Extreme Life Archives

March 23, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Former Astronaut To Take Social Media to New Heights

Scott Parazynski during his attempt to climb Mt. Everest. Credit: OnOrbit.com

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In 2008, astronaut Scott Parazynski came within 24 hours of reaching the summit of Mt. Everest when a painful back injury forced him to abandon his climb. Now, Parazynski is on his way back for another attempt at summitting the world’s highest mountain peak. But this time, he wants to take the rest of the world with him. If everything works as planned, Parazynski will blog, podcast, vodcast and more during the climb, and he even wants to Twitter from the summit. “I want to tell the story of exploration here on Earth and the corollaries it has with space exploration,” Parazynski told Universe Today before he left for Kathmandu, Nepal. “They are both very hostile, unforgiving environments that require a lot of training, a lot of gear, and a lot of thought. The intent is to share the story with as many people as we can, particularly young people.” Parazynski and his team have even agreed to take questions from readers of Universe Today and answer them during their climb.

Parazynski has teamed up with the Challenger Centers for Space Science Education and the Boy Scouts of America to offer educational activities in association with his trek, and is working with various scientists to do field science along the way.

“We’ll be collecting data for astrobiologists, looking for extremophile life,” Parazynski said. “If you understand how extremophiles live, you might be able to understand how life may have once evolved on Mars, or may still exist on Mars.”

As an astronaut, Parazynski was part of 5 space shuttle missions; his last mission to the International Space Station included a daring repair of the ISS’s solar panels.

Parazynski will also be testing some NASA-derived hardware, taking along a prototype lunar geology camera and other hardware for extreme environments. “Up high on the mountain there are limestone formations, which are wonderful places to look for fossilized life,” he said,” and we’ll also look for melt water and primitive forms of life there; algae lichens, etc. If liquid water exists even for brief periods on Mars it may be in similar conditions to what we’ll find on Mt. Everest. We hope to bring samples back for scientists to look at.”

To help Parazynski, he has enlisted the help of a couple of “media sherpas;” Keith Cowing from NASAWatch and Miles O’Brien, former CNN correspondent. Cowing will definitely be at the base camp, coordinating the media blitz, while O’Brien is still working out his schedule, but hopes to be there as well.

“Scott has the chance to something interesting and wants to share it with as many people as possible,” said Cowing. “This is participatory exploration, where we’ll bring as many people as possible to where we’re going. This is enabled by high end internet connection capable of streaming video. The idea is to open up a vista of participation to a very large audience.”

Cowing said they will have access to email to answer as many questions as possible, and Universe Today will be one of the venues supplying questions from readers. “We’ll be Twittering, videocasting, podcasting, Skyping, emailing, SMSing, blogging , you name it. We’re using every gizmo we’ve got and every avenue of interaction with people, giving them the opportunity to see what it’s like to live in a tent at 17,600 feet.”

The entire expedition will take between 6 -10 weeks, depending on the weather and health of the climbers. Parazyski said it will take several weeks just for the climbers’ bodies to acclimate to the decreased amount of oxygen at those heights. The peak of Mount Everest is 8,848 meters (29,028 feet) above sea level. “We’ll be going up and down to get body used to the conditions,” he said. “Essentially what happens, you need to increase your body’s oxygen carrying capacity, and grow more red blood cells. Your blood chemistry changes to enable you to exchange oxygen more efficiently and that just takes time.” Parazynski, an MD, will be the official physician for the group.

The Discovery Channel will also be part of the climb, with hopes of creating a documentary of the expedition for their “Everest: Beyond the Limits” series. Cameras will be mounted on the climbers to take video of the experience.

Parazynski is part of a team of 23 climbers. Another team will also be part of the climb, and there will be an additional 20 or 30 climbers to help create the documentary.

The climb officially starts in early May. You can follow the climb via OnOrbit.com/Everest. Parazynski’s whereabouts can also be followed on Google Earth, via his SPOT, a GPS location and message device, which is a commercial sponsor of the climb. The expedition is completely privately funded.

