Re: Mars News and Discussions
Posted: Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:00 pm
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Scientists are about to get a new look at Mars, thanks to a multicolored 5.6-gigapixel map. Covering 86% of the Red Planet's surface, the map reveals the distribution of dozens of key minerals. By looking at mineral distribution, scientists can better understand Mars' watery past and can prioritize which regions need to be studied in more depth.
The first portions of this map were released by NASA's Planetary Data System. Over the next six months, more will be released, completing one of the most detailed surveys of the Martian surface ever made. (Read more about these map segments.)
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, has been mapping minerals on the Red Planet for 16 years, with its Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, or CRISM.
Using detectors that see visible and infrared wavelengths, the CRISM team has previously produced high-resolution mineral maps that provide a record of the formation of the Martian crust and where and how it was altered by water. These maps have been crucial to helping scientists understand how lakes, streams, and groundwater shaped the planet billions of years ago. NASA has also used CRISM's maps to select landing sites for other spacecraft, as with Jezero Crater, where NASA's Perseverance rover is exploring an ancient river delta.
According to a new NASA laboratory experiment, rovers may have to dig about 6.6 feet (two meters) or more under the Martian surface to find signs of ancient life because ionizing radiation from space degrades small molecules such as amino acids relatively quickly.
Amino acids can be created by life and by non-biological chemistry. However, finding certain amino acids on Mars would be considered a potential sign of ancient Martian life because they are widely used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins. Proteins are essential to life, as they are used to make enzymes that speed up or regulate chemical reactions, and to make structures.
"Our results suggest that amino acids are destroyed by cosmic rays in the Martian surface rocks and regolith at much faster rates than previously thought," said Alexander Pavlov of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Current Mars rover missions drill down to about two inches (around five centimeters). At those depths, it would take only 20 million years to destroy amino acids completely. The addition of perchlorates and water increases the rate of amino acid destruction even further." A period of 20 million years is a relatively brief amount of time because scientists are looking for evidence of ancient life on the surface that would have been present billions of years ago when Mars was more like Earth.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/martian-roc ... ife-64252(IFL Science) The search for signs of life on Mars is starting to pay off. Rock samples collected by the Curiosty rover appear to show signs of a key component of life as we know it.
This doesn’t mean Curiosity just stumbled across little green men on Mars (it would be bigger news), but scientists studying the rover’s samples measured the total organic carbon – a key component in the molecules of life – in Martian rocks for the first time.
“Total organic carbon is one of several measurements [or indices] that help us understand how much material is available as feedstock for prebiotic chemistry and potentially biology,” said Jennifer Stern of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in a statement.
“We found at least 200 to 273 parts per million of organic carbon. This is comparable to or even more than the amount found in rocks in very low-life places on Earth, such as parts of the Atacama Desert in South America, and more than has been detected in Mars meteorites.”
Organic carbon is carbon bound to a hydrogen atom and is a prerequisite for organic molecules, which are created and used by all known life forms. However, it can also be created by non-living sources, like volcanoes, or come from meteorites, which Curiosity's Earthly counterparts suspect may be the culprit here.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-spacecr ... d-canyon(Science Alert) he biggest known canyon in the Solar System is getting the star treatment in new images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.
As it whooshed by in Martian orbit, the spacecraft captured a pair of gouges in the planet's surface that make up part of the Valles Marineris, a system of canyons known as the Grand Canyon of Mars.
The Martian Grand Canyon, however, makes the Earth version seem like a canyon for ants.
At 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) long and 200 miles wide, Valles Marineris is almost 10 times longer and 20 times wider than the vast canyon system found in North America. Earth has nothing that comes even close to comparing to Valles Marineris, which makes the feature intensely interesting to planetary scientists.
The segment images by Mars Express include sections of two chasmata, Ius on the left and Tithonium on the right. Close study of the details of these incredible natural structures can help scientists understand Mars' geology and geological history.