MARSBUGS:  
The Electronic Exobiology Newsletter
Volume 5, Number 8, 26 March, 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 
either of the editors.  Article contributions are welcome, and 
should be submitted to either of the two editors.  Contributions 
should include a short biographical statement about the author(s) 
along with the author(s)' correspondence address.  Subscribers are 
advised to make appropriate inquiries before joining societies, 
ordering goods etc.  Back issues and Word97 files suitable for 
printing may be obtained via anonymous FTP at:  
ftp.uidaho.edu/pub/mmbb/marsbugs.  Also, an official web page is 
under construction.  Currently it is part of 
http://members.aol.com/marsbugs/dave.html (right now, the page 
simply points to the FTP site).

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)	NEW GLOBAL SURVEYOR DATA REVEAL DEEPLY LAYERED TERRAIN, 
MAGNETIC FEATURES AND GENESIS OF A MARTIAN DUST STORM
JPL release

2)	RAW DATA FROM MARS PATHFINDER MISSION AVAILABLE 
JPL release

3)	TALK WITH NASA SCIENTISTS ABOUT LIFE ON MARS
by Dan Helfman

4)	MARS SURVEYOR 98 PROJECT STATUS REPORTS
by John McNamee

5)	"IMP" WINS LIFE MAGAZINE "EISIE" AWARD FOR BEST SCIENCE PHOTO 
OF 1997
University of Arizona release

6)	EARTH-VIEWING SATELLITE WOULD FOCUS ON EDUCATIONAL, 
SCIENTIFIC BENEFITS
NASA release 98-46

7)	CRATER CHAIN ON TWO CONTINENTS POINTS TO IMPACT FROM 
FRAGMENTED COMET--214 MILLION YEAR-OLD EVENT CORRESPONDS WITH 
MASS EXTINCTION
University of Chicago release

8)	CANADIAN EXPERIMENTS BACK FROM MIR
Canadian Space Agency release

9)	JPL TO HOST TRAINING FOR GALILEO EDUCATORS
JPL release

10)	GALILEO--COUNTDOWN TO EUROPA
JPL release

11)	STARDUST STATUS REPORT
by Ken Atkins

12)	NASA LIFE SCIENCES NRA
NASA release
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NEW GLOBAL SURVEYOR DATA REVEAL DEEPLY LAYERED TERRAIN, MAGNETIC 
FEATURES AND GENESIS OF A MARTIAN DUST STORM
JPL release

13 March 1998

For the first time in Mars exploration, a spacecraft has captured 
the full evolution of a Martian dust storm.  NASA's Mars Global 
Surveyor mission also has returned new insights into the deeply 
layered terrain and mineral composition of the Martian surface, 
and to highly magnetized crustal features that provide important 
clues about the planet's interior.  These findings are among the 
early results from the Mars-orbiting mission being reported in 
today's issue of Science magazine.

This first set of formal results comes from data obtained in 
October and November 1997, while the spacecraft was just beginning 
to use the drag of Mars' upper atmosphere to lower and circularize 
its orbit in a process called aerobraking.  At the time, a dust 
storm was brewing on Mars and had grown to about the size of the 
South Atlantic Ocean.

The Global Surveyor data suggest that it began as a set of small 
dust storms along the edge of the planet's southern polar cap, 
according to Dr. Arden Albee of the California Institute of 
Technology, Pasadena, CA, the Mars Global Surveyor mission 
scientist.  By Thanksgiving, it had expanded into a large regional 
dust storm in Noachis Terra that covered almost 180 degrees 
longitude, while spanning 20 degrees south latitude to nearly the 
tip of the Martian equator.

"As this storm obscured the Martian landscape, we followed it in 
detail using several instruments onboard Mars Global Surveyor," 
Albee said.  "The thermal emission spectrometer mapped the 
temperature and opacity of the atmosphere while the camera 
followed the visual effects.  The effects of the storm extended to 
great heights of about 130 kilometers (80 miles) and resulted in 
great increases in both atmospheric density and variability from 
orbit to orbit.  These atmospheric measurements have great 
significance for future Mars missions that will be using 
aerobraking techniques too."

Before the storm, atmospheric dust was generally distributed very 
uniformly, Albee said.  Observations of the limb of the planet in 
the northern hemisphere revealed both low-lying dust hazes and 
detached water-ice clouds at altitudes of up to 55 kilometers (34 
miles).  Movement of these clouds was tracked by the spectrometer 
as the planet rotated.  Atmospheric turbulence disrupted these 
cloud patterns as the small storms began to rise and kick more 
dust into the air.  As the storm began to abate, small local 
storms began to crop up again along the edges of the south polar 
cap, and ice clouds formed in depressions as the carbon dioxide 
cap continued to retreat.

