SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: February 2004
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Round Mars grains excite NASA
(Feb 4, 2004)
NASA's robot rover Opportunity has found round grains in the soil
of Mars, raising the possibility they may have been shaped by liquid
water. Photos taken by the rover's microscopic imager show coarse
soil grains of different shapes, including round ones. But few of
the grains are spherical, which means other forces could be responsible
for their shape. Scientists say meteorite collisions could have produced
rounded grains by melting the Martian rock on impact. "We saw a bunch
of really fine-grained stuff that we couldn't tell much about and
then we saw these coarser grains on top," said Nasa principal investigator
Steve Squyres, describing the soil's structure. "We began to notice
that some of these grains looked awfully darn round." Mission scientist
Hap McSween said there was a limited number of ways very round grains
could have formed.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Whales proving they're smart
(Feb 4, 2004)
Sperm
whale have the largest brain of any animal and some in the Gulf
of Alaska are proving it at mealtimes: letting humans do all the work.
Researchers are now investigating what commercial fisherman have long
noticed, that the whales have learned to pluck sablefish off hooks
attached to their long fishing lines. "They somehow just pick them
off like grapes," said fisherman Dick Curran, who has fished the gulf's
deep waters for decades. "I don't know how they do it." No one knows
how the whales have come to target sablefish, also called black cod,
whose oily, rich flesh has become a lucrative product in Japanese
markets. So a coalition of commercial fishermen and biologists has
begun to investigate with about $200,000 from the North Pacific Research
Board.
Read
more. Source: CNN |
Collision with comet may have hastened
first plague epidemic
(Feb 4, 2004)
A collision between Earth and a passing comet in the 6th century AD
may have caused the collapse of agriculture, mass famine and indirectly
led to the bubonic plague in Europe, a study has suggested. Scientists
have calculated that a relatively small comet, or fragment of a comet,
could have caused huge amounts of dust and debris to be ejected into
the atmosphere, blocking the sun for months at a time. The resulting
crop failures and famine would have allowed bubonic plague to spread
easily among a physically weakened population. Studies of tree rings
– from preserved oaks retrieved from Irish bogs to ancient American
pine trees – have shown that plant growth around the world almost
stopped between about 536 AD to 545 AD. Chinese records from this
time refer to a "dust veil" obscuring the skies. Mediterranean historians
record a "dry fog" that blocked out much of the sun's heat for more
than a year.
Read more. Source: Independent |
The growing case for water on Mars
(Feb 4, 2004)
After more than a century of wild speculation, decades of serious
searching, and years of collecting increasingly compelling evidence,
there is suddenly a scientific and media buzz over whether Mars is
a planet sculpted by water. Thing is, that question is already answered
in the minds of most Mars experts. For the first billion years or
two, Mars was almost surely warmer and wetter, most scientists agree.
What lingers is a big, multi-part mystery of what happened to all
the water, how long ago it disappeared, and whether it was around
long enough – and under the right conditions – to have
possibly incubated life. The latest news – a previously unheralded
mineral called hematite has been detected by NASA's Opportunity rover
– dribbled out late last week and over the weekend. It might
turn out to be a key moment in Mars exploration history, but some
scientists think it is more likely to represent just another piece
in a huge puzzle of a planet that could remain largely enigmatic for
years to come.
Read
more. Source: space.com |
Both Mars rovers back in action
(Feb 3, 2004)
NASA's twin rovers reached out their robotic arms to touch the surface
of Mars on Monday, marking the first day of the joint $820 million
mission that both spacecraft were in full swing. Opportunity and Spirit,
6,600 miles apart on opposite sides of the planet, began the work
week gearing up for in-depth analyses of the soil and rocks beneath
their wheels. Opportunity rolled onto the martian ground on Saturday,
a week after it landed. Spirit arrived January 3 but broke off its
science work nearly two weeks ago after software problems crippled
the vehicle. On Monday, mission manager Jennifer Trosper said Spirit
had joined Opportunity back at work, even as engineers worked out
the last kinks in its software.
Read
more. Source: CNN |
Oxygen and carbon discovered in exoplanet
atmosphere
(Feb 3, 2004)
The well-known extrasolar planet HD 209458b, provisionally nicknamed
Osiris, has surprised astronomers again. Oxygen and carbon have been
found in its atmosphere, evaporating at such an immense rate that
the existence of a new class of extrasolar planets – ‘the chthonian
planets’ or ‘dead’ cores of completely evaporated gas giants –
has been proposed. Oxygen and carbon have been detected in the atmosphere
of a planet beyond our Solar System for the first time. Scientists
using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed the famous
extrasolar planet HD 209458b passing in front of its parent star,
and found oxygen and carbon surrounding the planet in an extended
ellipsoidal envelope – the shape of a rugby-ball. These atoms
are swept up from the lower atmosphere with the flow of the escaping
atmospheric atomic hydrogen, like dust in a supersonic whirlwind.
Read
more. Source: ESA |
Mars rover on track of watery mineral
(Feb 2, 2004)
The Mars rover Opportunity, which rolled off its landing platform
onto the Martian surface early on Saturday, has returned its first
real science data to Earth. The initial findings of the craft's mini-Thermal
Emission Spectrometer show that the mineral hematite is found in the
upper layer of the landing site's wine-dark soil. Hematite had been
detected from orbit and was a key reason for the choice of the Meridiani
Planum as a landing site. The iron oxide often, but not always, forms
in the presence of liquid water. The lighter patches of soil that
were squashed flat by Opportunity's landing show no signs of hematite
at all, strongly suggesting it is in the dark surface pebbles, which
were buried by the force of impact. The principal investigator for
mini-TES, Phil Christensen of Arizona State University, said he was
delighted by the finding, because the orbital data left open the possibility
that the hematite might be in the fine surface dust, carried by wind
from some distant place.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Mars Express renews speculation about algae
on Mars
(Feb 2, 2004)
The European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter has been exploring
the Red Planet from an altitude of 300 km. Its high resolution stereo
camera has been sending back extraordinary color images. Some, like
Gusev crater in which the Spirit rover landed, have green areas. Some
like the Reull Vallis ancient river channel, shown here, contain blue
and blue-green regions. What causes the green, blue and blue-green
colors in the Martian geography? Current scientific speculation includes
mineral deposits, soil moisture and maybe even algae.
Read
more. Source: Earthfiles |
Australian scientists, and their dog, say
life once existed on Mars
(Feb 1, 2004)
Australian scientists said Thursday that a dog with a nose for sewage
had found evidence that life once, and may still, exist on Mars. Biophysicist
Tony Taylor said his mongrel had sniffed out bacteria in mud from
Queensland state that matched fossils of primitive organisms in a
Martian meteorite which plunged into Antarctica 13,000 years ago.
This backed a theory by NASA scientists who examined the potato-sized
meteorite, called ALH84001, after it was retrieved in 1984 and concluded
12 years later that life existed on Mars.
Read
more. Source: Space Daily / AFP |
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