Methane on Mars – Biology? Volcanic?

Methane (CH4) is a colorless, odorless gas that is the main ingredient of natural gas used for fuel. Methane on Earth is produced by animals, bacteria and decaying organic matter which give off so much that methane is the primary greenhouse gas in our planet's atmosphere.

 

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Most Distant “Icy Planetoid” in Our Solar System Has A Most Baffling Orbit

“How it got there in such an eccentric orbit that comes as close as 76 astronomical units to our sun and goes all the way out to nearly 1000 astronomical units away is a complete mystery! There might still be something else out there causing this object's peculiar orbit.”

Brian Marsden, Director, Minor Planet Center,
Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

The new "icy planetoid" or comet object, is unofficially called "Sedna," the Inuit goddess who created Arctic sea creatures. It is very red in color and estimated to be 3/4 the size of Pluto. It travels in a very bizarre elliptical orbit that takes it from about 8 billion to 84 billion miles from Earth beyond the Kuiper Belt of icy objects and near the edge of the Oort Cloud, the source of comets. At those distances, the planetoid takes at least 10,500 years to complete one revolution around the sun. Image credit: Graphics courtesy of NASA and Cal Tech and Michael Brown.
The new "icy planetoid" or comet object, is unofficially called "Sedna," the Inuit goddess who created Arctic sea creatures. It is very red in color and estimated to be 3/4 the size of Pluto. It travels in a very bizarre elliptical orbit that takes it from about 8 billion to 84 billion miles from Earth beyond the Kuiper Belt of icy objects and near the edge of the Oort Cloud, the source of comets. At those distances, the planetoid takes at least 10,500 years to complete one revolution around the sun. Image credit: Graphics courtesy of NASA and Cal Tech and Michael Brown.

The new "icy planetoid" or comet object, is unofficially called "Sedna," the Inuit goddess who created Arctic sea creatures. It is very red in color and estimated to be 3/4 the size of Pluto. It travels in a very bizarre elliptical orbit that takes it from about 8 billion to 84 billion miles from Earth beyond the Kuiper Belt of icy objects and near the edge of the Oort Cloud, the source of comets. At those distances, the planetoid takes at least 10,500 years to complete one revolution around the sun. Image credit: Graphics courtesy of NASA and Cal Tech and Michael Brown.


March 15, 2004 Pasadena, California -
The first sight of a mysterious object moving slowly like a planet at the outer edges of our solar system was on November 14, 2003. The discoverers were astronomers Michael Brown at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz at Yale University. They have been working together on a NASA-sponsored project, Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT). The team contacted other astronomers who began to look for the object first labeled "2003 VB12" and is now unofficially dubbed "Sedna," the name of an Inuit woman in the Arctic who was thrown from a kayak by her frightened father. Here fingers became the sea creatures. Sedna is definitely a cold place, probably the coldest object in our solar system, with temperatures never rising above MINUS 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

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Updated – Mars Spirit and Opportunity Sol 65 and Sol 46

 

Spirit rover brushed off dust in semi-circle, taken by Right Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Sub-frame EDR acquired on Sol 65 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 11:43:43 Mars local solar time, camera commandedto use Filter 1 (719 nm).
Spirit rover brushed off dust in semi-circle, taken by Right Panoramic Camera Non-linearized Sub-frame EDR acquired on Sol 65 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 11:43:43 Mars local solar time, camera commandedto use Filter 1 (719 nm).
Left photo: Reversed 180 degrees from images posted at NASA website in right photo. Taken by Spirit rover Microscopic Imager Non-linearized full frame EDR acquired on Sol 65 of Spirit's mission in Gusev Crater at approximately at approximately 11:21:10 Mars local solar time. Images credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/USGS. To see original images, go to sol 65: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html
Left photo: Reversed 180 degrees from images posted at NASA website in right photo. Taken by Spirit rover Microscopic Imager Non-linearized full frame EDR acquired on Sol 65 of Spirit's mission in Gusev Crater at approximately at approximately 11:21:10 Mars local solar time. Images credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/USGS. To see original images, go to sol 65: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/spirit.html
  Mossbauer Spectrometer target ring on each of the Spirit and Opportunity rover's instrument arms. Image source: NASA/JPL/Cornell.
Mossbauer Spectrometer target ring on each of the Spirit and Opportunity rover's instrument arms. Image source: NASA/JPL/Cornell.