In addition to these unprecedented observations of a full- blown 
Martian dust storm, measurements from the spacecraft's 
magnetometer and electron reflectometer have yielded new findings 
about Mars' strong, localized magnetic fields.  These patches of 
the crust, which register high levels of magnetism, are beginning 
to unlock some of the mysteries surrounding Mars' internal dynamo 
and when it died, said Dr. Mario Acuna of NASA's Goddard Space 
Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.

"These locally magnetized areas on Mars could not form without the 
presence of an overall global magnetic field that was perhaps as 
strong as Earth's is today," says Acuna.  "Since the internal 
dynamo that powered the global field is extinct, these local 
magnetic fields act as fossils, preserving a record of the 
geologic history and thermal evolution of Mars."

Magnetic fields are created by the movement of electrically 
conducting fluids, and a planet can generate a global magnetic 
field if its interior consists of molten metal hot enough to 
undergo convective motion, similar to the churning motion seen in 
boiling water.

"The small size and highly magnetic nature of these crustal 
features, which measure on the order of 50 kilometers (30 miles), 
are found within the ancient cratered terrain rather than within 
the younger volcanic terrain," Acuna said.  "By correlating 
crustal age with magnetization, we have a perfect window on Mars' 
past, which will help us to determine when Mars' internal dynamo 
ceased operating."

High-resolution images of dunes, sandsheets and drifts also are 
helping reveal earlier chapters of Martian history.  Landforms 
shaped by erosion are almost everywhere, according to Albee, and 
many bear a striking resemblance to Colorado's Rocky Mountains.  
Rocky ridges poke through the Martian dust just as the jagged 
edges of cliffs pierce through a blanket of snow in the Rockies.  
Martian dust appears to have spilled down the sides of ridges just 
as fresh snow slides down a ski slope.

"One almost expects to see ski tracks crisscrossing the area," 
Albee added.  "These images present a sharp contrast to the images 
of boulder-strewn deserts found at the Viking and Pathfinder 
landing sites."

Newly released images from the Mars Global Surveyor camera, 
developed by principal investigator Dr. Michael Malin of Malin 
Space Science Systems, Inc., San Diego, can be viewed on the 
Internet at:  http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/marsnews/ or 
http://www.msss.com/

The Martian crust also exhibits much more layering at great depth 
than was expected.  The steep walls of canyons, valleys and 
craters show the Martian crust to be stratified at scales of a few 
tens of yards, which is an exciting discovery, Albee noted.  "At 
this point we simply do not know whether these layers represent 
piles of volcanic flows or sedimentary rocks that might have 
formed in a standing body of water," he said.

The thermal emission spectrometer, led by principal investigator 
Dr. Philip Christensen of Arizona State University, is beginning 
to obtain a few infrared emission spectra of the surface, although 
it is still too cold on the surface for the best results.  The 
best spectra clearly indicate the presence of pyroxene and 
plagioclase, minerals which are common in volcanic rocks, with a 
variable amount of dust component.  No evidence was found for 
carbonate minerals, clay minerals or quartz.  If present in these 
rocks, their abundance must be less than about 10 percent.

Their absence indicates that carbonates are not ubiquitous over 
the surface of the planet, but they may still be found in specific 
locations that either favored their initial deposition or their 
subsequent preservation.  This finding could have important 
implications for identifying areas that may preserve signs of 
ancient life on Mars, since carbonate minerals are commonly formed 
in biological processes, Albee said.

Striking results also have been obtained from Global Surveyor's 
laser altimeter over Mars' northern hemisphere, which is 
exceptionally flat with slopes and surface roughness increasing 
toward the equator, according to principal investigator Dr. David 
Smith of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.  The 
initial data for this region helps scientists interpret a variety 
of landforms, including the northern polar cap, gigantic canyons, 
ridges, craters of all sizes and shield volcanoes.  Most 
surprising are views of extraordinarily mundane regions -- as flat 
as the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah--that extend over vast 
northern regions of the planet.

Mars Global Surveyor will complete the first phase of its two-part 
aerobraking strategy at the end of March, at which time the 
science instruments will be turned on again for most of the next 
six months.  Over this period, the spacecraft will stay in an 11 
1/2-hour orbit and collect an additional bounty of data at a 
closest approach of about 170 kilometers (106 miles) above the 
surface, much closer than the spacecraft will pass over the planet 
once it has reached its formal mapping orbit in March 1999.  This 
closer orbit will allow the science teams to take more detailed 
measurements of the Martian atmosphere and surface without 
magnetic interference from the solar wind.

