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Cracks on Mars a result of evaporating lakes in ancient times

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 16 (ANI): Networks of giant polygonal troughs etched across crater basins on Mars have been identified as desiccation cracks caused by evaporating lakes, providing further evidence of a warmer, wetter Martian past.

The findings were presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by PhD student M. Ramy El Maarry of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

The polygons are formed when long cracks in the surface of the Martian soil intersect.

El Maarry investigated networks of cracks inside 266 impact basins across the surface of Mars and observed polygons reaching up to 250 meters in diameter.

Polygonal troughs have been imaged by several recent missions but, until now, they have been attributed to thermal contractions in the Martian permafrost.

El Maarry created an analytical model to determine the depth and spacing of cracks caused by stresses building up through cooling in the Martian soil.

He found that polygons caused by thermal contraction could have a maximum diameter of only about 65 meters, much smaller than the troughs he was seeing in the craters.

“I got excited when I saw that the crater floor polygons seemed to be too large to be caused by thermal processes. I also saw that they resembled the desiccation cracks that we see on Earth in dried up lakes,” said El Maarry.

“The stresses that build up when liquids evaporate can cause deep cracks and polygons on the scale I was seeing in the craters,” he added.

El Maarry identified the crater floor polygons using images taken by the MOC camera on Mars Global Surveyor and the HiRISE and Context cameras on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The polygons in El Maarry’s survey had an average diameter of between 70 and 140 kilometers, with the width of the actual cracks ranging between 1 and 10 meters.

Evidence suggests that between 4.6 and 3.8 billion years ago, Mars was covered in significant amounts of water.

Rain and river water would have collected inside impact crater basins, creating lakes that may have existed for several thousand years before drying out.

However, according to El Maarry, in the northern hemisphere, some of the crater floor polygons could have been formed much more recently.

“When a meteorite impacts with the Martian surface, the heat can melt ice trapped beneath the Martian crust and create what we call a hydrothermal system. Liquid water can fill the crater to form a lake, covered in a thick layer of ice. Even under current climatic conditions, this may take many thousands of years to disappear, finally resulting in the desiccation patterns,” said El Maarry. (ANI)

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Asteroids may have boosted life on Earth 3.9 billion years ago

May 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 21 (ANI): A new study has indicated that the bombardment of Earth by asteroids 3.9 billion years ago may have enhanced early life rather then wipe it out.

The study, by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers, determined that the bombardment of Earth nearly 4 billion years ago by asteroids as large as the US state of Kansas would not have had the firepower to extinguish potential early life on the planet and may even have given it a boost.

Impact evidence from lunar samples, meteorites and the pockmarked surfaces of the inner planets paints a picture of a violent environment in the solar system during the Hadean Eon 4.5 to 3.8 billion years ago, particularly through a cataclysmic event known as the Late Heavy Bombardment about 3.9 million years ago.

Although many believe the bombardment would have sterilized Earth, the new study shows it would have melted only a fraction of Earth’s crust, and that microbes could well have survived in subsurface habitats, insulated from the destruction.

“These new results push back the possible beginnings of life on Earth to well before the bombardment period 3.9 billion years ago,” said CU-Boulder Research Associate Oleg Abramov.

“It opens up the possibility that life emerged as far back as 4.4 billion years ago, about the time the first oceans are thought to have formed,” he added.

The researchers used data from Apollo moon rocks, impact records from the moon, Mars and Mercury, and previous theoretical studies to build three-dimensional computer models that replicate the bombardment.

Abramov and CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Stephen Mojzsis plugged in asteroid size, frequency and distribution estimates into their simulations to chart the damage to the Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment, which is thought to have lasted for 20 million to 200 million years.

The 3-D models allowed Abramov and Mojzsis to monitor temperatures beneath individual craters to assess heating and cooling of the crust following large impacts in order to evaluate habitability.

The study indicated that less than 25 percent of Earth’s crust would have melted during such a bombardment.

