MARSBUGS:  
The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter
Volume 5, Number 2, 11 February, 1998.

Editors:

David Thomas, Department of Biological Sciences, University of 
Idaho, Moscow, ID, 83844-3051, USA, thoma457@uidaho.edu or 
Marsbugs@aol.com.

Julian Hiscox, Division of Molecular Biology, IAH Compton 
Laboratory, Berkshire, RG20 7NN, UK.  Julian.Hiscox@bbsrc.ac.uk or 
Marsbug@msn.com

MARSBUGS is published on a weekly to quarterly basis as warranted 
by the number of articles and announcements.  Copyright of this 
compilation exists with the editors, except for specific articles, 
in which instance copyright exists with the author/authors.  E-
mail subscriptions are free, and may be obtained by contacting 
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at:  ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs.

The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a channel of 
information for scientists, educators and other persons interested 
in exobiology and related fields.  This newsletter is not intended 
to replace peer-reviewed journals, but to supplement them.  We, 
the editors, envision MARSBUGS as a medium in which people can 
informally present ideas for investigation, questions about 
exobiology, and announcements of upcoming events.

Exobiology is still a relatively young field, and new ideas may 
come out of the most unexpected places.  Subjects may include, but 
are not limited to:  exobiology proper (life on other planets), 
the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), ecopoeisis/ 
terraformation, Earth from space, planetary biology, primordial 
evolution, space physiology, biological life support systems, and 
human habitation of space and other planets.
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INDEX

1)	LATEST RESEARCH CASTS NEW DOUBT ON EVIDENCE FOR FOSSIL LIFE 
IN MARTIAN METEORITE
Stanford University News Service

2)	PLANETARY SOCIETY EXPEDITION TO BELIZE GOES ON LINE 
	Planetary Society release

3)	ANTARCTICA EXPEDITION ONLINE
by Jim Bladen 

4)	MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FLIGHT STATUS REPORT
JPL release

5)	ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTS SELECTED FOR MARS 2001 MISSIONS
NASA release 98-13

6)	SYMPOSIUM ON MARS SAMPLE RETURN MISSION AT AAAS MEETING
NASA note N98-12

7)	NASA COMET AND JUPITER MISSIONS OFFER EDUCATOR FELLOWSHIPS
JPL release

8)	CALL FOR ARTICLES FOR NEW COSMOS MAGAZINE
by Alex Michael Bonnici 
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LATEST RESEARCH CASTS NEW DOUBT ON EVIDENCE FOR FOSSIL LIFE IN 
MARTIAN METEORITE
Stanford University News Service

21 January, 1998

New analyses of the famous Martian meteorite, ALH84001, have cast 
additional doubt on the likelihood that it contains the fossilized 
remains of ancient Martian microbes.

Two studies published last week find that much of the organic 
material in the meteorite appears to be terrestrial, rather than 
extraterrestrial, in origin.  Richard Zare, the Marguerite Blake 
Wilbur Professor of Chemistry at Stanford who headed the team that 
discovered organic material of possible Martian origin in the 
potato-sized rock, says that the new findings do not directly 
refute the original research.  One of the analyses, however, does 
suggest that the meteorite contains considerably more terrestrial 
contamination than he had thought, Zare acknowledges.

ALH84001 was thrust into the limelight in August 1996 when a team 
of scientists published a controversial analysis in the journal 
Science.  They argued that they had discovered organic material, 
unusual mineralogical features and electron microscope images 
showing tiny oval and worm- shaped features that, when taken 
together, provided compelling circumstantial evidence that the 
meteorite was inhabited by Martian microorganisms more than three 
billion years ago.

Scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston provided the 
electron microscope images of the putative nanofossils.  
Researchers from the University of Georgia and McGill University 
contributed the mineralogical evidence.  Zare's research group 
produced data showing that the meteorite contained a family of 
organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) 
that could have been produced by the decomposition of alien 
microorganisms.

In the 17 months since the research was announced, other 
scientists have published dozens of independent analyses that have 
both supported and attacked the Martian microbe hypothesis.  In 
the last month, however, the weight of new research appears to be 
stacking up against the pro-life position.

