a lot of physical activity, a lot of walking involved, and no trails. And you have to carry stuff. We do have helicopters for when we need to lift something heavy, but there’s a lot of hiking. We’re hiking up steep mountainsides and walking on glaciers and carrying heavy equipment, and working very, very long hours.

AM: What’s the focus of your research going to be this year?

HA: From the previous year, we’ve got ESA instruments onboard, ExoMars instruments. In the past we focused on microbiology and mineralogy tools. This year we’re testing the PanCam imager, the Infrared spectrometer MIMA (Mars Inrared MApper) and also the ground-penetrating Radar, called WISDOM (Water Ice and Subsurface Deposit Observations on Mars). The Raman/LIBS instrument will be along for the second time.

There are two field sites this year that we haven’t visited before. One is a continuous section of sediments that covers about 350 million years of Earth history, going from the Carboniferous (which began about 360 million years ago) until the Tertiary. The entire section has been rotated sideways so the beds are oriented vertically and you can actually walk 2 or 3 kilometers through 350 million years along a beach cliff, and you can address all sorts of geochemistry, mineralogy, microbiology, and biosignature questions.

And then there’s a small ice cap far north on Svalbard, which is dissected. So you have this 5 to 10 meter wall with beautiful structures — small sedimentary horizons in the ice — and we’ll hit that with all sorts of instruments. That’s a new science scene to us, looking at ice in that way.

AM: You’ve mentioned polar bears a couple of times. How often do you see a bear?

HA: Last year we had a couple of bear incidents. One day when we were working up a hillside on a volcano, suddenly a bear wandered by, down by the beach. Nothing dangerous, but we just sort of monitored it while it walked along for a couple of hours. We just stopped working and made sure that the bear didn’t approach us, and it went off. And another incident, we were going ashore somewhere and we more or less stepped onto a bear, but it ran off. So, yeah, they’re there. And they have no natural enemies. They eat what they want to eat. They can run 100 yards in 6 seconds. So we run everybody through an Arctic safety course, arranged by the university on Svalbard, which involves dos and don’ts, and polar bear psychology, and shooting practice with rifles. Everybody’s supposed to be able to handle a rifle and know what to do when a polar bear gets too close.

Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]

Iron Isotope Record Reflects Microbial Metabolism Through Time

August 27, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

NAI’s University of Wisconsin team presents a review of iron isotope fingerprints created through biogeochemical cycling in the May, 2008 issue of Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. This landmark paper brings together for the first time the co-evolution records of photosynthesis, bacterial sulfate reduction, and bacterial iron reduction in the early Earth. They review data on natural systems and experiments, looking at both abiological and biological processes, and conclude that the temporal carbon, sulfur, and iron isotope record reflects the interplay of changing microbial metabolisms over Earth’s history.

Silicate Mineralogy on Mars Indicates Wet Past

August 27, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

Using data from the CRISM instrument on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, astrobiologists from NAI’s SETI Institute and Marine Biological Laboratory teams present findings of silicate mineralogy indicating a wide range of past aqueous activity in the Mawrth Vallis on Mars. This work, published in the August 8 issue of Science, suggests that abundant water was once present on Mars and that hydrothermal activity may have occurred. The Mawrith Vallis could be a landing site for future rover missions to Mars.

Jack Hills Zircons: New Information About Earth's Earliest Crust

August 27, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice

Members of NAI’s University of Wisconsin, Madison team have a new paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters presenting their analyses of 4.35 – 3.36 billion year old detrital zircons from the Jack Hills, Western Australia. Their data reveal relatively high lithium abundances compared to other zircons, as well as lithium isotope ratios that are similar to continental crust weathering products rather than ocean floor basalts. The results support the hypothesis that continental-type crust and oceans existed by 4.3 billion years ago, and suggest that weathering was extensive in the early Archean.

Aug 29, 2008

Wandering Geologist said:

I read this paper and it made no sense to me. When I asked my geochemist friends to explain what structural/chemical role lithium has in zircon, they said: “What? It doesn’t have any. It’s a contaminant.” After I pointed this paper out to them, ALL said that the study was deeply flawed.