"When we decided to slow the pace of aerobraking to reduce the 
force on the solar panel that was damaged after launch, we knew we 
would get a bonus - the ability to collect much more science data 
closer to the planet than will be possible during the prime 
mapping mission," said Glenn E.  Cunningham, Mars Global Surveyor 
project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.  
"Additionally, the six-month period between the end of March and 
early September will yield an extraordinary opportunity as the 
lowest point of the orbit migrates over the northern polar cap.  
All of this information that is coming back now is really icing on 
the cake, a spectacular precursor to the global mapping data 
expected to start flowing next year."

Mars Global Surveyor is part of a sustained program of Mars 
exploration known as the Mars Surveyor Program.  The mission is 
managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Office of 
Space Science, Washington, DC.  JPL's industrial partner is 
Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, CO, which developed and 
operates the spacecraft.  JPL is a division of the California 
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.
------------------------------------------------------------------

RAW DATA FROM MARS PATHFINDER MISSION AVAILABLE 
JPL release

14 March 1998

Welcome to the Planetary Image Atlas/Mars Pathfinder Navigator.  
The Planetary Image Atlas/MPF Navigator provides access to raw EDR 
products for the MPF instruments IMP (Imager for Mars Pathfinder), 
RVRCAM (Rover Cameras), and MET (Meteorology package).  Access to 
the APXS (Alpha Proton X-ray Spectrometer) data will be added as 
soon as possible.

If you are not interested in the raw data, but would like to see 
instead the processed images most commonly of interest to the 
public, please see the numerous images available in NASA's 
Planetary Photojournal (http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/).

Using the Atlas, you may select images based on their location, 
the camera and filter used, and many other search parameters.  You 
can display the images, download them immediately in various 
formats, or place bulk orders for images to be delivered 
electronically.

WARNING

Mars Pathfinder scientists are in the process of calibrating and 
validating this data.  In an effort to make the data available as 
quickly as possible, we are essentially providing access to a copy 
of our operational system and the working data.  Thus, there may 
be numerous inapplicable capabilities that may not work on this 
system, and values in the data labels that have yet to be filled 
in.  In other words, this is a work in progress.  Please be 
patient and keep these limitations in mind when using the data.

Search the Atlas

There are two primary interfaces to the Planetary Image Atlas.  
One is a map-based interface, that permits selection of images by 
location using a mosaic of the Pathfinder landing site.  The other 
is a forms-based interface which allows selection of images by 
entering detailed search parameters in a form.  Choose the method 
you prefer.

* Map-based search (for IMP data only)
* Forms-based search
	IMP
	RVRCAM
	MET Operations Support Data Products

The raw data from the Mars Pathfinder mission are now available at 
this URL:  
http://www-pdsimage.jpl.nasa.gov/PDS/public/MPF/frontpage.html
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TALK WITH NASA SCIENTISTS ABOUT LIFE ON MARS
by Dan Helfman

Interested in any of the following?
* live webchats about Mars with NASA experts:  
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/events/interact.html 

* an email service in which NASA experts answer your individual
questions:  http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/question.html

* archives of answers to previously asked questions about Mars:  
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ask/

* biographies of NASA experts and stories about their work days:  
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/team/

* background sections and Mars mission information:  
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/background/

* a Mars photo gallery:  http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/photos/

These resources are open to anyone without cost.  To get involved, 
visit the Mars Team Online web site at 
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/ and jump in.

This popular Sharing NASA project involves NASA's current and 
future missions to Mars.  The Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft took 
off in November and reached the orbit of Mars on September 11, 
1997 to begin an orbital mission that will provide detailed 
mapping and weather information.  The Mars Pathfinder spacecraft 
blasted away in December and landed on the Red Planet on July 4, 
1997.  The micro-rover Sojourner has wandered its way around the 
Martian terrain, returning a wealth of new science data.

By participating in the Mars Team Online project, you can join the 
Mars team in their exploration of the Red Planet! The project was 
originally designed for students and teachers, but we've found 
that adults are also particularly interested, especially in the 
email question and answer service.