“Even under the most extreme conditions we imposed, Earth would not have been completely sterilized by the bombardment,” said Abramov.

Instead, hydrothermal vents may have provided sanctuaries for extreme, heat-loving microbes known as “hyperthermophilic bacteria” following bombardments, said Mojzsis.

Even if life had not emerged by 3.9 billion years ago, such underground havens could still have provided a “crucible” for life’s origin on Earth, Mojzsis added. (ANI)

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Scientists find undersea volcano has grown a massive cone

May 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 6 (ANI): Marine scientists, on an expedition to an erupting undersea volcano near the Island of Guam, have discovered that it appears to be continuously active, has grown a new cone during the past three years, and its activity supports a unique biological community thriving despite the eruptions.

The international science team on the expedition, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), captured dramatic new information about the eruptive activity of NW Rota-1.

“NW Rota-1 remains the only place on Earth where a deep submarine volcano has ever been directly observed while erupting,” said Barbara Ransom, program director in NSF’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.

Scientists first observed eruptions at NW Rota-1 in 2004 and again in 2006, according to Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University (OSU) volcanologist and chief investigator on the expedition.

This time, however, they discovered that the volcano had built a new cone 40 meters high and 300 meters wide.

“As the cone has grown, we’ve seen a significant increase in the population of animals that lives atop the volcano. We’re trying to determine if there is a direct connection between the increase in the volcanic activity and that population increase,” Chadwick said.

Animals in this unusual ecosystem include shrimp, crab, limpets and barnacles, some of which are new species.

“They’re specially adapted to their environment, and are thriving in harsh chemical conditions that would be toxic to normal marine life,” said Chadwick. “Life here is actually nourished by the erupting volcano,” he added.

According to Verena Tunnicliffe, a biologist from the University of Victoria, most of the animals are dependent on diffuse hydrothermal venting that provides basic food in the form of bacterial filaments coating the rocks.

“It appears that since 2006 the diffuse venting has spread and, with it, the vent animals,” Tunnicliffe said. “There is now a very large biomass of shrimp on the volcano, and two species are able to cope with the volcanic conditions,” she added.

The shrimp reveal intriguing adaptations to volcano living.

“The ‘Loihi’ shrimp has adapted to grazing the bacterial filaments with tiny claws like garden shears,” said Tunnicliffe. “The second shrimp is a new species – they also graze as juveniles, but as they grow to adult stage, their front claws enlarge and they become predators,” she added.

The new studies are important because NW Rota-1 provides a one-of-a-kind natural laboratory for the investigation of undersea volcanic activity and its relation to chemical-based ecosystems at hydrothermal vents, where life on Earth may have originated. (ANI)

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Methane-producing mineral discovered on Mars

March 28, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 28 (ANI): Scientists have reported the discovery of a methane-producing mineral on Mars.

According to a report in Nature News, the evidence for the existence of the mineral, known as serpentine, was found by Bethany Ehlmann, a PhD student at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Ehlmann used a spectrometer on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to identify two small outcrops of the mineral.

Serpentine arises from another mineral, olivine, in a hydrothermal process in which hydrogen gas is produced – a potential energy source for microbes that could in turn produce methane.

The process of serpentinization also produces methane itself, without the need for life. “It was a past source of methane, for sure,” said Ehlmann.

Serpentine can also be altered, in lower temperature water, into carbonate.

However, the finding does not rule out life on Mars today. That depends on whether the presence of serpentine has anything to do with the apparent production of present-day methane.

“It’s certainly an intriguing coincidence that one of the major regions in which we find these minerals has been highlighted as a possible source region of methane. But, there’s this timing problem,” said Ehlmann.

The problem of timing arises because serpentine on Mars is ancient, about 3.8 billion years old, whereas the reports of methane gas are contemporary.

Yet it is possible, according to Ehlmann, that fractures deep underground could be providing the necessary water and heat for serpentine to be formed today, and for methane to percolate up. (ANI)

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Finding ‘shadow life’ on Earth may help scientists discover extraterrestrial life

March 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

London, March 14 (ANI): By searching for an alternative form of microbial life on Earth, dubbed ‘shadow biosphere’, scientists are hoping that they can get close to finding life elsewhere in the solar system.