So, what does this mean for this work? My impression is that it their lithium values don’t tell us anything about the early earth. Hey, what happened to the peer-review process on this one!??

Sep 5, 2008

curious said:

if lithium can move in and out of this mineral then what does it tell us about anything

ASTID Funds 15 New Projects

August 26, 2008 / Posted by: Shige Abe

The Astrobiology Science and Technology Instrument Development (ASTID) Program this summer approved 15 proposals for funding, including mission concept studies and concept studies for small payloads and satellites.

The new projects were selected out of 97 proposals submitted in response to the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s 2007 Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) solicitation. The new projects range from instruments for astrobiology investigations on future planetary exploration missions to a prototype artificial-gravity platform for small satellites and planetary landers to a nanosatellite designed to search for transiting Earth-like extrasolar planets.

The 15 newly funded projects are:

William Brinckerhoff, Principal Investigator (PI), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: “Miniature laser TOF-MS with reversible ion polarity”

A next-generation laser-desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometer (LD-TOF-MS) will be developed for in-situ astrobiology investigations of the organic and elemental composition of solid-phase samples. This instrument will feature a combined off-axis pulsed ultraviolet laser and optical microscope system to enable interrogation of small spot sizes for focused sample analysis.

Nancy Chanover, PI, New Mexico State University: “Infrared Spectroscopy for In-Situ Organic Detection”

A near-infrared spectral microscope will be developed for astrobiology investigations on future NASA missions to icy satellites in the outer solar system. This small, non-imaging, in-situ acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) spectrometer will be designed to prescreen samples for evidence of volatile or refractory organics before analysis by an in-situ instrument such as a mass spectrometer. This project includes the development of a portable unit that can be field tested on Earth.

Brian Drouin, PI, Jet Propulsion Laboratory: “Submillimeter Gas Analysis for Life Detection”

A high-sensitivity gas analyzer will be built with absolute specificity to nearly all gas-phase species. This instrument should be able to determine abundances of previously inseparable and/or indistinguishable trace gases.

Brian Glass, PI, NASA Ames Research Center: “Astrobiology Rotary-Percussive Automated Drill (ARPAD)”

An automated, prototype, rotary-percussive drill system will be designed and built, with the capability of penetrating regolith and ice layers to five meters or greater. The drill will be tested with several kinds of rocks in laboratory-ambient and Mars-analog conditions to develop models of Mars rotary-percussive drilling performance and fault modes. This drill system is conceived to perform core sampling as well.

Daniel Glavin, PI, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: “VAPoR: A Miniature Pyrolysis Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer Prototype for In Situ Investigations in Planetary Astrobiology”

The Volatile Analysis by Pyrolysis of Regolith (VAPoR) instrument concept selected by the NASA Lunar Sortie Science Opportunities (LSSO) Program in 2007 is a miniature pyrolysis mass spectrometer instrument designed to detect volatiles in lunar atmosphere and polar regolith samples. excellent instrument candidate for future in situ astrobiology missions to the lunar poles, comets, asteroids and icy outer solar system satellites. The goal of this ASTID proposal will be to build an end-to-end VAPoR prototype and characterize the performance of the instrument in a relevant ultra-high vacuum environment by analyzing a well characterized set of regolith materials including Apollo 16 lunar soil, Murchison carbonaceous meteorite, and cometary ice analog materials. This ASTID research and development program will reduce several areas of technical risk bringing the VAPoR instrument to Technical Readiness Level 5 for proposal to a future Planetary Astrobiology mission.