Our other Sharing NASA projects also allow anyone from the general 
public to share in the excitement of NASA's authentic scientific 
and engineering pursuits, like flying the shuttle, spacecraft 
explorations of distant planets, and space-based life sciences 
research.  The focus of these projects is the enthusiastic people 
of NASA.  For these other projects, see http://quest.arc.nasa.gov

[If you would like more information about Sharing NASA or Mars 
Team Online, please remove "DESPAM" from the email address when 
you reply to this post.  I'll be happy to field any questions.  Or 
just email me to let me know that you found this information 
useful.]

Dan Helfman
Mars Team Online
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/mars/
------------------------------------------------------------------

MARS SURVEYOR 98 PROJECT STATUS REPORTS
by John McNamee, Mars Surveyor 98 project manager

13 March 1998

Orbiter and lander integration and test activities are proceeding 
on schedule with no significant problems.  Orbiter electromagnetic 
compatibility testing was completed successfully on March 9.  The 
orbiter spacecraft is being prepared for thermal vacuum testing 
scheduled to begin on April 8.  The lander vehicle was inserted 
into the backshell on March 12.  The lander/backshell combination 
will be mated with the cruise stage on March 14 and the heat 
shield will be installed on March 19.  The lander spacecraft in 
full cruise configuration will be transported to the acoustics lab 
at Lockheed Martin on March 20.

20 March 1998

Orbiter and lander integration and test activities are proceeding 
on schedule with no significant problems.  The orbiter spacecraft 
is being prepared for thermal vacuum testing scheduled to begin on 
April 8.  The lander/backshell combination was mated with the 
cruise stage on March 16 and the heat shield was installed on 
March 20.  The lander spacecraft in full cruise configuration will 
be transported to the acoustics lab at Lockheed Martin on March 
21.  Modal testing of the lander is scheduled to begin on March 30 
and acoustic testing on April 3.

The Tunable Diode Laser (TDL) element of the flight Thermal and 
Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) instrument suffered a failure during 
testing at the University of Arizona.  Extensive functional 
testing of the TEGA following the pyroshock and vibration tests 
detected a near zero water spectrum output.  Troubleshooting of 
the instrument discovered a break in the thermoelectric cooler on 
the water laser assembly in the TDL.  The cooler is being repaired 
and will be re-tested.  This failure is not expected to impact the 
TEGA integration on the lander in June.

For more information on the Mars Surveyor 98 mission, please visit 
this website:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mars98/
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"IMP" WINS LIFE MAGAZINE "EISIE" AWARD FOR BEST SCIENCE PHOTO OF 
1997
University of Arizona release

11 March 1998

A robot camera designed, built and operated by a team headed by 
Peter H.  Smith of The University of Arizona in Tucson has won top 
honors for the best science photography of 1997.  Life magazine 
has given one of its first "Eisie" awards for photography by the 
Imager for Mars Pathfinder (IMP).

The 1998 Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards for Magazine Photography, or 
Eisies, are new prizes administered by Columbia University under a 
grant from Life.  They will be given to photographers in 20 
categories at a March 25 awards ceremony in New York City.  They 
are named for photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, a pioneer of 
photojournalism, known to many as "Eisie," who died in 1995 at the 
age of 96.

IMP won the 1998 science photo category for the Mars Panorama it 
took from the surface of Mars after the July 4, 1997, Mars 
Pathfinder mission landing.  The panorama was published in Time, 
Newsweek, and Astronomy magazines.  The camera remains on the 
Pathfinder lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, in an 
ancient flood channel, Ares Vallis.

How does it feel to be honored with the nation's top 
photojournalists?  Smith of the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, 
principal investigator of the IMP team, said, "We have been 
blessed after years of hard work to be rewarded with these 
spectacular Mars images.  An award from Life magazine is 
especially significant because it shows that the public is with us 
as we start to explore our neighboring planet."

He will accept the prize on behalf of the University, the National 
Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the NASA Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, which managed the Mars Pathfinder mission.  
He and the other winners be lodged in a 4-star hotel and 
chauffeured by limousine to a day-long round of receptions and a 
7:30 p.m.  Eisie Awards Ceremony at the Equitable Center, 787 7th 
Ave., New York City.  Life and the Columbia University Graduate 
School of Journalism will host the gala event.

Winners were nominated last fall by 137 jurors--photographers, 
photo editors, curators and others across the country--who 
selected more than 400 images and stories published in U.S.  
magazines.  A 5-member panel chose winning photographs in 
December, and their choices were then reviewed and ratified by a 
3-member board led and appointed by the dean of Columbia's 
Journalism School.

