Researchers from NAI's University of California, Berkeley Team have a new study in Science focused on Box Canyon in Idaho. Incised into a basaltic plain with no drainage network upstream, and approximately 10 cubic meters per second of seepage emanating from its vertical headwall, the canyon is a veritable poster child of groundwater seepage erosion. But this new study posits evidence that the canyon?s formation was caused rather by catastrophic megaflood 45,000 years ago. Their results imply that flooding of this kind may have caused similar features on Mars. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Presenter: J. William Schopf
Date/Time: 2/25/2008 11:00 AM PST

Throughout recorded Earth history, microbial life has been ubiquitous, abundant, metabolically diverse, and, for the Precambrian four billion years of geologic time, biotically predominant. In the search for life elsewhere in the Cosmos, the prokaryote-dominated world of the Precambrian is the best analogue we know. Though evidence of microbe-level life will thus be sought in rocks returned from Mars, for the first such missions only minimal samples will be available. This raises important questions: What amount of rock is needed to detect past life? What evidence is required to establish biogenicity? How can true fossils be distinguished from contaminants?

Continue reading "2/25 Director's Seminar: "Can Rocks from Mars Yield Definitive Evidence of Past Life?"" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Astrobiology December 2007, 7(6): 971-986

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/ast.2006.0096

Dissolved H2 concentrations up to the mM range and H2 levels up to 9-58% by volume in the free gas phase are reported for groundwaters at sites in the Precambrian shields of Canada and Finland. Along with previously reported dissolved H2 concentrations up to 7.4 mM for groundwaters from the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa, these findings indicate that deep Precambrian Shield fracture waters contain some of the highest levels of dissolved H2 ever reported and represent a potentially important energy-rich environment for subsurface microbial life. The

Continue reading "Hydrogeologic Controls on Episodic H2 Release from Precambrian Fractured Rocks--Energy for Deep Subsurface Life on Earth and Mars" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Norbert Schorghofer of NAI's University of Hawai'i Team has a new paper in Nature describing a climate model he developed which accounts for the advance and retreat of the subsurface martian ice layers. The model reveals forty major ice ages over the past five million years, and explains the present distribution of subsurface ice on Mars. His findings outline expectations of ice stratigraphy at the NASA Mars Phoenix Mission's landing site.

Source: NAI Newsletter

Posted by Keith Cowing at 7:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scientists from NAI's IPTAI Team have a paper out in Geophysical Research Letters detailing a new mechanism for recent methane release on Mars. Their results show that increasing salinity can cause destabilization of subsurface methane hydrates, and that active thermal or pressure fluctuations are not required to account for the presence of methane in the atmosphere. [Source: NAI Newsletter]

Posted by Keith Cowing at 8:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jennifer Heldmann has been invited to participate in a special COSPAR Colloquium on Mars Special Regions. This meeting is an essential step in developing an international consensus on the definition of "special" regions on Mars, which will in-turn determine the application of planetary protection requirements for future Mars lander missions. This 3-day meeting will take place in Rome, Italy on 18-20 September 2007. For more on COSPAR Colloquia visit: http://cosparhq.cnes.fr/Meetings/Colloq.htm

Posted by Keith Cowing at 4:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom McCollum of the University of Colorado, Boulder team has recently contributed a chapter titled "The Habitability of Mars: Past and Present" that appears in the book "Solar System Update", published this summer by Praxis Publishing. The chapter summarizes current thinking about current and past conditions on Mars that might allow life to exist there.

Continue reading "The Habitability of Mars: Past and Present" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Gullied Recesses

"This image shows gullies on the wall of a martian south mid-latitude impact crater. The channels in each gully head beneath an eroding overhang of layered rock, providing support for the hypothesis that some—if not all—martian gullies result from release of groundwater to the surface."

Posted by Keith Cowing at 1:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Towards the end of our summer expedition while flying back to Eureka from our camp on Axel Heiberg, I spotted a lake with what appeared to be green ice on it.

Continue reading "Green ice, Ravens, Ice Caves and the Movie ‘Contact’" »

Posted by Dale Andersen at 6:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The MARS Journal, a new online peer reviewed open access journal, is now open for submission of manuscripts. The MARS Journal will publish scholarly papers in three general categories:

Mars Science: Observations, data, theory, models, and reviews of scientific literature Mars Technology: Instruments, spacecraft, missions, tools and techniques, and software Mars Policy: Exploration strategy, economics, planetary protection, history, and commentary Be among the first to publish (for free) in The MARS Journal.

See: http://marsjournal.org

Posted by Keith Cowing at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Review of the Next Decade Mars Architecture" is tentatively scheduled for release during June. However, release dates of National Academies reports depend on successful completion of the review process and on printing schedules.

This report evaluates NASA's Mars exploration program for the next 10 years, and looks at whether it optimizes scientific returns, given the agency's current funding limitations. The report also discusses whether the program incorporates findings from current missions and follows guidelines outlined in a previous report from the Research Council.

Continue reading "NRC Report on Next Decade Mars Architecture" »

Posted by Keith Cowing at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Safe on Mars, Astrobiology Magazine

"The National Research Council was tasked with evaluating the risks of landing humans safely to work on Mars. Their report highlights a number of unique aspects in transit to the red planet, as well as once humans step out onto the surface."

Posted by Keith Cowing at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)