Tullis Onstott, PI, Princeton University: “A CRDS for Isotopic Measurement of Martian CH4”

A near-infrared, cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS) will be designed, fabricated and tested. The intended function of this instrument is to identify the sources and sinks of martian atmospheric methane and determine whether it is biologically generated or consumed. This instrument should be 1,000 times more sensitive than the TLS to be flown on the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Chad Paavola, PI, NASA Ames Research Center: “Stereospecific sensors for amino acids and carbohydrates in extraterrestrial environments”

The search for organic molecule biomarkers is an important element of the search for extraterrestrial life and the study of prebiotic environments. In research funded by a previous ASTID grant, we developed sensors for amino acids and sugars based on proteins. We propose to radically improve the signal to noise ratio (S/N) of the technology and to focus the amino acid specificities on those most relevant for astrobiology. We will also test the sensing elements in a planar optical waveguide flow cell.

We have developed protein-based sensing elements with S/N of 5-10 and the present goal is > 50. One approach will maximize signal change, the other will utilize the full range of signal change. Sensing elements we have developed use resonance energy transfer to generate signal change that depends on the protein’s analyte-dependent change in shape. Substitution of long-lifetime luminescent compounds for organic fluorophore resonant energy donors will improve the signal over background by 50-100 fold. Placing the resonant energy transfer donor on a separate peptide selected to bind only the protein-analyte complex results in larger distance change between donor and acceptor than conformational change, resulting in maximum signal with analyte and minimum signal without.

Amino acid sensing will focus on those present in extraterrestrial environments, based on studies of meteorites. The chiral amino acids alanine, valine, isovaline and alpha-aminoisobutyric acid are abundant in carbonaceous chondrites and represent compounds common in terrestrial life (alanine, valine) or uncommon (isovaline, alpha-aminoisobutyric acid). Specificities for these amino acids will be combined with specificity for D/L-amino acids and added to glucose and ribose sensors being developed in previously funded research, to produce ten sensing elements for amino acids and sugars that can be deployed with existing sampling hardware as a stand-alone instrument or together with other instrumentation using planar waveguide or standard optics.

Andrew Pohorille/NASA Ames Research Center: “Space-based Instrument for Measuring in situ Gene Expression”

We propose to develop a fully automated, miniaturized, integrated fluidic system for in situ measurements of gene expression in bacterial cultures exposed to space environments. The instrument is aimed at operating in small satellites. We will demonstrate that the instrument performs the required functions and provides the intended measurements. Subsequently, we will build a prototype that has the same features as the intended flight instrument and demonstrate that it can be integrated with small satellite architectures and function under condition characteristic of space flights. The instrument will carry out all steps needed for measuring in situ gene expression: growth of microorganisms, preparation of an RNA sample and detection of signal that measures hybridization of nucleic acid to DNA microarrays. The system will be sensitive, resistant to shocks and vibrations, have low power requirements and function in any orientation relative to the gravity vector. Its unique feature is the capability to use a single microarray in multiple experiments separated in time during flight.

The instrument will represent a major scientific and technological advancement in our ability to understand the impact of the space environment on biological systems by providing data about the behavior of microorganisms during space flights orders of magnitude richer than what is currently available. Once developed, the instrument will be used, for example, to understand adaptation of terrestrial life to conditions in space, identify deleterious effects of the space environment, and test our ability to sustain and grow in space organisms that can be used for life support and in situ resource utilization. By doing so, this work will support Goal 3 of the NASA Strategic Plan and Goal 6 of the Astrobiology Roadmap, which emphasizes the importance of assessing the potential for microbial life to adapt and evolve in environments beyond its planet of origin.

Richard Quinn/SETI Institute: “In situ Chemical Activation of Nanostructured Biosensor Arrays for Astrobiology Science”

We propose to develop a micromachined device to chemically activate nanostructured sensor arrays in situ on Mars and on other planetary surfaces. The array design is compatible with small payload missions and multiple analysis platforms (e.g. optical, electrochemical). The technical and scientific functionally of the device will be demonstrated using an Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Microelectrode Array Analyzer currently under development with NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II funding. The in situ NanoBioArray, will target high priority science objectives for astrobiology including: characterization of environments for astrobiological sample selection, in situ measurement of chemical and organic biomarkers, in situ characterization of biomarker preservation, and in situ detection of extant life. The development of a time-of-use technology for sensor activation during planetary exploration will enable the use of classes of sensors, which are currently shelf life limited, for astrobiological science investigations.