March 11, 2004  Pasadena, California - As raw images from the rovers continue to be posted at the NASA/JPL website without explanation, some are provocative. It is now clear that the Sol 65 Microscopic Imager photographs of the circular object with the shadow cast downward is an optical illusion caused by the images being placed upside down at the NASA/JPL website.  

 

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Updates from NASA’s Rovers and ESA’s Mars Express

March 8, 2004  Darmstadt, Germany

European Space Agency (ESA)

Beagle 2 Video Shows Bright Object

European scientists said today they are examining a strange blot of an unidentified object in the same frame with its Beagle 2 Mars lander photographed right after the lander separated from its mothership. Beagle 2 was supposed to have landed and operated on December 25, 2003, but there has been only silence and its fate is unknown.

Mark Sims, ESA's Beagle 2 Mission Manager, is trying to figure out if an image of a bright spot on the shady side of the lander, and another bright spot on Beagle 2 are results of image processing or could be an event that might have affected Beagle 2's trajectory. Sims said, "The bright object and the glint on the side of Beagle 2 may be nothing, they may be everything."

 

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Part 3: Mars, A Sulfate Salty Planet – Could It Have Sulfate-Loving Microbes?

Mars and deep gash of Valles Marinaris, largest canyon in the solar system,by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mars and deep gash of Valles Marinaris, largest canyon in the solar system,by the Hubble Space Telescope.

March 5, 2004  Pasadena, California - When the Opportunity rover's rock abrasion tool (RAT) drilled a hole in a piece of Martian bedrock called "McKittrick" in late February, NASA/JPL scientists were surprised that the sulfur content jumped up four times higher than the amount registered on the surface of the rock. When the rover moved over to another piece of bedrock called "Guadalupe," the sulfur amount jumped up to five times more than measured in the soil. At this week's NASA press conference in Washington, D. C., respected geochemist, Benton C. Clark, member of the Mars Explorer Rover (MER) science team and Chief Scientist of Space Exploration at Lockheed Martin said, "This supposed rock now looks like it is a chemical sediment." Sedimentation of high concentrations of sulfur and sulfate salts on earth means solution in water, the water evaporated, and left the salts.

 

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Part 2: Scientific Challenge of Identifying Substances in the Martian World

Mars, with its icy poles, photographed  by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mars, with its icy poles, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

March 3, 2004  Pasadena, California - At the March 2, 2004, NASA press conference in Washington, D. C., I learned from German geologist, Goestar Klingelhoefer, Ph.D., that his Mossbauer spectrometer needs an area of about 1.5 centimeters in order to get accurate readings about iron and other elements. Very small objects such as the many unidentified spherules, or "blueberries," at the Opportunity Meridiani Planum site are too small for the Mossbauer to get an accurate reading on one, or even a few. The spherule diameters range from 1 to 5 millimeters. To date, what those mysterious little balls are made of is still a mystery.So, in the next couple of weeks, it is hoped that the Opportunity rover can put its robotic arm and various sensors - including the Mossbauer - down against a concentration of the spherules. The idea is that the instruments would then have a dense, larger area in which to take measurements.