New origins of life are unlikely today, because existing life would gobble up any aggregations of prebiotic molecules before they could edge over the threshold.

However, opportunities for the origin of life may well have existed for long periods on the early Earth.

Some of these origins may have been dead ends, out-competed by other life forms, but others could still be living among us, unnoticed.

“I think if we found a second sample of life on Earth, it would be as big as Darwin’s theory of evolution,” cosmologist and astrobiologist Paul Davies at Arizona State University in Tempe told New Scientist.

“It would answer the most fundamental question we can imagine, which is: are we alone in the universe?” he added.

Skeptics might scoff at the idea that shadow life could pass unrecognized for so long, but Davies and his collaborators have a simple rejoinder: scientists have never looked properly.

Such life would probably take the form of single-celled microbes, so naturalists should not be expected to spot it casually.

The techniques microbiologists use to detect life, like, staining for DNA, sequencing DNA, and culturing microbes in the lab, assume that the target microbes have the normal biochemistry.

“They couldn’t detect an alternative form of microbial life,” said Carol Cleland, a philosopher of science and astrobiologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
iven that fewer than 1 per cent of microbes have been cultured and described, there is plenty of room for shadow life to be living right under our noses, according to scientists.

However, the task of searching for shadow life on Earth is much tougher than looking for life on other planets.

“This planet is heavily contaminated with life as we know it,” said Shelley Copley, a biochemist at the University of Colorado.

One promising avenue is to explore extreme environments that are beyond the reach of conventional life, such as ultra-dry deserts, ice sheets, the upper atmosphere or the hottest hydrothermal vents.

According to Davies, more researchers will start looking for shadow life.

Even if they don’t find it, the search could turn up previously unknown branches on the familiar tree of life.

“So, it’s worth doing anyway, even if you’ve convinced yourself that we’re alone in the universe,” he said. (ANI)

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Earth’s highest known microbial ecosystems being fueled by volcanic gases

March 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, March 4 (ANI): A new study has shown that the emission of water, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane from small volcanic vents near the rim of the 19,850-foot-high Socompa volcano in the Andes Mountains, is helping to sustain complex microbial ecosystems.

The study, by a research team at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, shows that gases rising from deep within the Earth are fueling the world’s highest-known microbial ecosystems.

CU-Boulder Professor Steve Schmidt has likened the physical environment of the Socompa volcano summit, including the thin atmosphere, intense ultraviolet radiation and harsh climate, to the physical characteristics of Mars, where the hunt for microbial life is under way by NASA.

“The microbial communities atop Socompa, which straddles Argentina and Chile high in the Atacama Desert, are in a more extreme environment and not as well understood as microbes living in hydrothermal vents in deep oceans,” he said.

The Socompa microbial communities are located adjacent to several patches of green, carpet-like plant communities, primarily mosses and liverworts, discovered in the 1980s by Stephan Halloy of Conservation International in La Paz, Bolivia, a co-author on the new CU-Boulder study.

“These sites are unique little oases in the vast, barren landscape of the Atacama Desert and are supported by gases from deep within the Earth,” said Schmidt, a professor in the ecology and evolutionary biology department, University of Colorado.

“Scientists just haven’t been looking for microorganisms at these elevations, and when we did, we discovered some strange types found nowhere else on Earth,” he added.

The team used a sophisticated technique that involves extracting DNA from the soil to pinpoint new groups of microbes, using polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, to amplify and identify them, providing a snapshot of the microbial diversity on Socompa.

The new research is based on an ongoing analysis of soil samples collected during an expedition to Socompa several years ago.

“The research team also reported a new variety of microscopic mite in the bacterial colonies near Socompa’s rim, which appears to be the highest elevation that mites have ever been recorded on Earth,” Schmidt said.