Antonio Ricco/NASA Ames Research Center: “GraviSat: A Nanosatellite-Compatible System to Generate Artificial Gravity using a Rotating CD Platform for Space Studies of Microorganisms and Cells”

We will develop and demonstrate a prototype artificial gravity platform appropriate for biological experimentation in small satellites and planetary landers. Based on “lab-on-a-CD” (CDbioLab) technology, this platform will: (1) adapt to a range of biological experiments with microorganisms, cell cultures, and tissues; (2) adapt to multiple detection methods, including optical and electrochemical; (3) provide artificial acceleration levels from microgravity to > 1 g by controlling rotational velocity; (4) be compatible in size, mass, and power consumption with successfully flown “3-cube” nanosatellite hardware, for which secondary payload opportunities are numerous.

The state of knowledge in astrobiology and space bioscience is significantly limited by two experimental design issues: sufficient numbers of fully independent replicates, and a complete set of appropriate controls. We will address the former by developing CDbioLab technology for free-flying small satellites requiring no human tending and no return of samples to Earth, allowing a range of behavioral, growth, and molecular measurements to be made (over multiple generations for some organisms). Control experiments are critical when multiple perturbations are present, as they are outside Earth’s magnetosphere where microgravity and the complex radiation environment can both affect biology. On-board generation of a gravitational field is the only way to unequivocally deconvolve these two effects; the CDbioLab can make such control experiments routine.

The five principle objectives of this project are: (1) design, fabricate, and characterize CDbioLab fluidic discs, motor, and controller, and demonstrate in-disc culturing of cyanobacteria; (2) prove biocompatibility and successful stasis using CDbioLab discs and on-disc reagent storage; (3) integrate MEMS-based electrochemical sensors onto CDbioLab discs and monitor organism growth using this sensor; (4) measure photosynthetic efficiency of cyanobacteria in CDbioLab discs using PAM fluorometry; (5) integrate the CDbioLab system in a flight pressure vessel and demonstrate operation inside an environmental chamber providing space-like conditions of temperature and pressure.

Haris Riris/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center “A Compact Lidar for High Resolution Measurements of Trace Gases” – We propose to continue the development of a diode-laser seeded fiber-based lidar that can, for the first time, enable space-based measurements of the trace gases, with high spatial resolution and sensitivity, using measurements in the 3-4 mm band. This work is directly relevant to NASA’s Strategic Goals and Outcomes: “Advance scientific knowledge of the origin and history of the solar system; explore the potential for life elsewhere.” Our work also addresses NASA’s Astrobiology Roadmap 2008, “How does life begin and evolve?”; “Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe?” Answering many fundamental questions about planetary atmospheres requires monitoring of the atmosphere with unprecedented accuracy to both high and low latitudes, over both day and night and all seasons. Only orbiting laser remote sensing instruments are capable of such global coverage and accuracy. Differential Absorption Lidar techniques are well established, and can map trace gas concentrations from orbit on a global scale. Tunable lidar measurements can identify sources of possible biogenic gases, such as trace gas plumes produced by localized subsurface biology, and aid in the search for extra-terrestrial life. Our proposed will make high spatial resolution measurements of the concentration of methane, formaldehyde, ethane, carbon dioxide, water vapor and their isotopes. These high-resolution maps of gas concentrations will enhance our understanding of the current state of planetary atmospheres and geology.

The goal of this work is to advance the technology readiness of our existing breadboard instrument for future astrobiology missions and if possible, provide an airborne demonstration. Our choice of laser technology, which is highly leveraged by the commercial and defense sectors, will advance the technology for a large range of instrumentation for a wide set of astrobiology missions. Our proposed work benefits from considerable leverage and equipment from our ongoing NASA ESTO (IIP) and GSFC IRAD programs.