Winners will receive $1,500 and a unique keepsake designed by the 
Steuben Glass Co.  The winning photographs, finalists and some 
other nominated images will appear in a special issue of Life 
appearing on newsstands March 30.  1998 Eisie award winners 
include Matt Mahurin (Cover of the Year Award, Jan.  23 Rolling 
Stone), Bruce Weber (four awards for photos published in W 
magazine), David LaChapelle (Style/Fashion photo, Vanity Fair, and 
Cutting Edge essay in the June/July issue of Detour magazine), 
Jane Evelyn Atwood (Life photo essay on women in prison), Adam 
Bartos (DoubleTake story, "Hither Hills"), Steve McCurry (photos 
of India, for National Geographic) and Gilles Peress (photos of 
the Congo, for The New Yorker).  The Eisie awards, the March 25 
ceremony and the special issue of Life showcasing the honorees are 
sponsored, in part, by Eastman Kodak Co., Hewlett-Packard Corp.  
Leica, Nikon Corp., Olympus America Inc.  and Timex Corp.

During the 83 "sol", or Martian day, Mars Pathfinder mission, 
which lasted from July 4th through Sept.  27, the IMP took more 
than 16,000 images.  These were the first new pictures from the 
Martian surface since the Viking missions which landed on Mars in 
1976.  Because the IMP is a "multi-spectral" imaging system, it 
took different kinds of pictures.  The image data returned from 
the IMP are helping scientists to learn about the atmosphere, 
geology and weather of Mars.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/imp/imp.html
http://pathfinder.com/Life/eisies/index.html
------------------------------------------------------------------

EARTH-VIEWING SATELLITE WOULD FOCUS ON EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC 
BENEFITS
NASA release 98-46

13 March 1998

Keying off a concept proposed by Vice President Al Gore, NASA is 
developing plans for a small satellite which could provide 
continuous views of the Earth by the year 2000.  NASA plans to 
issue educational, scientific and possibly commercial 
announcements of opportunity within the next few weeks, following 
the Vice president's call today for NASA to design, build and 
launch the satellite by 2000.

"Vice President Gore has given us an exciting challenge," said 
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin.  "In the coming weeks, we 
plan to solicit ideas from the academic, environmental, scientific 
and commercial communities.  We will synthesize these ideas and 
communicate with the Congress as we go forward."

Goldin said NASA envisions "down-to-earth" applications:  "This 
view of our planet can help us plan as fires ravage wilderness 
areas, it may be able to save lives as we watch hurricanes and 
typhoons form and threaten coastlines across the grand sweep of 
ocean basins.  Moreover, we think it is important to inspire young 
minds, provide new perspectives on the planet for our scientific 
community, and perhaps provide commercial applications as well.  
We're going to pave the way for an Earth Channel."

The satellite concept would place a high definition television 
camera--paired with an eight-inch telescope--into an orbit at a 
unique vantage point a million miles from Earth where it could 
provide 24-hour views of the home planet.  It would orbit at a 
point in space where the gravitational attraction of the Sun and 
the Earth essentially cancel one another out, allowing the 
satellite to constantly view a fully sunlit hemisphere.

"We want to directly involve university students, teamed with 
industry and government, in the design, development, operations 
and data analysis from this unique venture," said Dr. Ghassem 
Asrar, NASA Associate Administrator for Earth Science.  "It would 
allow scientists to track natural events such as hurricanes, large 
fires and volcano plumes.  We expect further innovative 
applications to blossom as we let this singular view inspire the 
imaginations of all the citizens of planet Earth."

Early plans envision a 330-pound satellite linked to Earth through 
three simple, low cost ground stations equally spaced around the 
globe to provide continuous downlink capability.  One new image 
would be downlinked every few minutes.  The satellite would be 
developed and launched within two years of a competitive selection 
process.  College students would participate in the design and 
development of the spacecraft, and student teams would operate the 
ground stations.  The total mission cost, including launch and 
operations, would not exceed $50 million.
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CRATER CHAIN ON TWO CONTINENTS POINTS TO IMPACT FROM FRAGMENTED 
COMET--214 MILLION YEAR-OLD EVENT CORRESPONDS WITH MASS EXTINCTION
University of Chicago release

13 March 1998

A team of scientists working on two continents has discovered that 
a series of five craters on Europe and North America form a chain, 
indicating the breakup and subsequent impact of a comet or 
asteroid that collided with Earth approximately 214 million years 
ago.  The impacts may have contributed to a mass extinction that 
occurred at the end of the Triassic period--one of the five 
greatest mass extinctions in history.  The work, by scientists at 
the University of Chicago, the University of New Brunswick 
(Canada) and The Open University (Milton Keynes, U.K.) is 
published in a paper in the Thursday, March 12, issue of the 
journal Nature.

