Content with the tag: “water”
-
Liquid Water in the Martian North? Maybe.
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...
August 22, 2008 / Written by: Henry Bortman
-
Phoenix Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended
Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander’s robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. “We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last...
July 31, 2008 / Written by: NASA Press Release
-
Moon Samples Found to Contain Water
Using new techniques, scientists from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington Team have discovered for the first time that tiny beads of volcanic glasses collected from two Apollo missions to the Moon contain water. The researchers found that, contrary to previous thought, water was not entirely vaporized in the violent events that formed the Moon. The new study suggests that the water came from the Moon’s interior and was delivered to the surface...
July 18, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
-
Signs of Ocean Beneath Titan's Crust?
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has discovered evidence that points to the existence of an underground ocean of water and ammonia on Saturn’s moon Titan. The Cassini science team detail their findings in this week’s Science, explaining that radar mapping of Titan revealed a shift in landmarks on the moon’s surface of up to 30 kilometers between October 2004 and May 2007. The best explanation, they say, is an underground ocean...
March 25, 2008 / Posted by: Daniella Scalice
-
Cassini Flies Through Watery Plumes of Enceladus
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft performed a daring flyby of Saturn’s moon Enceladus on Wed., March 12, flying about 15 kilometers per second (32,000 mph) through icy water geyser-like jets. The spacecraft snatched up precious samples that might point to a water ocean or organics inside the little moon.
March 13, 2008 / Written by: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute -
How Low Can Geologists Go?
Scientists have begun the final leg of a five-year, NASA-funded mission to reach the bottom of Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, the world’s deepest known sinkhole.
No one has ever reached bottom and at least one diver has died in the attempt. Scientists want to learn more about Cenote Zacatón’s physical dimensions, the geothermal vents that feed it and the forms of life that exist in its murky depths.
Previous expeditions tested the robotic probe that...
November 13, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Seeing Our Reflection
This new article from Science & Spirit magazine cogitates on ‘following the water’ in the search for life elsewhere, and the relationship between water and enlightenment in mythology and human psychology.
July 29, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Water Vapor Detected on Extrasolar Planet
An international team of researchers including members of NAI’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory Team have, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, detected the presence of water vapor on the hot jupiter HD 189733b. Published in this week’s Nature, the study’s primary author, Giovanna Tinetti, was a 2003 NAI Postdoctoral Fellow.
July 10, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Oceans from Comets, A How-To
Last week, teachers in the SETI Institute’s Astrobiology Summer Science Experience workshop probed questions about the Earth’s formation, including “where did the water come from?” The answer discussed was comets, and a classroom activity on how to make them is shared on Space.com…
July 1, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Evidence for Ancient Ocean on Mars
Scientists from NAI’s University of California, Berkeley Team have a new paper out in Nature outlining evidence for the presence of an ancient ocean on Mars. The study points to a large body of liquid water at the pole which could have shifted Mars’ spin axis. This shift would have in turn deformed the shoreline of this ocean relative to the rest of the surface topography, in accordance with observations.
June 13, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Found: Earth-Like Planet
A rocky planet not much larger than Earth has been detected orbiting a star close to our own neighborhood in the Milky Way, and the European astronomers who found it say it lies within the star’s “habitable zone,” where life could exist, possibly in oceans of water.
April 30, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Final Assembly of Earth-Like Planets
NAI Postdoctoral Fellow Sean Raymond leads a team of authors from NAI’s University of Colorado, Boulder, and University of Arizona Teams, and Virtual Planetary Laboratory and University of Washington Alumni Teams in a new publication in Astrobiology. They present analysis of water delivery and planetary habitability in 5 high-resolution simulations forming 15 terrestrial planets. Their results outline a new model for water delivery to terrestrial planets in dynamically calm systems, which may be very common in the Galaxy.
April 16, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
DEPTHX Tests the Waters for Future Exploration of Europa
The Deep Phreatic Thermal eXplorer, or DEPTHX, is preparing for another series of dives into a 115-meter deep geothermal sinkhole in Mexico. These dives follow a series of successful tests dives to shakedown the vehicle’s autonomous navigation and mapping capabilities. Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets (ASTEP) funds the DEPTHX project as a study to develop technology that could one day allow a waterborne explorer to probe the ocean thought to exist beneath the icy...