Orlando Santos/NASA Ames Research Center: “Exposure of Organics On a Small Satellite (EOOSS)”

We propose to expose organic compounds to natural forces aboard a satellite at Earth orbit and determine if there is enantiomer preference in the region commonly occupied by near-Earth satellites. Such effects could have important implication for the origin of the homochirality observed in life as we now know it. As of now, the principal natural phenomena thought to be capable of enantiomer selection in the early solar system are 1) selective destruction of enantiomers by circularly polarized light (CPL) and 2) a combination of a magnetic field and parallel incident light acting on a pair of enantiomers. Theoretical and experimental evidence have shown that both scenarios can result in a preference of one enantiomer over another: the laboratory part of this project will concentrate on the latter scenario (magnetic field + parallel incident) although in Earth orbit compounds may be subjected to a range of unknown effects.

Although the laboratory enantiomer enhancements observed to date in the above scenarios are small (on the order of ~ 10-4 for magnetic field/parallel light effects) such results, on Earth or in interstellar space, in the early solar system could have lead to subsequent chemical enhancements such as life’s current homochirality. To produce such a combination of causative factors (co-parallel magnetic field and incident radiation) on the satellite it is thought that the most ideal satellite orbit should be at the approximate latitude of 25O (south or north). Here the magnetic inclination (angle of incident magnetic lines impinging on Earth’s surface at that location) is the most (but not perfectly) parallel to the sun’s radiation. Absorption spectra from the chosen organic compounds will be used to guide laboratory experiments meant to be preambles to actual satellite measurements. The method of detection on the satellite will be polarimetry.

Although our current knowledge leads to the present rationale and experimental setup, there may be unknown natural forces (e.g., various forms of radiation) at Earth-orbit that might also lead to chiral effects on the organic compounds.

Sara Seager/Massachusetts Institute of Technology: “A Nanosatellite Concept Study to Find Transiting Earth Analogs Around the Brightest Sun-Like Stars”

We stand on a great divide in the detection and study of exoplanets. On one side of this divide are the numerous giant exoplanets with measured densities and atmospheric temperatures. On the other side lies the possibility, as yet unrealized, of detecting and characterizing a true Earth analog (an Earth-size planet orbiting a sun-like star in a 1 AU orbit). We propose to bridge this divide by developing a concept for “ExoplanetSat”, a nanosatellite capable of continuously monitoring one nearby, bright star for 18 months to search for transiting Earths. The concept study will flow to a mission involving a suite of nanosatellites to monitor the brightest stars – stars too widely separated across the sky for a single telescope to continuously monitor.

The primary engineering objective is to develop an attitude control system to point a 3kg, 10cmx10cmx30cm nanosatellite to within a few arcseconds and to develop camera image stabilization hardware and software, using piezoelectric actuators, to keep the star to a fraction of a camera pixel. Low cost, low risk, and flexible launch opportunities will be enabled by utilizing the P-POD design and low-Earth orbit.
The primary science objective is to determine which stars offer the best opportunity for discovery of transits, given each star’s spectrum, wavelength-dependent variability, location on the sky, and feasible instrumental parameters. Because only planets with the highest signal-to-noise transits will allow followup mass and atmospheric biosignature measurements, targeted searches for transiting planets around the brightest sun-like stars are critical. A nanosatellite mission is a cost-effective opportunity to monitor the top priority stars, immediately. These facts compensate for the low probability of Earth-analog transits for any individual star. The education objective is to enable undergraduate and graduate students to get hands-on experience with all aspects of a space mission, from concept study to flight.