In December, John Bradley of MVA Inc. and Ralph Harvey of Case 
Western Reserve University published a paper in the journal Nature 
that attacked the NASA group's interpretation that the oval and 
worm-like shapes that it reported could be the fossils of 
microorganisms. Duplicating the NASA researchers' methods, Bradley 
and Harvey reported that all the shapes that they could find in 
the meteorite are non-biological in nature and consist of the 
fractured surfaces of common crystals.  In the same issue of the 
journal, the NASA team strongly contested this interpretation.  
The two analyses of the organic material in the meteorite appeared 
in the January 16 issue of the journal Science.

A team from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, headed by Jeffrey 
Bada, analyzed the meteorite for amino acids, the building blocks 
of life.  They found amino acids present in very low 
concentrations (between 7 parts per million and 100 parts per 
billion).  "What we found was that, yes, there are amino acids in 
the meteorite at very low levels, but they are clearly terrestrial 
and they look similar to amino acids we see in the surrounding 
Antarctic ice," Bada said in a Scripps news release.  (The 
meteorite spent an estimated 13,000 years in the Antarctic ice 
before it was discovered.)

Bada based his conclusion that the amino acids were due to 
terrestrial contamination on the results of an analytic technique 
called liquid chromatography.  The method determines the 
"handedness" of the amino acids.  Terrestrial organisms produce 
only left-handed amino acids, where non-biological processes 
produce a mixture of left- and right-handed molecules.  Bada found 
that the amino acids in the meteorite were left- handed and so 
concludes that they must be terrestrial.  There is at least a 50 
percent chance, however, that Martian life (if it exists) would 
also favor left-handed molecules.  So the experiment is by no 
means conclusive, Zare said.

Even if the amino acids in the meteorite come from terrestrial 
contamination, Zare says this does not prove that the PAHs which 
his group found are also terrestrial in origin.  "Amino acids are 
soluble in water.  So water provides a mechanism for carrying them 
into the interior of the meteorite.  But PAHs are highly insoluble 
and I don't know of any mechanism that would transport them into 
the rock's interior where we found them," he said.

Zare finds the second analysis, performed by a University of 
Arizona research team headed by A. J. Timothy Jull, much more 
interesting and compelling.  "It is state-of-the-art and an 
extremely valuable study of the degree of contamination in the 
meteorite," he said.

Jull's group burned samples of the meteorite at two different 
temperatures to separate the organic carbon from the carbon 
contained in inorganic minerals, which burn off at higher 
temperatures.  They then analyzed the isotopic ratios of the 
carbon from the two sources.

In previous work, Jull had determined that the carbonates in 
ALH84001 are substantially enriched in the isotope carbon-13 
compared to those on Earth.  He and his colleagues interpret this 
as an indication that the carbon dioxide in the early Martian 
atmosphere was also enriched in carbon-13.  If that is the case, 
then the tissue of Martian organisms would also have elevated 
levels of carbon-13.  When the team analyzed the ratio of carbon 
isotopes in the organic carbon, however, it found that fully four-
fifths of the material had the same isotopic signature as 
terrestrial carbon.  The other 20 percent appears to have a 
preterrestrial origin, they found.

"It looks like regular terrestrial organic material, with the 
exception of one small component in ALH84001," Jull said in a 
University of Arizona news release.

The analysis "indicates a much greater degree of terrestrial 
contamination in the meteorite than I suspected was present two 
years ago," Zare said.  "In that sense, Jull's study does cast new 
doubt on our hypothesis that the meteorite contains evidence of 
past Martian life."

On the other hand, the Stanford chemist does not believe that the 
study completely rules out an extraterrestrial origin for the 
PAHs.  "Jull's work is for the whole rock.  As in real estate, 
location is everything.  His study does not give any indication of 
the locations from which these different carbon isotope fractions 
are coming.  So I cannot tell where the PAHs, which are 
concentrated around carbonate spheroids in the meteorite's 
interior, fall in the terrestrial or preterrestrial fraction."

The saga of the provocative rock is far from over.  Last summer 
NASA and the National Science Foundation awarded grants for 23 new 
investigations of AHL84001 as part of a coordinated program 
designed to determine whether it contains traces of alien life.  
These studies will be producing results in the next two to three 
years.

Although it may be decades before the significance of the 
meteorite is determined conclusively, Zare sees several beneficial 
effects that are independent of the debate's ultimate outcome.  
These include a revitalization of research on meteorites, 
increased efforts to extend the boundaries of the scientific 
ability to measure trace quantities of chemical compounds in 
materials, and its illustration of the critical importance of 
multidisciplinary research.