Parazynski is now a “former” NASA astronaut. He announced two weeks ago that he left NASA to work in private industry, at Wyle Labs in Houston. “I had a wonderful experience in the role of astronaut, but now it’s time to pursue other opportunities.”

One other hope for this expedition is to have people participating both on this Earth and off. “If the stars align and everything works just right, we hope to have a satellite phone call between our group and the Hubble repair space shuttle mission,” Parazynski said. Of course, that would depend on if the Hubble mission launches during Parazynski’s climb.

Despite Parazynski’s wish to share his experience with the world, he admits there’s also a strong personal element to this climb. “I went almost the entire way last year and came within 24 hours of summitting,” he said. “It is something I’ve thought of and dreamt about every day since I left the mountain last May, wondering what that last 24 hours will be like, and what it will be like to complete one of the great aspirationa of my entire life.”

Follow OnOrbit.com/Everest for complete coverage. You can follow Parazynski’s Twitter feed, too, SPOTScott, and the OnOrbit Everest Twitter feed. We’ll post regular updates here on Universe Today, along with reminders to submit questions for Parazynski, Cowing and O’Brien by posting your questions in the comments section.

March 16, 2009December 24, 2015 by Anne Minard

Indian Balloon Experiment Nets Three New Bacteria

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Indian scientists flying a giant balloon experiment have announced the discovery of three new species of bacteria from the stratosphere.

In all, 12 bacterial and six fungal colonies were detected, nine of which, based on gene sequencing, showed greater than 98 percent similarity with reported known species on earth. Three bacterial colonies, however, represented totally new species. All three boast significantly higher UV resistance compared to their nearest phylogenetic neighbors on Earth.

The experiment was conducted using a balloon that measures 26.7 million cubic feet (756,059 cubic meters) carrying 1,000 pounds (459 kg) of scientific payload soaked in liquid Neon. It was flown from the National Balloon Facility in Hyderabad, operated by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

An onboard cryosampler contained sixteen evacuated and sterilized stainless steel probes. Throughout the flight, the probes remained immersed in liquid Neon to create a cryopump effect. The cylinders, after collecting air samples from different heights ranging from 20 km to 41 km (12 to 25 miles) above the Earth’s surface, were parachuted down and retrieved. The samples were analyzed by scientists at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad as well as the National Center for Cell Science in Pune for independent confirmation.

One of the new species has been named as Janibacter hoylei, after the astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, the second as Bacillus isronensis recognizing the contribution of ISRO in the balloon experiments which led to its discovery, and the third as Bacillus aryabhata after India’s celebrated ancient astronomer Aryabhata (also the name of ISRO’s first satellite).

The researchers have pointed out in a press release that precautionary measures and controls operating in the experiment inspire confidence that the new species were picked up in the stratosphere.

“While the present study does not conclusively establish the extra-terrestrial origin of microorganisms, it does provide positive encouragement to continue the work in our quest to explore the origin of life,” they added.

This was the second such experiment conducted by ISRO, with the first one in 2001. Even though the first experiment had yielded positive results, the researchers decided to repeat the experiment while exercising extra care to ensure that it was totally free from any terrestrial contamination.

Source: Indian Space Research Organisation

Additional links: Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, National Center for Cell Science, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

March 5, 2009December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Life on Ceres: Could the Dwarf Planet be the Root of Panspermia?

Ceres as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2004 (HST)

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It has been theorised for a long time that the dwarf planet Ceres may be harbouring a lot of water. With the promise of water comes the hope that life may be present on this little world orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt. You may be forgiven in thinking that the search for life in the Solar System has gone a little crazy, after all, we haven’t found life anywhere else apart from our own planet. However, if we do discover life on other planetary bodies apart from Earth, perhaps the panspermia hypothesis is more than just an academic curiosity. So why is Ceres suddenly so interesting? Firstly, it probably has water. Secondly, the ex-asteroid is so small that fragments of Ceres could have been kicked into space by meteorite impacts more readily than other larger planetary bodies, making it a prime candidate for seeding life on Earth…

Now THAT is a dw<span>arf plan</span>et: The size comparison of the Earth, Moon and Ceres (NASA) — Now THAT is a dwarf planet: The size comparison of the Earth, Moon and Ceres (NASA)

There’s always good news to outweigh the bad. In 2006 when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) demoted Pluto from being a “planet” to a “dwarf planet”, Ceres had the reversal in fortune in that it was promoted from being just another big asteroid to a dwarf planet. Now this tiny world has become a little more important.