"When scientists observed the impacts of the pieces of Comet 
Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter in July 1994, they said that the 
impact of a fragmented comet could never happen here on Earth 
because the Earth's gravitational field is too weak to break a 
comet into pieces," said David Rowley, University of Chicago 
Associate Professor in Geophysical Sciences.  "But our studies of 
these five craters provide compelling evidence that this happened 
at least once, and there's no reason it couldn't have happened 
more than that."

Rowley's colleagues, John Spray, a structural geologist from the 
University of New Brunswick, and Simon Kelley from The Open 
University, were interested in the relationship between impact 
craters of similar ages.  Kelley had developed a technique to date 
such craters more precisely--using laser argon/argon dating of the 
glass formed by localized heating of the rock.  They asked Rowley 
to help figure out how the craters were aligned when the impacts 
occurred--because of plate tectonics, the continents have moved 
extensively in the last 214 million years.  Rowley, a principal 
investigator for the University of Chicago's Paleogeographic Atlas 
Project, which is compiling an atlas of the paleogeography and 
paleoclimate of the world as it changed over the past 500 million 
years, had that kind of information at his fingertips.

"I get these kinds of requests all the time," said Rowley, "so at 
first I didn't think about it too much.  But when they asked to me 
take a closer look at the data and I saw the alignment, I just 
said, 'wow!'"

Three of the five craters, Rochechouart in France, and Manicouagan 
and Saint Martin in Canada, were at the same latitude--22.8 
degrees--forming a nearly 5000-kilometer chain.  The other two, 
Obolon' in Ukraine and Red Wing in Minnesota, lay on identical 
declination paths with Rochechouart and Saint Martin, 
respectively.  All of the craters are previously known and well-
studied, but the paleoalignment has never before been shown.

One possible explanation for the alignments of the five craters is 
a fragmented comet that crashed to Earth in three major groups 
over a period of time as short as four hours, in two groups of two 
and one solitary chunk.  It is possible that the comet or asteroid 
actually broke into more than five pieces, but most of the Earth 
at that latitude was ocean 214 million years ago, and evidence of 
any ocean-bottom craters has long been obliterated.  The impacts 
may have occurred over a period of several days, depending on how 
widely the fragments were dispersed.  Rowley said that the chance 
that these craters are randomly aligned is near zero.

Manicouagan, the largest of the five craters, is more than 100 
kilometers in diameter, comparable to the 170-kilometer Chixulub 
crater in the Yucatan--the impact that is believed to have caused 
the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million 
years ago, killing the dinosaurs.  The Triassic extinction was 
equivalent in magnitude to the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) 
extinction:  about 80% of the species then living on the planet 
became extinct.  There are 150 known impact craters worldwide; the 
group is now studying others to see if there are other coincident 
crater chains.

The Paleogeographic Atlas Project at the University of Chicago is 
compiling an atlas of the world's changing geography and climate.  
The data are used for testing climate change models, finding 
probable sites for oil and minerals, and for providing a 
comprehensive look at the evolution of Earth's geographic 
features.  The work is funded by a consortium of companies that 
has included Amoco, Exxon, Mobile, Total, Elf-Aquitaine and Shell, 
British Petroleum, Conoco and Marathon.  More information can be 
found at http://plates.uchicago.edu/.
------------------------------------------------------------------

CANADIAN EXPERIMENTS BACK FROM MIR
Canadian Space Agency release

13 March 1998

The Canadian Protein Crystallization Experiments (CAPE), a series 
of important Canadian experiments sponsored by the Canadian Space 
Agency (CSA) are back at the CSA's laboratory.  The CAPE project 
sent over 700 protein samples in orbit for nearly four months 
aboard the Russian Space Station Mir.

Scientists from 15 universities and research centers from 
Newfoundland to British Columbia took part in the CAPE project.  
They hope the investigation of these unique space-made protein 
crystals will hold a key to the development of new drugs and 
medical breakthroughs in the treatment of many life-threatening 
diseases such as diabetes, breast cancer, Alzheimer's and 
hypertension.

As part of the CSA's mandate to inspire young Canadians to explore 
the wonders of nature, and to pursue studies in science and 
technology, high school and elementary students from across Canada 
were given a rare opportunity to join this extraordinary space 
mission of discovery by conducting experiments of their own aboard 
the orbiting Russian space station.  About 5% of the total 
experiments came from students in selected Canadian classrooms.  
Each class project involved conducting the same experiment in the 
classroom, and comparing the results with those obtained in space.