Edward Sittler/Goddard Space Flight Center “Ion Neutral 3D Mass Spectrometer to Determine Astrobiological Potential of Europa”

We propose to develop a novel ion-neutral 3D mass spectrometer to determine the astrobiological potential of Europa. The instrument uses a combination of electrostatic deflection, magnetic deflection, time-of-flight and solid state detection strategies. This instrument allows one to select a mass group of minor species for entrance into spectrometer, while rejecting major species (O+n, S+n, O2+), which can hide minor species due to scattering that may occur within the instrument. Measuring minor species, including isotopes, is essential for determining the origins and evolution of Europa’s atmospheres (internal global ocean), detection of trace ions & gases and detection biosignature molecules. In addition to Europa this ion-neutral mass spectrometer will have an impact on the field of planetary atmospheres, planetary exospheres, planetary ionospheres, planetary magnetospheres, planetary moons, comets, KBO objects and their interaction with the solar wind when applicable. It will have unmatched capability to uniquely identify minor species at the parts-per-billion level with a very high mass resolution (8 < M/dM < 1000). This resolution can be attained over a very wide range of energies from a fraction of an electron volt (e.g., ionospheric ions or neutrals) up to 50 kV (e.g., Jovian magnetospheric ions, Europa exospheric pickup ions), with high geometric factor and relatively low mass ~ 8 kg and power ~ 7 watts. This instrument can cover the mass range 1 <= M <= 1000 amu, with higher masses ~ 5000 amu are achievable. Unique ion identification will be attained with very low background detection even for the harsh radiation environment at Europa, a prime target in the decadal report.

Maria Zuber/Massachusetts Institute Of Technology “A Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes (SETG): An In-situ Detector for Life on Mars Ancestrally Related to Life on Earth”

The Search for Extraterrestrial Genomes (SETG) Project will test the hypothesis that life on Mars, if it exists, shares a common ancestor with life on Earth. There is increasing evidence that viable microbes could have been transferred between the two planets, based in part on calculations of meteorite trajectories and magnetization studies supporting only mild heating of meteorite cores. In addition, microbial life has been discovered in Earth environments exposed to high levels of radiation and extremes of temperature, demonstrating the incredible adaptability of microbes. Based on the shared-ancestry hypothesis, we propose to look for DNA and RNA through in-situ analysis of Martian soil (or ice) samples. Using molecular biology approaches including Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), we aim to develop an instrument that can isolate, amplify, detect, and classify any extant DNA or RNA based organism, even at extremely low abundance. In our first ASTID grant we made substantial progress, including demonstrating the core amplification and detection technology. Here we propose to develop several components of our instrument including a microfluidic module that will permit sequencing in-situ, on Mars. By returning precise genetic information, SETG virtually eliminates false positive results: sequences from likely contaminates are immediately identified, whereas any system of life isolated from that on Earth over geologic time will be evident from phylogenetic analysis. This, combined with ultraclean techniques and single-molecule sensitivity, make SETG arguably the most sensitive and specific detector of life, and an essential component of a comprehensive life detection strategy.

Liquid Water in the Martian North? Maybe.

August 22, 2008 / Written by: Henry Bortman

Perchlorate. Never heard of it? Join the club. But NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft has found it in the soil in the icy northern plains of Mars. And now that it’s been found, scientists are scrambling to explain how it got there, and what, if anything, its presence means about the habitability of the martian north.

Phoenix didn’t go to Mars to find perchlorate. It went looking for evidence of liquid water. From orbit, NASA’s Mars Odyssey in 2002 discovered water ice in the martian north, lying just inches beneath the surface. Very cold, very hard ice. Far too cold to support life.

But Mars’s polar regions aren’t always so cold. The angle at which Mars tilts changes over time, and every hundred thousand years or so the planet leans so far over that its north and south poles take turns facing the sun as the planet travels through its orbit. When this happens, the polar regions get increased sunlight, and some of the subsurface ice may melt, and leave behind telltale mineral signs in the martian soil. Those signs are what Phoenix is looking for.

NASA’s MER rovers have both found evidence, at sites near the martian equator, of rocks that were altered by the action of liquid water. But most scientists agree that those alterations occurred quite early in Mars’s history, perhaps as long ago as 4 billion years.

In the northern plains, where subsurface ice is prevalent, liquid water may have been around more recently. As recently as the last time Mars wobbled over onto its side.

Has Phoenix found evidence of liquid water? The jury is still out. But it has found perchlorates.