In 2007, NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft that will reach this mysterious dwarf planet in 2015. It will be the first mission to this region of the Solar System, and it is making good progress (Dawn just completed a gravitational flyby of Mars). So far, since its discovery in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, we have only managed to attain some fuzzy images of Ceres using the Hubble Space Telescope (pictured top). As can be seen from the size comparison, trying to spot Ceres is quite a task, it is tiny (in fact, it is the smallest classified dwarf planet out there, so far). This may be the case, but it is its low mass that has excited a University of Giessen (Germany) researcher who is studying the possibility that Ceres could support life.

Although it is unknown whether or not Ceres has liquid water oceans, Joop Houtkooper believes that if it does, basic life forms may be thriving around hydrothermal vents in the hypothetical Ceres oceans. However, it is not clear how these proposed oceans can stay in a liquid state, as it seems unlikely there is significant tectonic activity (as it has very little mass to sustain a long-term molten core) and it is not orbiting a tidally disruptive body (like the icy moon Europa around Jupiter – extreme tidal forces maintain sub-surface oceans in a warm state). However, the idea remains as Ceres has a lower escape velocity than any other planetary body, meaning that microbes (hitch-hiking on fragments of Ceres) could have been kicked into space with more regularity than other planets, such as Mars.

“I looked at the different solar system bodies which either had or currently have oceans,” Houtkooper explains. “The planet Venus probably had an ocean early in its history, but the planet’s greater mass means that more force is needed to chip off a piece of the planetary crust and propel it in the direction of the Earth. Smaller objects like Ceres have lower escape velocities, making it easier for parts of it to be separated.”

Artist impression of the Dawn spacecraft exploring the asteroid belt (NASA)

Also, Ceres appears to have gotten off fairly lightly during the Late Heavy Bombardment, allowing it to retain its surface water. If the Earth had any life before this era, it is possible that the violent impacts sterilized the planet. In this case, it is possible life arrived to Earth via a shard of another planetary body in the form of a meteorite.

Although calculations suggest Ceres could be a very likely candidate as the source of panspermia, eventually leading to life on Earth, the question as to whether Ceres is even a hospitable place for life to form is doubtful. Also, if Ceres was saved from the worst impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment, and it appears to have retained the majority of its water through lack of impacts, surely Ceres fragments would be a very rare meteorite component?

Still, it is an engrossing area of research, but we’ll have to wait until Dawn arrives in Ceres orbit in a little over five years time before we arrive at any answers…

Source: Space.com

March 1, 2009April 26, 2016 by Ian O'Neill

Russia Will Send Life to Phobos

Going where no tardigrade has been before

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How ironic. Not content with searching for life on Mars, the Russian space agency and the US-based Planetary Society will soon be sending terrestrial life to the Martian moon Phobos. The mini-interplanetary travellers will consist of bacteria, spores, seeds, crustaceans, insects and fungi. Why? To see how biological life, in various forms, deals with space travel spanning three years.

So if you thought that a human (or monkey) would be the first of Earth’s ambassadors to land on Mars or one of its moons, you’d be very mistaken…

The Phobos-Grunt mission profile

Russia has been carrying out a variety of biological space tests to see how life deals with the hazards of spaceflight recently. In one experiment carried out in collaboration with Japanese scientists, a mosquito was attached to the hull of the International Space Station (ISS) to see… what would happen.