Seventeen student experiments from 12 schools across Canada were 
chosen by the CSA out of over 50 proposals.  The variety of 
experiments selected ranged from the crystallization of maple 
syrup to the evaluation of the formation of barium sulfate 
precipitates in a microgravity environment.  Each school 
experiment was conducted in the classroom and in space.

On board Mir, the experiments were stored in the Dual Materials 
Dispersion Apparatus.  This apparatus mixes the sample contents 
automatically once in orbit to begin the experiment process.  Once 
loaded into this automated device, scientist and student samples 
were untouched by human hands until they returned to Earth.  While 
in orbit the apparatus performed as planned, and the initial 
inspection of the samples points to promising results.

Canadian scientists are hoping that the microgravity environment 
of the space station will allow to grow larger and more perfect 
protein crystals.  Proteins influence the behavior of human, 
animal and plant cells.  The fragile nature of these crystals 
makes it difficult to grow them in the Earth's gravity.

Eager to analyze their space-grown samples, over 20 students from 
the Montreal-based schools; Ecole Fernand Seguin, Ecole secondaire 
Jeanne-Mance, Ecole Lanaudiere and Herzliah High School will pick 
up their specimens at the CSA Friday, March 13.  Specimens 
belonging to other schools throughout Canada will be delivered in 
the near future.  CSA personnel will be on hand to help them 
compare the samples using the microscopes in the space science 
lab.

For more information:
Isabelle Hudon
Media Relations, CSA
Tel:  (514) 926-4350
------------------------------------------------------------------

JPL TO HOST TRAINING FOR GALILEO EDUCATORS
JPL release

20 March 1998

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory will host a training session on 
Tues., March 24 through Thurs., March 26 for 16 recently-appointed 
educator fellows, instructing them on how to spread the word among 
school teachers about the Galileo Europa Mission.

Trainees will include 15 American educator fellows and one from 
Canada, all selected as part of a JPL/Galileo education project 
managed by the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, 
Alexandria, VA.  The goal of the JPL-Challenger Center partnership 
is to prepare the educator fellows to hold a series of workshops 
nationwide.  The workshops will train 2,000 middle and high school 
teachers each year for the next two years about Galileo's journeys 
and discoveries.  Workshops will include current studies of 
Jupiter's moons, particularly the prospect of a liquid ocean on 
Europa, and will follow Galileo's upcoming exploration of 
Jupiter's atmosphere and its close flybys of volcanoes on the moon 
Io.  The Galileo Europa Mission is an extension of the Galileo 
primary mission, which was launched in 1989, entered orbit around 
Jupiter on Dec.  7, 1995, and spent two years studying Jupiter's 
system.

The Galileo mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space 
Science, Washington, DC.  JPL is a division of California 
Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.  Images and other data 
received from Galileo are posted on the Galileo home page on the 
World Wide Web at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo.

The following is a list of the Galileo Europa Mission Educator 
Fellows:
Diane Bonilla-Lether--Los Angeles, CA
Myra Halpin--Durham, NC
Deborah Bryant--Kalamazoo, MI
Susan Hurstcalderone--Washington, DC
Malcolm Cameron--Concord, NH
Vanessa LeCaine--Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Kathy Chock--Honolulu, HI
Shannon Miller--Llano, TX
Kevin Cole--River Grove, IL
Linda Robinson--Billings, MT
Thomas Foltz--Seattle, WA
Jean Settle--Maryland Heights, MO
Michiel Ford--Holton, KS
Christopher Soldat--Kalona, IA
Ken Gagner--Morris, MN
Diana Yoder--Orlando, FL
------------------------------------------------------------------

GALILEO--COUNTDOWN TO EUROPA
JPL release

25 March 1998

It is now 3 days and 19 hours to the Galileo spacecraft's next 
encounter with Europa.  A special Countdown to Europa home page is 
now available on the Galileo Home Page:  
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/countdown/

Launched in October 1989, Galileo entered orbit around Jupiter in 
December 1995, and completed its primary 2 year orbital tour 
around the solar system's largest planet.  Galileo has embarked on 
a two-year extended mission, called Galileo Europa Mission (GEM).  
During GEM, Galileo will make 8 close flybys of Europa, four 
flybys of Callisto, and two close encounters with Io provided the 
spacecraft is still alive.