Perchlorate is a chemical compound, a negatively charged ion, that contains a single chlorine atom and four oxygen atoms. It combines with potassium, magnesium, or any of a number of other elements, to form perchlorate salts, or simply, perchlorates.

Perchlorates are incredibly soluble. That’s why, on Earth, it’s rare to find large natural deposits of them. Such deposits can exist only in very arid environments, such as Chile’s Atacama Desert. Water no doubt played a role in concentrating those deposits initially, but even a little bit of rain will cause perchlorates to dissolve and wash away. That’s why they’re more commonly found in rivers and lakes.

So where there is perchlorate, there is a water story. On Earth. On Mars, it turns out, perchlorates don’t necessarily imply water.

In nature perchlorates form photochemically in the atmosphere, and then settle randomly on a planetary surface. No water is involved in their creation. So merely finding perchlorates on Mars doesn’t say anything one way or another about liquid water.

Finding a concentration of perchlorates would argue that liquid water had been involved. “If we find a deposit of perchlorate, one can speculate that water had melted at some point and had collected it into an accumulation,” says Richard Quinn, a Phoenix researcher with the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. But Phoenix hasn’t yet found a concentrated deposit of perchlorates.

Alternatively, if Phoenix found some sort of perchlorate gradient – say it saw only a small trace of perchlorate in a sample from the surface, but it saw a larger quantity in a second sample from a few inches below the first, at the boundary between the soil and the ice – one could be fairly certain that liquid water was responsible. But Phoenix hasn’t found a gradient, either.

Phoenix has two different instruments that can detect perchlorates, but they go about it in different ways. The spacecraft’s Wet Chemistry Lab (WCL) analyzes a soil sample by putting it in a small beaker of water, and then looking to see what dissolves. The beaker’s walls contain some two dozen electrochemical sensors, each of which is sensitive to the presence of a particular ion, perchlorate being one of them.

Phoenix’s TEGA (Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer) uses a different approach. It heats the sample, in stages, and then “sniffs” at the fumes that burn off at different temperatures. TEGA can’t detect perchlorate directly; instead it records a release of oxygen when the perchlorate breaks down. The temperature at which the oxygen is detected gives a clue to which perchlorates were present in the original sample. Some (but not all) perchlorates also release chlorine gas when heated.

WCL has detected perchlorate unambiguously in both of the samples it has tested.

The TEGA results are a bit fuzzier. In its first sample, which came from a location several feet away from the WCL samples, TEGA saw a release of oxygen consistent with the presence of perchlorate. But at that point – it was early in the mission, WCL hadn’t found perchlorates yet, and no one was expecting to see them – TEGA didn’t look for a release of chlorine.

When TEGA analyzed its second sample, which came from roughly the same location as WCL’s second sample, TEGA was programmed to look primarily for evidence of organic material. As a result, says William Boynton, the science lead for TEGA, “We didn’t see the oxygen.” But, he adds, “We also heated the sample differently¡¦. The oxygen-bearing compound, presumably perchlorate, might have been there, but we might have destroyed it when we were looking for organic compounds.”

TEGA is now examining a third sample, taken from the surface very near the source of the first WCL sample. This time around, Boynton says, “We’re not going to be looking for the organic compounds; we’re going to use the same heating plan that we did on the first sample.” And “in addition to looking for oxygen, we’re going to look for chlorine.”

Even if TEGA confirms the presence of perchlorates, however, that will only be an early step in understanding the role that water has played in the martian arctic. Additional samples will need to be analyzed, both by WCL and by TEGA, to determine whether the perchlorates have simply been blown in by the martian wind, or they have been moved around and concentrated by water.

Researchers are actively debating where those samples should come from. “We’ve really got to sit down and think about what are our last two WCL samples going to be, and can we find any gradient,” Quinn says. “That’s going to be key to really saying something about water.”

Source: [Astrobiology Magazine]

Astrobiology Rap

If you haven’t already, check out the new European Edition of the Astrobiology Magazine. Among all the interesting articles is a link to perhaps the first ever music video about Astrobiology!