The mosquito was a part of the Biorisk project, and the scientists knew the insect had the ability to drop into a “suspended animation” during times of draught in Africa. The African mosquito can turn its bodily water into tricallosa sugar, slowing its functions nearly to a stop. When the rain returns, the crystallised creature is rehydrated and it can carry on its lifecycle. The Biorisk mosquito however survived 18 months with no sustenance, exposed to temperatures ranging from -150°C to +60°C. When returned to Earth, Russian scientists gave the hardy mozzie a health check, declaring:

“We brought him back to Earth. He is alive, and his feet are moving.” — Anatoly Grigoryev, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Quite happy with living in space, the mosquito ©Gerald Yuvallos/Flickr

Was this insect cruelty of the most extreme kind, or did it serve a purpose? Actually, the mosquito experiment provided an insight to a biological specimen after being exposed to cosmic rays for long periods, and it also showed us that the African mosquito’s natural ability to slip into a defensive coma, only to be revived and appear to be healthy (that is, if it was more than just its feet moving – there was no indication as to whether the little guy was successfully re-integrated into mosquito society). Perhaps the lessons learned from this small test may go to some way of helping us realise the potential for putting future interplanetary astronauts into some kind of biological stasis.

So that’s the idea behind sending creatures into space: we need to understand how animals and plants deal with space travel. This will aid the understanding of how humans will cope in space for long periods, plus we need to understand if there are any harmful effects from growing foodstuffs away from our planet. This is why the Russian space agency wants to go one step further when it launches its Phobos-Grunt mission next year, to send biological specimens on a voyage of a lifetime. A return trip to the Martian moon Phobos.

Say hello to our interplanetary ambassador, the tardigrade (FUNCRYPTA)

On board, it is hoped the US-based Planetary Society will be able to send a small package filled with 10 different species including tardigrades (“water bears”), seeds and bacteria. The main purpose of this experiment will be to test the panspermia hypothesis, where it is thought that life may travel from planet to planet, hitching a ride on fragments of planetary material. Most of the biological samples will be in a dormant state (i.e. the plant spores), and tests will be carried out when Phobos-Grunt returns to Earth to see if the bacteria survived, seeds germinate and spores… do what ever spores do.

Russia on the other hand has far loftier goals; the space agency will attach a small petting zoo. Inside the Russian experiment will include crustaceans, mosquito larvae (already proven to be enthusiastic space travellers), bacteria and fungi. The Russian experiment will specifically look at how cosmic radiation can effect these different types of life during an interplanetary trip (essential ahead of any manned attempt to the Red Planet).

Naturally, there are some concerns about contamination to the moon (if Phobos-Grunt doesn’t do the “return” part of the mission), but the chances of any extraterrestrial life being harboured on this tiny piece of airless rock are low. Having said that, we just don’t know, so the mission scientists will have to be very careful to ensure containment. Besides, there’s something unsettling about infecting an alien world with our bacteria before we’ve even had the chance to get there ourselves…

Source: Discovery

February 17, 2009December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Could Living Organisms Be Hiding Inside Olympus Mons?

Color mosaic of Mars' greatest mountain, Olympus Mons, viewed from orbit. Credit NASA/JPL

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From orbit, Olympus Mons dominates the landscape of the Tharsis region on Mars. At 24 kilometers (15 miles) high, and 550 kilometers (340 miles) in diameter, the huge volcano is over three times larger than Mount Everest. But Olympus Mons has a structure that is somewhat lopsided: it is elongated to the northwest, shortened to the southeast. A new study reveals that the ‘lopsidedness’ may mean warm magma and possibly water could be close enough to Olympus Mons’ surface to support thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria like those found near hydrothermal vents on Earth.

While no volcanic activity has ever been seen or detected in Olympus Mons by orbiting spacecraft, the surface of the northwestern scarp has been dated from 115 million years old down to a region that is only 2 million years old. This is very recent in geological terms, suggesting that the mountain may yet have some ongoing volcanic activity.

To try and understand why Olympus Mons in lopsided, researchers Patrick J. McGovern and Julia K. Morgan from the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Universities Space Research Association, constructed detailed computer simulations of the volcano. They found the only way it could have the shape it does is if, when it was actively erupting, lava piled on top of layers of weak, water-laden clay sediments.