According to Elizabeth Costello, a research associate in CU-Boulder’s chemistry and biochemistry department, small amounts of sunlight, water, methane and CO2 work in concert in the barren soils to fuel microbial life near the small volcanic vents, or fumaroles.

Such conditions “relieve the stress” on the high-elevation, arid soils enough to allow extreme life to get a toehold, Costello said.

“It’s as if these bacterial communities are living in tiny, volcanic greenhouses,” she added. (ANI)

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Scientists find evidence of ancient hot springs on Mars

February 13, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 13 (ANI): A new research has reported data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that suggests the discovery of ancient hot springs in the Vernal Crater, sites where life forms may have evolved on Mars.

Hot springs have great astrobiological significance, as the closest relatives of many of the most ancient organisms on Earth can thrive in and around hydrothermal springs.

If life forms have ever been present on Mars, hot spring deposits would be ideal locations to search for physical or chemical evidence of these organisms and could be target areas for future exploratory missions.

In the research paper entitled, “A Case for Ancient Springs in Arabia Terra, Mars,” Carlton C. Allen and Dorothy Z. Oehler, from the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, propose that new image data from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) on MRO depict structures in Vernal Crater that appear to have arisen as part of a major area of ancient spring activity.

The data suggest that the southern part of Vernal Crater has experienced episodes of water flow from underground to the surface and may be a site where Martian life could have developed.

“Hot spring deposits are key target areas for future Mars missions,” said Sherry L. Cady, Associate Professor in the Department of Geology at Portland State University.

“Such deposits on Earth preserve evidence of the fossilized remains of the microbial communities that inhabited the hot springs over a wide range of spatial scales,” Sherry added.

The potential to find key evidence indicative of life-biofabrics, microbial remains, chemical fossils in minerals-is high when sedimentary deposits form from hydrothermal fluids.
Hot spring fluids are typically laden with dissolved mineral ions that, when they precipitate out and create the hydrothermal deposit, enhance fossilization of all types of biosignatures,” said Sherry. (ANI)

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Life may exist in Mars’ biggest volcano

February 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 11 (ANI): A new study has suggested that Olympus Mons, the biggest volcano on Mars, could shelter some sort of life form.

Rising three times higher than Mount Everest, Olympus Mons was active at least 40 million years ago, and perhaps more recently.

Magma may still be close enough to the surface to support heat-loving bacteria like those found near hydrothermal vents on Earth.

But, bacteria likely need water to live in, too.

Now, according to a report in Discovery News, Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan think they may have found it, locked in thick layers of clay-rich sediments beneath the mountain.

Spreading out over an area about the size of Arizona, Olympus Mons’ massive lava flows are bunched up in the southeast, and stretched out in the northwest.

In a detailed computer simulation of the volcano, the researchers found the volcano would only assume its oblong shape if the erupted lava piled on top of layers of weak, water-laden sediments.

Scientists aren’t certain how old Olympus Mons is, but it’s likely that its first eruptions were billions of years ago.

If so, it could have formed in a time when Mars was much warmer and wetter, and trapped a large reservoir beneath it.

Whether or not that reservoir is still warm – and whether is contains life – remains a tantalizing uncertainty. No heat signatures have yet been detected from satellites orbiting the planet, but their instruments can’t penetrate into the subsurface.

“If we were to go there and shove a probe a meter below the surface, you’d get a very different picture of heat flow,” said Brian Hynek of the University of Colorado at Boulder, suggesting the mountain is probably still warm.

Though the blackest depths of a volcano might not seem like the best place to go alien-hunting, life on Earth has been found subsisting two miles down in the crust, and a mile beneath the ocean floor.

“So finding life a mile or so below Olympus Mons’ lava flows is well within the realm of possibility,” Hynek said.

The flows may even act as a kind of insulating blanket, keeping water and heat in, and Mars’ cold, corrosive surface conditions out.

“It’s the natural place I’d go first on an astrobiological expedition to Mars, given that it’s the place where volcanism is strongest and youngest on the planet,” McGovern said. (ANI)

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