The third encounter for GEM is scheduled for Europa on March 29, 
1998 at 13:23 UT.  With a diameter of 3,138 km, Europa is slightly 
smaller than our own Moon and is the smoothest object in the solar 
system.  On Galileo's previous encounters with Europa, evidence of 
a possible ocean were found, including the discovery of ice 
volcanoes (non-active), probable icebergs, and salt deposits on 
the surface.  Galileo will continue its attempt to find additional 
evidence of a liquid ocean underneath Europa's icy crust and look 
for signs of active volcanism on the moon's young surface.  On the 
upcoming encounter, the spacecraft will pass by Europa at a 
distance of 1,649 km, which is 124 times closer than Voyager's 
closest approach.  Galileo will focus on Mannann'an crater and 
Tyre macula.  Observations of Io, Ganymede and Callisto will also 
be taken.

Highlights of the Countdown to Europa home page:

*A virtual flyby of Europa with computer-generated approach images 
of Jupiter and Europa displayed at the top of the home page.  
These images are all updated every 5 minutes.
*Live Doppler plots of Galileo spacecraft radio signal as it 
received on Earth.  Watch the gravity of Europa change the 
frequency of the radio signal in real-time.  The Doppler plots 
will be updated every minute on encounter day (March 29).
*Flyby animation of the Europa 14 flyby.
*The latest Galileo status reports reporting on the Europa 14 
encounter.
*Fact sheets and Europa, Callisto and Io.
*A detailed timeline of events and sequences that the spacecraft 
will perform for the Europa 14 encounter.
*Voyager 1 & 2 images of Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io.
*Hubble Space Telescope images of the Galilean satellites.
*Pioneer 10 & 11 images of Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io.
------------------------------------------------------------------

STARDUST STATUS REPORT
by Ken Atkins, Stardust project manager

The live video feed from the high bay assembly area at Lockheed 
Martin Astronautics is now on the Stardust website 
(http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/construction.html) for 
public viewing.  The images are currently being updated every 2 
minutes.  For orientation, the scene shows the gray propellant 
tank sitting in front of the three (vertical) black side-panels.  
These side panels are mounted on the ground handling "strongback" 
supports.  The strongback provides a foundation for handling and 
moving the spacecraft during assembly.  There are two electronic 
boxes visible above and slightly left of the tank.  These boxes 
are the power control assembly (PCA) and the Command and Data 
Handling (C&DH) unit.  These are the central "heart" of the 
spacecraft that power and communicate with the other units that 
will be appearing in the scene as time goes on.  We welcome you to 
the Assembly, Test and Launch Operations (ATLO) activities.  Hope 
you enjoy watching hardware that will actually fly to the comet 
come together as a spacecraft.

[Note:  the camera used for the live video feed is used in the 
ATLO testing and is often moved around within the assembly area.  
The view may not always be on the spacecraft.]

The ATLO activities continued to make excellent progress this 
week.  The Telecom subsystem testing of compatibility with the 
Deep Space Network (DSN) was completed very successfully.  This 
success demonstrates the ability of the flight spacecraft to 
communicate from space through the worldwide system of antennas 
comprising the DSN.  The flight pyro initiation unit (PIU) was 
delivered and has been installed on the spacecraft.  This element 
of the electric power subsystem triggers the various releases and 
deployments during the mission (e.g.  Sample Return Capsule (SRC) 
separation from the spacecraft.)

The assembly of the flight Sample Return Capsule (SRC) was 
completed! It was placed in its "clean tent" or "glove box" 
environment and run through functional testing of the capsule and 
deployment of the aerogel collector.  This was successful and the 
SRC has now been moved to the acoustics facility for testing today 
against environmental frequencies representative of the launch 
vehicle.

For more information on the STARDUST mission--the first ever comet 
sample return mission--please visit the STARDUST home page:  
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/
------------------------------------------------------------------

NASA LIFE SCIENCES NRA
NASA release

The Life Sciences Division of the NASA Office of Life and 
Microgravity Sciences and Applications announces a change in the 
schedule for the release of the NASA Research Announcement (NRA) 
relevant to the Gravitational Biology and Ecology, and Biomedical 
Research and Countermeasures Programs.  In previous years, this 
NRA was released in December/January.  The revised NRA schedule 
is:

June 1998:  Scheduled release date.
October 1998:  Scheduled proposal due date.

The NRA will be available on-line and as a printed document.  The 
on-line address will be http://peer1.idi.usra.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------

End Marsbugs:  Vol. 5, No. 8