These layers could be hiding a trapped reservoir of water, if indeed Mars was once warmer and wetter. Whether that reservoir could still be warm, and if it could possibly hold life life remains uncertain. As of now, no orbiting satellites have any instruments that can penetrate the surface to look for a heat source.

This research was published in February 2009 in the journal Geology.

Source: The Geological Society of America

October 20, 2008December 24, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Did Lightning and Volcanoes Spark Life on Earth?

Chilean Volcano in 2008 creates lightning. Credit: AP

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Maybe the fictional Dr. Frankenstein wasn’t so crazy after all. Two scientists have resurrected an old experiment, breathing life into a “dead” notion about how life began on our planet. New analysis shows that lightning and gases from volcanic eruptions could have given rise to the first life on Earth.

“It’s alive!”…

Back in the early 1950s, two chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey of the University of Chicago did an experiment that tried to recreate the conditions of a young Earth to see how the building blocks of life could have arisen. They used a closed loop of glass chambers and tubes with water and different mixes of hydrogen, ammonia, and methane; the gases thought to be in Earth’s atmosphere billions of years ago. Then they zapped the mixture with an electrical current, to try and confirm a hypothesis that lightning may have triggered the origin of life. After a few days, the mixture turned brown.
When Miller analyzed the water, he found it contained amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins — life’s toolkit. The spark provided the energy for the molecules to recombine into amino acids, which rained out into the water. The experiment showed how simple molecules could be assembled into the more complex molecules necessary for life by natural processes, like lightning in Earth’s primordial atmosphere.

But there was a problem. Theoretical models and analyses of ancient rocks eventually convinced scientists that Earth’s earliest atmosphere was not rich in hydrogen, so many researchers thought the experiment wasn’t an accurate re-creation of early Earth. But the experiments performed by Miller and Urey were ground-breaking.

“Historically, you don’t get many experiments that might be more famous than these; they re-defined our thoughts on the origin of life and showed unequivocally that the fundamental building blocks of life could be derived from natural processes,” said Adam Johnson, a graduate student with the NASA Astrobiology Institute team at Indiana University, Bloomington. Johnson is the lead author on a paper that resurrects the old origin-of-life experiments, with some tantalizing new findings.

Miller died in 2007. Two former graduate students of Miller’s –geochemists Jim Cleaves of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) in Washington, D.C., and Jeffrey Bada of Indiana University, Bloomington–were examining samples left in Miller’s lab. They found the vials of products from the original experiment and decided to take a second look with updated technology. Using extremely sensitive mass spectrometers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Cleaves, Bada, Johnson and colleagues found traces of 22 amino acids in the experimental residues. That is about double the number originally reported by Miller and Urey and includes all of the 20 amino acids found in living things.

Miller actually ran three slightly different experiments, one of which injected steam into the gas to simulate conditions in the cloud of an erupting volcano. “We found that in comparison to Miller’s classic design everyone is familiar with from textbooks, samples from the volcanic apparatus produced a wider variety of compounds,” said Bada.

This is significant because thinking on the composition of Earth’s early atmosphere has changed. Instead of being heavily laden with hydrogen, methane, and ammonia, many scientists now believe Earth’s ancient atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen. But volcanoes were active during this time period, and volcanoes produce lightning since collisions between volcanic ash and ice particles generate electric charge. The organic precursors for life could have been produced locally in tidal pools around volcanic islands, even if hydrogen, methane, and ammonia were scarce in the global atmosphere.

So, this breathes life into the notion of lightning jump-starting life on Earth. Although Earth’s primordial atmosphere was not hydrogen-rich, gas clouds from volcanic eruptions did contain the right combination of molecules. Is it possible that volcanoes seeded our planet with life’s ingredients? While no one knows what happened next, the researchers are continuing their experiments in an attempt to determine if volcanoes and lightning are the reasons we’re here.