March 6, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Spectra of Two Extrasolar Planets
Researchers from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Teams have a new paper in Nature describing the infrared spectrum of exoplanet HD 209458b as obtained by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. Scientists from NAI’s University of Arizona and Alumni Virtual Planetary Laboratory Teams are contributing authors on a similar paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters which details the spectrum of exoplanet HD 189733b. Both sets of results show relatively flat spectra, with...
February 25, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Liquid Water on Mars: Is It Still Flowing?
The scientific strategy of NASA’s Mars exploration can be summarized as “Follow the water.” The habitability of Mars, past or present, is intimately tied to the presence of liquid water. Since the first orbiting spacecraft, Mariner 9, surveyed the planet in the early 1970s, we have known that the Mars polar caps are composed in part of ice, and we have seen large channels cut by water that flowed on the surface billions of years ago. Two of the most important recent discoveries on Mars were “gullies” that indicate much more recent surface flows, less than a million years old, and the evidence from rovers on the surface that shallow ponds or seas of salty water must have once existed, although they may have been transient. However, all these indications of surface water are old – whether the age is measured in millions or billions of years. Now, in what looks to be one of the most important recent discoveries about Mars, we have photographic evidence that flows of liquid water have taken place in the past seven years! The change of perspective from billions or millions of years to something that happened in the twenty-first century could be profound.
January 9, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Snowball Earth and the Origin of Photosynthesis
Using atmospheric chemical models of a Snowball Earth, scientists from NAI’s Alumni Virtual Planetary Laboratory Team show that, during long and severe glacial intervals, a weak hydrological cycle coupled with photochemical reactions involving water vapor would give rise to the sustained production of hydrogen peroxide. The peroxide, upon release from melting ice into the oceans and atmosphere at the end of the snowball event, could mediate global oxidation events. Their results are published in the December 12th issue of...
December 20, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Earth’s Hidden Biospheres
Two recent discoveries in astrobiology challenge many of our assumptions about an integrated biological community on Earth. At the microbial level, it seems that there may be previously hidden biospheres that exist on Earth alongside our more familiar neighbors. One such community has been found deeply buried underground, while the other lives in the sea alongside more familiar life forms.
November 5, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Abiogenic Explanation for Methane on Mars
Researchers from NAI’s Indiana Princeton Tennessee Astrobiology Initiative Team published their theory on the origin of the detected atmospheric methane on Mars in the current issue of Astrobiology. Measurements of deep fracture water samples from South Africa led to a model which distinguishes between abiogenic and microbial methane sources based upon their isotopic composition, and couples microbial methane production to molecular hydrogen generation by water radiolysis. The authors also propose an instrument for future missions to Mars which, with...
May 30, 2006 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Could Impacts Have Caused Flooding on Mars?
NAI scientists on the University of California, Berkeley team describe, in a recent issue of Icarus, how meteoritic impacts on Mars may have caused Earth-like saturated soil liquefaction and potentially enabled violent groundwater eruption. Enough water, they say, could have been erupted to produce floods and outflow channels.
May 16, 2005 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Carbonated Mars
Here on Earth the only way to make carbonate rocks is with the aid of liquid water. Finding such rocks on Mars might prove, once and for all, that the barren Red Planet was once warm and wet.
February 13, 2001 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Jovian Moons
Jupiter’s four largest moons were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Three of them might hold oceans of liquid water beneath their icy exteriors. Liquid water is a prerequisite for life.
February 1, 2001 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Evidence of ocean on Jupiter's moon Ganymede
Data from the Galileo space probe suggest that liquid water may lie beneath Ganymede’s icy crust.
December 20, 2000 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Evidence Of Martian Land Of Lakes Discovered
Layers of sedimentary rock paint a portrait of an ancient Mars that may have featured numerous lakes and shallow seas.
December 13, 2000 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
New Images Suggest Present-day Source of Liquid Water on Mars
Using data from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, imaging scientists have observed features that suggest there may be current sources of liquid water at or near the surface of the red planet.
December 11, 2000 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
The Case of the Missing Water
Did an ancient flood cover the northern lowlands? Mars Orbiter images give a front row seat.
December 10, 2000 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Back to the Surface: NASA’s 2003 Mission to Mars
Two Mars rovers, one in May and the other in June of 2003 will land six months later at different locations. Both take on the daunting task of probing for water clues.
December 6, 2000 / Posted by: Shige Abe
-
Mars Lakes
A ‘young’ Martian lake would be at least half-billion years old, but Martian deltas might not seem as remote as the present day desert.