Most important, he says, it has given a major new impetus to 
research that addresses the closely related questions of "How did 
life begin on Earth?" and "Is there life beyond Earth?" A concrete 
example of this is NASA's decision to found a new $7 million to 
$10 million-per-year Astrobiology Institute specifically for this 
purpose.  Zare is serving as chair of the search committee for the 
institute's first director.
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PLANETARY SOCIETY EXPEDITION TO BELIZE GOES ON LINE 
Society Web Site Offers Daily Reports on Latest Expedition 
Investigating the Demise of the Dinosaurs
Planetary Society release

The Planetary Society's third expedition to Belize is searching 
for evidence of the asteroid impact that ended the age of the 
dinosaurs 65 million years ago.  This time everyone is invited to 
participate via this web site:  http://www.planetary.org/hot-
topics/belize/  where field reports--including images--from the 
expedition will be posted on a daily basis.

Team leaders Adriana Ocampo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and 
Kevin Pope of Geo Eco Research are again leading a group of 
Planetary Society volunteers on a geological adventure into the 
jungles of Belize.  Past Society expeditions to the region 
collected samples of ejecta blanket material--debris blasted from 
the Chicxulub crater when the asteroid crashed just off the coast 
of the Yucatan.  The crater, now buried under the accumulated 
sediment of millions of years, is 200 to 300 kilometers across 
(about 124 to 186 miles across).

Ocampo said, "In this third expedition to Belize, we will continue 
our quest to build a more complete picture of what really happened 
when a comet or asteroid collided with Earth and changed our world 
forever.

"We have been tantalized by unique evidence from the impact found 
only in Belize, and this expedition will allow us to better 
understand how impacts affect Earth and the other planets in our 
solar system."

Scientific objectives of the 1998 expedition include collecting 
samples; following the ejecta blanket from north to south Belize 
to see how far it extends; and mapping the distribution of 
ballistically deformed materials, such as "Pook's pebbles"--unique 
features that were discovered in Belize on a prior Society 
expedition.

This expedition will also work on an analog to Mars by correlating 
their findings in Belize with similar features found on the 
martian surface during the Pathfinder mission.

A digital camera, donated to the Planetary Society by Epson, will 
be used to record images of scientists and volunteers at work, the 
sites being studied, and some of the geological samples 
discovered.  These images, along with daily field reports, will be 
posted on the Society's web site.  Expedition team member Robert 
Cozzi, well-known author of six books on computer programming, and 
his daughter Theresa will post the reports and photograph the 
expedition.

Discoveries from the 1995 and 1996 trips to Belize include

* The identification of a new species of crab that went extinct at 
the end of the Cretaceous period, named Carcineretes planetarius 
in honor of the Planetary Society;
* Identification of shock quartz in northern Belize;
* Identification of an iridium anomaly at Albion in northern 
Belize; and
* Identification of possible condensate material from the impact's 
vapor plume, including Pook's pebbles.

While this is the Planetary Society's third expedition to Belize, 
it is the fourth sent by the Society to study evidence of the 
Chicxulub impact.  Another expedition went to Italy in 1996 to 
study core samples from that same time period.
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ANTARCTICA EXPEDITION ONLINE
by Jim Bladen 

The following web site documents Dr. Luann Becker's Antarctica 
expedition to collect meteorites and Antarctic ice samples:  
http://govt.us.oracle.com/mars

Dr. Becker will analyze the meteorites and ice, and will compare 
the organic components of each to address the origin (terrestrial 
or extraterrestrial) of the material.  Part of Dr. Beckers' 
research involves the assessment of organic matter in martian 
meteorites.  An important issue to address in these studies is 
what organic components are present in the Antarctic environment, 
and how the Antarctic weathering process affects the preservation 
of organic matter in meteorites.

Dr. Becker is an astrobiologist/geochemist with the University of 
Hawaii.  Astrobiology is the study of life in the universe.  This 
site enables Dr. Becker to collaborate with her peers and Mars 
enthusiasts worldwide from the field in Antarctica.

This web site is sponsored by Oracle Corporation in a cooperative 
effort to make the findings of this scientific expedition 
available to interested persons worldwide.