The paper was published in Science on Oct. 17, 2008

Sources: NASA, ScienceNOW

October 4, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Meteorites Could Preserve Evidence of Alien Life

Foton M3 after landing in Kazakhstan after the experiment. Samples, including Orkney sample, are screwed onto

[/caption]In an effort to understand how organic chemicals might survive after a period in the vacuum of space and then violent re-entry through the atmosphere, scientists have uncovered some interesting results. Last year, the ESA/Russian Foton-M3 mission was launched to test the effects of microgravity on various biological samples. However, a sample of Orkney rock had a harder journey than most. Attached to the outside of the craft, this sample underwent extreme heating during the descent toward the plains of Kazakhstan. Although most of the sample was vaporized, scientists have unveiled results that the sample still contains very obvious signs that it once harboured life. These exciting results set new limits on how organic chemicals may survive unaltered for long periods in space before plunging through a planetary atmosphere, plus it raises some interesting questions into how future searches for extraterrestrial life may be performed…

The principal mission objective for many planetary missions is the search for extraterrestrial life. Although many of our robotic explorers cannot detect life directly, they are able to carry out a host of mini lab experiments on samples taken from the planets surface. NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission for example has been tirelessly slaving over its hot oven (a.k.a. the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA for short), dropping samples of Mars soil into its single-use kilns for the last few months. This effort is to vent any prebiotic chemicals into a gas form so instrumentation can then “sniff” the vapour. Should organic chemicals be found, there will be an improved chance that life may have evolved on the Red Planet’s surface.

But say if there is an easier (and cheaper) way to look for ET? Rather than sending hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of hardware to Mars to look for organic chemicals, why can’t we analyse all the rocky samples littered across the globe that originated from space? After all, we now know that some meteorites originate from Mars itself, surely we can perform a far more detailed analysis on these samples instead of depending on a robot millions of miles away?

The big stumbling block comes if we consider the extreme temperatures meteorites are put under during re-entry into the terrestrial atmosphere. Generally one would expect any evidence for past life (whether that be organic chemicals or fossilized remains) to be blow-torched out of existence by reentry temperatures up to 3,000°F (1,650°C). So, researchers from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, decided to test a chunk of rock from a Scottish island by subjecting it to several days in space and then seeing if any evidence of life in the rock sample remained intact after the descent.

the Kasahkstan landing site in September 2007 () — the Kazakhstan landing site of Foton-M3 in September 2007 (R. Demets/F. Brandstatter)

“The specially prepared piece of Orkney rock took part in the unmanned Foton M3 mission which aimed to examine the rock’s behaviour when it was exposed to the extreme temperatures involved in it’s re-entry through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Professor John Parnell, lead scientist in the study, said.

The reason why Orkney rock was used is because of the material’s robustness when exposed to extreme heat. After all, meteorites need to be made of tough stuff to make it to the ground. “Three quarters of the rock, which was about the size of a small pork pie, was burnt off in the experiment. However, the quarter which returned to Earth has shown us that if intelligent life were to have come into contact with the rock, it would have provided them with evidence that life exists on another planet.”

Now this is where the implications behind these results become abundantly clear. If this piece of rock was sent out into space, only for it to eventually encounter an alien world with intelligent life on its surface, it is conceivable that the rock would survive reentry, preserving the organic chemicals for further study by extraterrestrials. Of course, the reverse is true. If life existed (or exists) on Mars, perhaps we should take a closer look at those Martian meteorite samples…

In the case of the Orkney sample, it contains the remains of 400 million year-old algae, providing a rich chemical signature that Parnell and his team could detect. “We would be extremely excited if we found similar remains in a meteorite arriving from another world,” he added.

Although this experiment only scratches the surface of how organic chemicals may last, unaltered, in space (after all, should a meteoroid sample float in space for millions of years, could organic chemicals be altered by cosmic rays?), it does help us understand that for lower energy reentries, organic chemicals can indeed survive the burn…

If this is the case, let’s sit back and wait for the next meteorite to land (this sounds like another novel approach for WETI!).