November 26, 2000 / Posted by: Shige Abe
- 2008 aas abiogenic abscicon aerobic akila akilia island algae allan hills alpha centauri alvin amase american astronomical society amino acids anaerobic antarctica antartica antennas archaea archea archean arctic area 9 aromatic astrobiology drilling program astrobiology journal astrobiotechnology astrochemistry astronaut astronomical journal astrophysical journal astrophysical journal letters atacama atlantis atmosphere atmospheric chemistry australia australian centre for astrobiology auv awards axis bacteria bacteriorhodopsin binaries biofilms biomarkers biome biosignatures books britian brown dwarfs cambrian canada canyon canyons carbonate rocks carbonates carbon dioxide cassini cells chemostratigraphy chile chimpanzee china chip chiral citations cnn collaborative technology colors comet comets comics complex life conference core accretion cyanobacteria dance data databases ddf depthx director diversity dna dolphin drilling dust dwarf star ea early earth early mars earth earth and planetary science letters earth and planetary science letters (journal) education electronic arts enceladus encyclopedia of life endourance endurance england enzyme enzymes erosion esa ethane eukaryotes europa evolution evolution and environment exobiology exoplanet exoplanets expose express extremeophiles extremephiles extremophiles fiction flood fossils frogs funding fungi fuse future of life galileo games ganymede gas gas giants geobiology (journal) geology (journal) geysers giant planets glacier glaciers great oxidation even great oxidation event greenland gsfc guerrero negro habitability habitable planets habitable zone habitablity in the universe hadean hawaii hawaii team high angular resolution homochirality hubble human hydrocarbons hydrogen hydrogen peroxide hydrogen sulfide hydrothermal vent hydrothermal vents hyperion hyperthermophilic ice iceland idaho information technology instruments international space station iron isotope isotopes iss jack hills journal:earth journal: journal of geophysical research journal of bacteriology journal of the american chemical society jpl jupiter kepler laboratory lakes lassen left-handed lefty life and environment life elsewhere in the universe life in our solar system lipids liquid magnet magnets maps marine ecology mars mars express mars global surveyor mars orbiter mars reconnaissance orbiter mars rovers martian atmosphere martian oceans mass extinctions m dwarf stars membranes mercury messenger meteorites meteors meterite meterorites methane methanogen mexico microbes microbialite microbialites microbial life microbial mats microbiology microlensing microscopy mirs missions mojave molecular biology and evolution (journal) molybdenum moon moon and planets moons mro m star m stars murchison music nai arc team nai asu team nai berkeley team nai cal team nai ciw team nai cub team nai gsfc team nai har team nai hawaii team nai iptai team nai mbl team nai minority institution research support nai mit team nai montana team nai msu team nai postdoctoral fellow nai psu team nai seti team nai ua team nai ucb team nai ucla team nai uh team nai uri team nai uw team nai virus focus group nai vpl at jpl nai vpl at jpl team nai vpl at uw team nai wisconsin team nanoparticles nasa arc nasa jpl nasa tv nature (journal) near near earth asteroid rendezvous neoproterozoic neteritics and planetary science (journal) new horizons new york times nitrogen fixation npr nucleic acids obituary ocean ocean-bottom ocean drilling program oceans odyssey opportunity origin of life origins of life oven ovens oxygen ozone pah paleoproterozoic parachute pavilion lake pbs perchlorate permafrost permian philosophy phoenix phoenix mission phosphorus photosynthesis planetary protection planet formation planet migration planets plankton plants pnas poles poster pre–main‐sequence precambrian precambrian research (journal) primer probe proceedings of the national academy of sciences (journal) prokaryotes propane proteins proteobacteria proterozoic protoplanetary disk pyruvic acid quartet radio raman spectroscopy reptiles rio tinto rise of oxygen robatic robot robotic robotics robots rover rovers rrna salt samples saturn science (journal) scientific american (journal) second life segan medal serpentinization shoemaker signatures of life sinkhole snowball earth soil solar panel south africa space shuttle space telescope science institute spitzer space telescope spore stardust sterols subsurface sulfate reduction sulfides sulfur sun super earths supergiant star tega teraforming terrestrial terrestrial planet formation terrestrial planets thermal and evolved-gas analyzer thermometer time titan titanium tweets twitter uk underwater united kingdom vegetation venus video viking viruses volcanoes voyager wall street journal water web 2.0 website websites wet-chemistry workbook yeast yellowstone zircon zircons zoe