JBLADEN@us.oracle.com 
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MARS GLOBAL SURVEYOR FLIGHT STATUS REPORT
JPL release

30 January, 1998

Last week, the flight team celebrated a mission milestone as 
Surveyor completed its 100th orbit around Mars.  Afterward, flight 
operations manager Joe Beerer characterized aerobraking operations 
to reduce the size of the orbit as proceeding at a "very 
satisfying" pace.  As of today, Surveyor is completing one 
revolution around Mars every 19.2 hours.  This orbital period is 
nearly 75 minutes shorter than that predicted for this time prior 
to the winter holidays.

Aerobraking progress continues to be assisted by the relative calm 
state of the Martian atmosphere despite the continuance of the 
traditional dust storm season.  A stable atmosphere allows the 
spacecraft to aerobrake at slightly lower altitudes in order to 
experience more air resistance.  This increase in air resistance 
results in the size of the orbit shrinking at a faster rate.

In other news, the flight team has inserted spacecraft rotation 
commands to the list of tasks executed on every orbit.  Normally, 
Surveyor spends the majority of its time with its high-gain 
antenna pointed directly at the Earth.  The new commands occur 
twice per orbit and rotate the spacecraft so that different parts 
are better exposed to the Sun.  These rotations are necessary to 
keep the temperatures on the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter science 
instrument from falling below its functional limit of 10 degrees 
Celsius.  Current analysis shows that the laser will require these 
warming rotations until September of this year.

After a mission elapsed time of 449 days from launch, Surveyor is 
207.12 million miles (333.33 million kilometers) from the Earth 
and in an orbit around Mars with a high point of 17,260 miles 
(27,777 km), a low point of 75.2 miles (121.0 km), and a period of 
19.2 hours.  The spacecraft is currently executing the P112 
command sequence, and all systems continue to perform as expected.  
The next status report will be released on Friday, February 20th.
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ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTS SELECTED FOR MARS 2001 MISSIONS
NASA release 98-13

NASA has selected additional instruments for the Mars Surveyor 
2001 missions, which will study Mars' environment.  The Mars 
Surveyor 2001 missions will follow two other robotic Mars missions 
to be launched in late 1998 and early 1999.  All are part of 
NASA's long-term, systematic exploration of Mars in which two 
missions are launched to the planet approximately every 26 months.

"In a sense, these missions allow virtual presence by humans and 
provide precursor data and subsequent infrastructure for possible 
human missions in the 21st century," said Arnauld Nicogossian, 
Associate Administrator of NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity 
Sciences and Applications.  "By adding capability to missions 
already planned, this near term effort will result in cost 
effective, tangible progress in carrying out the Human Exploration 
and Development of Space strategy and contribute to the Origins 
program of NASA's Office of Space Science."

NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications 
has selected the following investigations for the Mars 2001 
Orbiter, due for launch in March of that year, and the Mars 2001 
Lander/Rover, due for launch in April 2001:

* The Martian Radiation Environment Experiment will characterize 
the radiation environment in the orbit and on the surface of Mars 
simultaneously.  This experiment will consist of radiation 
spectrometers on both the Mars 2001 Orbiter and on the Mars 2001 
Lander.  Dr. Guatam Badhwar from NASA's Johnson Space Center, 
Houston, TX, is the principal investigator.

* The Mars Environmental Compatibility Assessment will 
characterize Martian dust and soil to identify potential 
undesirable and harmful interactions with human explorers and 
associated hardware, and to evaluate properties of the soil 
related to its use as a construction material.  Dr. Thomas Meloy 
from West Virginia State University is the principal investigator.

A team consisting of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 
Pasadena, CA, and Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, will 
develop the missions, led by JPL.  The radiation and dust 
investigations were selected from 39 proposals submitted to NASA 
in August 1997.

Both of the 2001 missions are part of an ongoing NASA series of 
robotic Mars exploration spacecraft that began with the launches 
of the Mars Global Surveyor in November 1996.  The 2001 missions 
represent the first step in a NASA initiative to integrate the 
requirements for Space Science and the Human Exploration and 
Development of Space program into a single robotic exploration 
program.

---------------------------------------------------------------

SYMPOSIUM ON MARS SAMPLE RETURN MISSION AT AAAS MEETING
NASA note N98-12

9 February, 1998

What are the benefits of exploring Mars? Is it possible to find 
signs of life using robotic explorers? What are the risks of 
bringing a sample of the Red Planet back to Earth?  These are 
among the issues to be discussed by a panel of scientists, 
including Dr. Wesley T. Huntress, Jr., NASA's Associate 
Administrator of Space Science, at the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting and Science 
Innovation Exposition in Philadelphia, PA, on Feb.  15, 1998.