Original source: Physorg.com

August 5, 2008April 26, 2016 by Ian O'Neill

Perchlorate on Mars Could be Potential Energy Source for Life; Phoenix Team Fires Back at Allegations

The trench known as Snow White on Sol 43 (NASA/JPL/UA)

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It’s been a busy few days for the Phoenix Mars lander rumour-mill. On Friday, an article was published in Aviation Week reporting an undisclosed source from the NASA team analysing results from the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) had come forward saying Phoenix scientists were in communication with the White House. Apparently there had been new, “provocative” results to come from the MECA, possibly a bigger discovery than last Thursday’s announcement about the scientific proof of water in the Martian regolith. Naturally, the blogosphere went crazy in response to this news. Yesterday, the Phoenix team issued a press release focussing on conflicting results from the MECA and Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) instruments. A MECA sample was found to contain a toxic substance known as perchlorate, usually an oxidizing by-product from industrial processes here on Earth. However, a recently analysed sample from the TEGA turned up no supporting evidence for perchlorate. The study is ongoing. Today, the Phoenix team organized a press conference to discuss a more positive view on the possible discovery of perchlorate, and fired back at recent allegations that science was being withheld from the public…

The Phoenix mission has had an outstanding record of transparency and communicating its science into the public domain. So, one can understand the frustration mission scientists felt when “outrageous” stories (according to Peter Smith, Phoenix principal investigator) were circulated by Aviation Week alleging secrecy about Phoenix findings, strongly indicating that something huge had been discovered and the White House had to be notified. “We want to set the record straight…we’re not with-holding anything” NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown declared at the special press briefing today. The Phoenix team went on to say that the sketchy details in the Aviation Week article led to the huge amount of “speculation” that was thrown around in follow-up stories.

Indeed, there was a significant finding in the works, but the scientists needed more time to analyse the results before issuing a press release on finding perchlorate in the MECA sample. Although the Aviation Week article did specifically say Phoenix was not capable of discovering life, it didn’t stop a number of reports indicating that life had been discovered on the Red Planet (hence the need to communicate the discovery with the President’s Science Advisor first). These speculative claims reached fever-pitch, prompting Phoenix’s Twitter feed to state “Heard about the recent news reports implying I may have found Martian life. Those reports are incorrect.” The speed at which these rumours spread was startling and probably took NASA completely off-guard. This is probably why the perchlorate discovery was announced before a complete and rigorous study could be carried out.

So is perchlorate the death-nail for the possibility of finding suitable conditions for life to be seeded? According to Phoenix scientists, oxidizing chemicals are not always ‘bad news’ for life. “It does not preclude life on Mars. In fact it is a potential energy source,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona. Indeed, perchlorates have been found in Chile’s highly arid Atacama Desert, a location often used as an analogue for the Martian landscape. Organics in nitrate deposits associated with perchlorates have been found in these harsh conditions, possibly indicating life may form in similar circumstances on Mars.

Although the Phoenix scientists are fairly upbeat about this new finding, other scientists not associated with the mission are cautious. At first glance, perchlorate “is a reactive compound. It’s not usually considered an ingredient for life,” said Brown University geologist John Mustard. Regardless, we will have to wait until all the results are in, especially from the follow-up TEGA sample. Jumping to conclusions are obviously not very helpful to the Phoenix team currently trying to decipher what they are seeing from experiments being carried out by a robot, 400 million miles away.

Sources: Space.com, Phoenix, Space News Examiner

May 26, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Life Found a Mile Below Terrestrial Seabed; Implications For Life on Mars

Prokaryotes are found in very extreme places (Cyanosite)

We all know how hard life can be, but spare a thought for the microbes recently discovered 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) below the seabed off the coast of Canada. The living conditions are cramped, the environment is a searing 100°C (212F), and yet these hardy cells appear to be thriving. In the midst of the historic landing of Phoenix in the arctic wastes of Mars yesterday, the interest in finding life on the Red Planet has, yet again, reached fever pitch. Although Phoenix isn’t built to look for life, it is assessing the Martian surface water content for signs that it may (or may have been able to) support life. This new discovery of life so deep below the Earth’s surface may set some new limits on just how extreme life can be on other planets…

