Nov 2 2011
From The Space Library
MEDIA ADVISORY: M11-227 SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS CONNECT LIVE WITH D.C. STUDENTS
WASHINGTON -- To highlight International Education Week (IEW), NASA and the U.S. Department of Education will host a live, long-distance call for students with International Space Station resident and Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum. Schools and students participating have strong military connections and were selected in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense Education Activity. NASA Associate Administrator for Education Leland Melvin and Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller will join students to discuss living and working in space with Fossum. The downlink is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 8, from 9:55 to 10:15 a.m. EST, and will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. The event will take place at the Department of Education auditorium, 400 Maryland Avenue, S.W., in Washington. This year's IEW theme is "Inspiring Students Locally to Succeed Globally." The event continues a long-standing partnership between NASA and the Education Department that celebrates the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. The live, in-flight education downlink is one of a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad to improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is an integral component of Teaching From Space, a NASA Education program that promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of space and NASA's human spaceflight program.
RELEASE: 11-359 NASA ANNOUNCES NEW ADVISORY COUNCIL CHAIRMAN
WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has named Cornell University Astronomy Professor Steven W. Squyres, as chairman of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC), an assembly of experts from various fields that offer guidance and policy advice to the administrator of America's space agency. "I am extremely excited that Steve has accepted the NAC chairmanship," Bolden said. "His experience as a planetary science researcher with many NASA robotic missions will be of great value to the council. The knowledge and experience of the council's members, such as Steve's, is a vital component of the group. They will be of tremendous value as we go forward, planning to go beyond low-Earth orbit." Dr. Squyres succeeds Dr. Kenneth Ford, the founder and director of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, who has served as council chairman since October 2008. Squyres previously served on the council during the 1990's, and he also served as chairman of the former NASA Space Science Advisory Committee. In October 2011, Squyres participated as an aquanaut in a unique 5-day undersea expedition in the Florida Keys that simulated a future human mission to an asteroid, taking the first steps toward learning how to conduct asteroid exploration by humans. He was a member of the 15th NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) team of six researchers that lived and worked underwater in Aquarius, a school bus-sized laboratory sitting on the seabed near Key Largo, Fla., at a depth of 60 feet. NASA's goal is to send a human mission to an asteroid by 2025. The NEEMO expedition was originally planned for 13-day duration, but ended earlier than planned due to Hurricane Rina. Squyres' scientific research focuses on the robotic exploration of planetary surfaces, the history of water on Mars, geophysics and tectonics of icy satellites, tectonics of Venus, and planetary gamma-ray and X-ray spectroscopy. His best known research includes the study of the history and distribution of water on Mars and of the possible existence and habitability of a liquid water ocean on Europa. Squyres has participated in a number of NASA planetary missions including Voyager, Magellan, and the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. He currently is the scientific principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover mission, which includes the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. He also is a co-investigator on the Mars Express mission and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Squyres is a member of the Mars Odyssey mission and the Cassini mission to Saturn. In 1981, Squyres earned a Ph.D. in planetary science from Cornell University.
RELEASE: 11-369 NASA STUDY OF CLAY MINERALS SUGGESTS WATERY MARTIAN UNDERGROUND
WASHINGTON -- A new NASA study suggests if life ever existed on Mars, the longest lasting habitats were most likely below the Red Planet's surface. A new interpretation of years of mineral-mapping data, from more than 350 sites on Mars examined by European and NASA orbiters, suggests Martian environments with abundant liquid water on the surface existed only during short episodes. These episodes occurred toward the end of hundreds of millions of years during which warm water interacted with subsurface rocks. This has implications about whether life existed on Mars and how its atmosphere has changed. "The types of clay minerals that formed in the shallow subsurface are all over Mars," said John Mustard, professor at Brown University in Providence, R.I. Mustard is a co-author of the study in the journal Nature. "The types that formed on the surface are found at very limited locations and are quite rare." Discovery of clay minerals on Mars in 2005 indicated the planet once hosted warm, wet conditions. If those conditions existed on the surface for a long era, the planet would have needed a much thicker atmosphere than it has now to keep the water from evaporating or freezing. Researchers have sought evidence of processes that could cause a thick atmosphere to be lost over time. This new study supports an alternative hypothesis that persistent warm water was confined to the subsurface and many erosional features were carved during brief periods when liquid water was stable at the surface. "If surface habitats were short-term, that doesn't mean we should be glum about prospects for life on Mars, but it says something about what type of environment we might want to look in," said the report's lead author, Bethany Ehlmann, assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology and scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "The most stable Mars habitats over long durations appear to have been in the subsurface. On Earth, underground geothermal environments have active ecosystems." The discovery of clay minerals by the OMEGA spectrometer on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter added to earlier evidence of liquid Martian water. Clays form from the interaction of water with rock. Different types of clay minerals result from different types of wet conditions. During the past five years, researchers used OMEGA and NASA's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer, or CRISM, instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to identify clay minerals at thousands of locations on Mars. Clay minerals that form where the ratio of water interacting with rock is small generally retain the same chemical elements as the original volcanic rocks later altered by the water. The study interprets this to be the case for most terrains on Mars with iron and magnesium clays. In contrast, surface environments with higher ratios of water to rock can alter rocks further. Soluble elements are carried off by water, and different aluminum-rich clays form. Another clue is detection of a mineral called prehnite. It forms at temperatures above about 400 degrees Fahrenheit (about 200 degrees Celsius). These temperatures are typical of underground hydrothermal environments rather than surface waters. "Our interpretation is a shift from thinking that the warm, wet environment was mostly at the surface to thinking it was mostly in the subsurface, with limited exceptions," said Scott Murchie of Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., a co-author of the report and principal investigator for CRISM. One of the exceptions may be Gale Crater, the site targeted by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Launching this year, the Curiosity rover will land and investigate layers that contain clay and sulfate minerals. NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or MAVEN, in development for a 2013 launch, may provide evidence for or against this new interpretation of the Red Planet's environmental history. The report predicts MAVEN findings consistent with the atmosphere not having been thick enough to provide warm, wet surface conditions for a prolonged period. JPL manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL provided and operates CRISM.
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