The panel, called "Mars Sample Return Missions:  Scientific, 
Technical and Social Challenges," will begin at 3 p.m.  Panelists 
are Dr. Huntress; Dr. Klaus Keil, Professor of Planetary 
Geosciences and Chair, Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and 
Planetology, University of Hawaii, Manoa; Dr. Rita R. Colwell, 
President, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, College 
Park, MD; Dr. Jonathan Y. Richmond, Director, Office of Health 
Safety, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, 
GA; Dr. Margaret S. Race, SETI Institute, Mountain View, CA; and 
Dr. John D. Rummel, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, 
and NASA.

Following the symposium, the panelists will take part in a round-
table discussion on the benefits and challenges of Mars sample 
return and will take questions from the audience.
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NASA COMET AND JUPITER MISSIONS OFFER EDUCATOR FELLOWSHIPS
JPL release

22 January, 1998

Two NASA space missions are seeking candidates to apply for 
educator fellowships to help field-test educational modules and to 
plan and participate in teacher training workshops developed by 
the projects.

NASA's Stardust mission, which will launch in 1999, fly to a comet 
and collect a sample for return to Earth, is seeking applicants 
for 10 educator fellowships.  As part of a nationwide teacher 
training initiative, the Stardust project is developing 
educational modules, targeted at grades 4 through 8, that will be 
tested by the Stardust Educator Fellows chosen from around the 
country.

In late spring/summer 1998, a second announcement of opportunity 
will be distributed to solicit candidates from which an additional 
15 Stardust Educator Fellows will be selected and trained in fall 
1998.

Those selected for the educator fellowships will receive an all-
expenses-paid intensive training workshop about the comet sample 
return mission this spring at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in 
Denver, CO.  Fellows will also receive guidance on presentation 
strategies and a complete teacher training presenter package so 
they can conduct their own Stardust teacher training workshops.

Ideal candidates are actively teaching or conducting teacher 
training in a formal or informal science environment (school 
district, science center, museum, educational organization, etc.).  
Selected candidates will be announced by March 6, 1998.  
Additional information for Stardust Educator Fellowship applicants 
is available on the Stardust home page at 
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov

Candidates are also being sought for the Galileo Europa Mission 
Educator Fellowship Program for 1998 and 1999.  A team of 15 
Educator Fellows will be selected for training at the Jet 
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.  Individuals selected will 
receive a complete workshop package and educational materials to 
conduct their own teacher training geared toward middle and high 
school teachers.  More information is available at 
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/

The fellowships will focus on the Galileo Europa Mission, a two-
year extension of the Galileo Mission to Jupiter, which will study 
two of Jupiter's moons with opposite and extreme conditions.  Icy 
Europa may have liquid oceans hidden under its surface, while Io 
is dotted with volcanoes.

Applications for the Galileo Europa Mission Educator Fellowships
must be received by February 16, with selected candidates to be 
announced on February 27.

Application information for both Stardust and Galileo Europa 
Mission programs may be requested by contacting Kerri Beisser, 
Challenger Center for Space Science Education,1029 N. Royal 
Street, Suite 300, Alexandria, VA 22314; or by sending a query via 
fax to (703) 683-7546.
Applicants should specify for which program they wish to apply.

The Stardust Mission and the Galileo Europa Mission are managed 
for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, 
Pasadena, CA.
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CALL FOR ARTICLES FOR NEW COSMOS MAGAZINE
by Alex Michael Bonnici 

In Anticipation of the coming Millennium I have decided to launch 
a new Magazine in honor of the Late Dr. Carl Sagan concerning 
humanity's future in the universe.  The magazine is entitled 
"Cosmos:  A Magazine Concerning Humanity's Future In The 
Universe".  It will be a web based magazine or e-zine.  Larry 
Klaes will be the editor of this magazine, while I will be 
providing the web space, and contributing an article or two from 
time to time.  It is my attention to launch this magazine in two 
months.

I am sending out a general call for articles, and would appreciate 
your participation.  The general layout of this magazine can be 
seen by following this link:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/8505/CosmosMagazine.html

I beforehand thank you for your participation.
Mr. Alex Michael Bonnici
carlsagan@craigerware.avalon.net 
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End Marsbugs, Vol.  5, No.  2