Off the Newfoundland coastline, scientists have burrowed far below the seabed. Smashing the previous record for subterranean life, this new discovery has found one of the most basic forms of terrestrial life living a mile deep (the previous record held at 842 meters, or 0.5 miles). As I’m no biologist, I’ll leave it to the Reuters news source to describe as to what was found:

Prokaryotes are microbes lacking nuclei, comprising archaea and some types of bacteria. The lack of cell nuclei distinguishes them from eukayrotes, or all animal and plant life. – Reuters

These prokaryote specimens were scooped from sediments dating 111 million years old. At these depths, the sediment is subjected to temperatures from 60-100°C (140-212F), and John Parks, professor at the University of Wales (UK), belives that this type of microbe can live even deeper. He believes more prokaryotes could be discovered up to 4 km (2.5 miles) below the seabed. This leads to the question as to whether life on other planets may not be found on the surface, but deep inside their crust.

“If there is a substantial subsurface biosphere on earth there could also be substantial biospheres on other planets. Just taking a scoop from the surface of Mars is not going to tell you whether there is life on Mars or not.” – Prof. John Parks

This obviously relates to the attempts made by previous Mars landers to analyse the surface for extraterrestrial microbes. However, a lot of information can be gained by analysing the surface composition for the materials required by life (as we know it) to survive. The Phoenix lander for instance was not designed for life hunting in mind, but it was designed to analyse the top layer of regolith for water content and evidence that liquid water may have once flowed in recent Mars history. Now we have extended our limit on where life may thrive, missions to Mars will need to burrow deeper into the surface, or we’ll simply have to wait till we can do it ourselves.

It is not clear where these subterranean microbes get their energy from. Sunlight probably isn’t a factor; methane and heat from volcanic vents seem more obvious candidates.

There is a problem associated with finding life this deep. It complicates possible plans to bury carbon dioxide emissions deep underground to slow the effects of climate change. It is a completely untouched ecosystem, dumping our waste could have serious consequences for these colonies of microbes. However, it might take some convincing as the U.N. Climate Panel has announced that carbon dioxide burial may be the key tool in the future to prevent this greenhouse gas from escaping into the atmosphere.

Source: Reuters

May 13, 2008April 26, 2016 by Tammy Plotner

Imminent Discovery of Life On Mars?

Do you think there is life on Mars? Do you think Phoenix will find evidence of it? Now there’s a blog that’s trying to collect a snapshot of the opinions of scientists, amateurs, and everyday people. “Imminent Discovery” thinks Phoenix may find simple life. Finding this evidence will definitely become headlines… If it happens. Is it possible it might have originated from earth? Perhaps from space, like the famous Antarctica meteorite which was believed to contain evidence of life transported here from Mars?

According to Richard Trentman, a Minor Planet Coordinator at Powell Observatory, “The idea of life in some form on other planets, I believe is highly probable. I have studied about the extreme places on this planet where life has been found and many are far more extreme than may be found on Mars and other planets or moons in our solar system. I believe that anyone that thinks life cannot be “out there” has their eyes closed and blinders on.”

Over time, many astronomers have spent a lifetime dreaming of life and formations on Mars like the misguided Slipher: “Some form of vegetation exists. …The evidence is in the blue-green areas and the changes in their appearance. Vegetation would present exactly the appearance shown, and nothing we know of but vegetation could. The season change that sweeps over them is metabolic…” And yet others take more pragmatic views like astronaut Pete Conrad who commented on bacteria surviving on retrieved Surveyor III remains: “The most significant thing we ever found on the whole Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived an nobody ever said (anything) about it.”

What’s your opinion? Help to update the book “Imminent Discovery, NASA’s Phoenix and the Secret of Life on Mars” in a post-discovery edition with some of these inputs. Please feel free to Post Your Thoughts On The Imminent Discovery of Life On Mars. Responses may be anonymous or you may use initials if you prefer. To make it more interesting, there is a random drawing of all individuals who enter comments to give away one copy of the classic 1962 book by Earl Slipher “Mars, the Photographic Story”, and a competition between astronomy clubs. Have fun!