 

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Opportunity Grinds Bedrock; Spirit Ready to Grind “Humphrey”

Left: Spirit rover approaches big Martian rock called "Humphrey" to dust off in triad pattern and analyze before grinding. Right: Triad pattern after Spirit's dusting shows dark rock beneath lighter dust. Images by Front Hazard Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 55 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 13:48:37 Mars local solar time. Image credit: NASA/JPL.
Left: Spirit rover approaches big Martian rock called "Humphrey" to dust off in triad pattern and analyze before grinding. Right: Triad pattern after Spirit's dusting shows dark rock beneath lighter dust. Images by Front Hazard Camera Non-linearized Full frame EDR acquired on Sol 55 of Spirit's mission to Gusev Crater at approximately 13:48:37 Mars local solar time. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

March 1, 2004  Pasadena, California - Nasa reports that the Spirit rover: "...used its rock abrasion tool for brushing the dust off three patches of a rock named "Humphrey," during its 55th sol on Mars, ending at 5:53 p.m. Saturday, PST. Before applying the wire-bristled brush, the rover inspected the surface of the rock with its microscope and with its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, which identifies elements that are present. Brushing three different places on a rock one right after another was an unprecedented use of the rock abrasion tool, designed to provide a larger cleaned area for examining.

 

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Is There Liquid Water on Martian Surface?

 OMEGA, the combined Mars Express camera and infrared spectrometer, observed the southern polar cap of Mars on January 18, 2004, as seen on all three bands. Left: H2O, water ice. Middle: CO2, carbon dioxide. Right: Visible image of Martian south pole. Images credit: European Space Agency (ESA).
OMEGA, the combined Mars Express camera and infrared spectrometer, observed the southern polar cap of Mars on January 18, 2004, as seen on all three bands. Left: H2O, water ice. Middle: CO2, carbon dioxide. Right: Visible image of Martian south pole. Images credit: European Space Agency (ESA).
South Pole of Mars - Is there melt in the water and carbon dioxide ice? Image courtesy Malin Space Science Systems.
South Pole of Mars - Is there melt in the water and carbon dioxide ice? Image courtesy Malin Space Science Systems.
 North and south poles of Mars are icy. Photo courtesy Hubble Space Telescope.
North and south poles of Mars are icy. Photo courtesy Hubble Space Telescope.

February 23, 2004  Pasadena, California - The stated goal of the Mars rover missions is to look for evidence of water that might once have flowed in rivers, pooled in lakes, or even created an ocean on the red planet. Photographs like the branching delta below taken by the Mars Orbiter Camera suggest a large flow of water.

 

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New Form of Mad Cow Disease Resembles Human Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)

British cow infected by deadly misshapen proteins called prions which cause "Mad Cow" disease, also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Cow brain tissue on right is filled with microscopic holes like a sponge, produced by the deaths of brain cells. Photographs courtesy www.mad-cow.org.
British cow infected by deadly misshapen proteins called prions which cause "Mad Cow" disease, also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Cow brain tissue on right is filled with microscopic holes like a sponge, produced by the deaths of brain cells. Photographs courtesy www.mad-cow.org.
Left: is the normal prion protein, PrP-C. Right: is the abnormal, misshapen PrP-SC. These diagrams are from Huang, Z., Prusiner, Stanley B. and Cohen, Fred E. from "Structures of Prion Proteins and Conformational Models for Prion Diseases in Prions," (ed. S.B. Prusiner) Berlin: Springer-Verlag, © 1996.
Top: is the normal prion protein, PrP-C. Bottom: is the abnormal, misshapen PrP-SC. These diagrams are from Huang, Z., Prusiner, Stanley B. and Cohen, Fred E. from "Structures of Prion Proteins and Conformational Models for Prion Diseases in Prions," (ed. S.B. Prusiner) Berlin: Springer-Verlag, © 1996.

February 19, 2004  San Francisco, California - "Mad cow" disease once thought to be confined to England has spread to other countries the past few years, including most recently herds in Canada and Washington State. And this week came another disturbing discovery: Italian researchers have found a second type of deadly prion disease in cattle that closely resembles the prion proteins that sporadically and spontaneously attack and kill humans in what is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD. That means controlling what goes into cattle feed won't stop all mad cow disease - and that there are even more deadly prions in the food chain than anyone knew until now.

 

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