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Microbes in the Mississippi

By Guest PostAugust 5, 2012Environment, Sciencebacteria, bank, barcoded, christopher staley, dna analysis, e coli, fecal indicator bacterium, genetic information, human population, la crescent, lake, lake itasca, m3p, m3p students, mercury, michael sadowsky, microbe, microbial life, microorganisms, minnesota, Mississippi, mississippi river, river, st croix, trevor gould, twin cities, university of minnesota, zumbro

Professor and students study how microbial life changes along the river

The mercury is pushing 100, but professor Michael Sadowsky and two assistants leave the indoor coolness for the bank of the Mississippi River as it flows by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus.

The three men send a bucket splashing into the current and haul back a water sample. That doesn’t affect the river much, but information locked away in bacteria from the sample may tell them a great deal about how the river’s microbial communities change along its course through Minnesota and how human activity affects them. (more…)

Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving

By Guest PostMay 14, 2012Sciencecalifornia, curiosity, dumont dunes, earth, Environment, gale crater, gravity of mars, human mission, mars, mars roving, michael malin, microbial life, mobility system, mojave desert, mount sharp, NASA, safe landing, tests

Team members of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission took a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California’s Mojave Desert this week to improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity, currently flying to Mars for an August landing.

The test rover that they put through paces on various sandy slopes has a full-scale version of Curiosity’s mobility system, but it is otherwise stripped down so that it weighs about the same on Earth as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser gravity of Mars. (more…)

Scientists Look to Microbes to Unlock Earth’s Deep Secrets

By Guest PostJanuary 11, 2012Scienceatlantic ocean, bottom of the ocean, circulation obviation retrofit kits, columbia university, corks, deep ocean sediments, ecosystem, Environment, european consortium for ocean research drilling, expedition, Germany, habitable parts, integrated ocean drilling program, iodp, jamie allan, joides resolution, katrina edwards, lamont doherty earth observatory, microbes, microbial life, mid atlantic ridge microbiology expedition, national science foundation, north pond, ocean sediments, oceans, planet, research vessel, rocky ocean crust, rocky realm, sediment samples, submersible expeditions, subseafloor observatories, total biomass, university of bremen, university of southern california, volcanic lava, wolfgang bach, world

*To find answers, oceanographers install observatories beneath remote seafloor*

Of all the habitable parts of our planet, one ecosystem still remains largely unexplored and unknown to science: the igneous ocean crust.

This rocky realm of hard volcanic lava exists beneath ocean sediments that lie at the bottom of much of the world’s oceans.

While scientists have estimated that microbes living in deep ocean sediments may represent as much as one-third of Earth’s total biomass, the habitable portion of the rocky ocean crust may be 10 times as great. (more…)

Microbial life on Mars: Could Saltwater Make it Possible?

By Guest PostAugust 19, 2011Scienceair pressure, antarctic lakes, atmospheres, bruce block, carbon dioxide, daily and seasonal cycles, earth, forms of microbial life, gregory dick, gulf of mexico, mars, Mars Phoenix Lander, mars today, microbe, microbial life, NASA, nilton renno, organisms, perchlorate salts, salt loving extremophile microorganisms, saltwater on mars, sea level, temperatures, the centro de astrobiologia in madrid, the university of georgia, united states, university of michigan, university of texas at dallas, water vapor

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— How common are droplets of saltwater on Mars? Could microbial life survive and reproduce in them? A new million-dollar NASA project led by the University of Michigan aims to answer those questions.

This project begins three years after beads of liquid brine were first photographed on one of the Mars Phoenix lander’s legs.

“On Earth, everywhere there’s liquid water, there is microbial life,” said Nilton Renno, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences who is the principal investigator. Researchers from NASA, the University of Texas at Dallas, the University of Georgia and the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid are also involved. (more…)

NASA Mars Rover Approaches Long-Term Goal

By Guest PostAugust 9, 2011Sciencecalifornia institute of technology, cape york, endeavour crater, environments on mars, mars, mars rover opportunity, microbial life, NASA, opportunity, pasadena, rovers, spirit point, victoria crater

The NASA Mars rover Opportunity has gained a view of Endeavour crater from barely more than a football-field’s distance away from the rim. The rim of Endeavour has been the mission’s long-term goal since mid-2008.

Endeavour offers the setting for plenty of productive work by Opportunity. The crater is 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter — more than 25 times wider than Victoria crater, an earlier stop that Opportunity examined for two years. Observations by orbiting spacecraft indicate that the ridges along Endeavour’s western rim expose rock outcrops older than any Opportunity has seen so far. The selected location for arrival at the rim, “Spirit Point,” is at the southern tip of one of those ridges, “Cape York,” on the western side of Endeavour. (more…)

Radar for Mars Gets Flight Tests at NASA Dryden

By Guest PostJune 22, 2011Sciencedesert, dryden flight research center, edwards, environmental conditions, fa 18 aircraft, florida, jet propulsion laboratory, kennedy space center, mars, mars landing radar software, mars radar, mars science laboratory mission, martian atmosphere, microbial life, NASA, nasa technology, pasadena, southern california

Southern California’s high desert has been a stand-in for Mars for NASA technology testing many times over the years. And so it is again, in a series of flights by an F/A-18 aircraft to test the landing radar for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission.

The flight profile is designed to have the F/A-18 climb to 40,000 feet (about 12,000 meters). From there, it makes a series of subsonic, stair-step dives at angles of 40 to 90 degrees to simulate what the Mars radar will see while the spacecraft is on a parachute descending through the Martian atmosphere. The F/A-18 pulls out of each dive at 5,000 feet (about 1,500 meters. Data collected by these flights will be used to finesse the Mars landing radar software, to help ensure that it is calibrated as accurately as possible. (more…)

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