Seven years after members of Congress rejected research into extraterrestrial life as a search for “little green men,” lawmakers encouraged scientists in their efforts to find life beyond the Earth. “The discovery of life in the universe would be one of the most astounding discoveries in human history,” Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said Thursday at a hearing of the House space science subcommittee. “Funding should match public interest and I don’t believe it does.”
June 24th, 2001
NASA Taps Robots for Mars Missions
The scientists came armed with ideas for a robotic NASA mission using innovative spacecraft that hop, fly, float, roll and dig. By next year, NASA officials hope to select one idea as they prepare to build the new class of robotic spacecraft, called Scouts, for a $300 million mission the space agency intends to launch to Mars by 2007. What the first spacecraft will look like is anyone’s guess, but it is likely to be a departure from the group of orbiters and landers NASA has sent to Mars since the 1960s.
April 7th, 2001
Meteorites From Moon, Mars Found
Researchers have discovered two new examples of the rarest space rocks found on Earth: meteorites from the moon and Mars. The two rocks are the 15th and 17th meteorites to be found from the moon and Mars, respectively, making them the least common among the estimated 22,000 meteorites discovered on this planet. News of the discoveries was announced this month and will be reported in the July 2001 bulletin of the Meteoritical Society, an international organization devoted to the study of extraterrestrial material.
April 7th, 2001
NASA Releases New Mars Images
NASA has made available 10,230 new images of the planet Mars. The latest release boosts to more than 67,500 the total number of pictures taken by cameras aboard the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft and released to the public. NASA successfully launched another Martian satellite, the Mars Odyssey, on Saturday. The probe will join Surveyor in orbit around Mars this October.
April 5th, 2001
Sun Seeking Robot Bound for Arctic
A robot built partly from mountain bike parts is bound for a remote Canadian island this summer to see if it has the right stuff for roaming the poles of Mars or the moon. The experimental Hyperion robot is part of a $1 million project designed to seek sunlight that feeds a solar panel on its back. The machine and its pit crew from Carnegie Mellon University will spend two weeks this summer on Devon Island above the Arctic Circle in Nunavut, Canada.
April 2nd, 2001
Group To Send Microphone to Mars
An international group of space enthusiasts announced Monday a microphone will be sent to Mars in 2007 aboard a French spacecraft, easing the disappointment of a previous U.S. attempt that ended in failure. The Planetary Society said the microphone will be included in the French space agency’s NetLander mission, which will land four small spacecraft on Mars. The nonprofit group had funded a similar attempt once before, but it ended in failure when the microphone and the NASA spacecraft carrying it were lost.
March 21st, 2001
Experts Find Hint of Mars Lander
Fifteen months after the Mars Polar Lander vanished, Defense Department imaging experts have spotted what may be a trace of the spacecraft on the surface of the Red Planet, a NASA official said. Experts at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency have spent months poring over high-resolution images of the region where the Polar Lander was to have set down.
February 26th, 2001
Study: Crystals Prove Life on Mars
A crystal found in a meteorite from Mars could only have been formed by a microbe and may be evidence of the oldest life form ever found, researchers say. Scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston say that a crystalized magnetic mineral, called magnetite, found in a Martian meteorite is similar to crystals formed on Earth by bacteria. “I am convinced that this is supporting evidence for the presence of ancient life on Mars,” said Kathie Thomas-Keprta, an astrobiologist at the space center and the first author of a study appearing Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Thomas-Keprta said there is no report of such magnetites being formed by any but biologic means.
February 25th, 2001
Anxiety Will Accompany Mars Odyssey
George Pace hops on an airport shuttle and the driver asks what he does. Working on a Mars mission, he says, the next Mars mission. “Ohhhh, that’s GOT to work,” the driver tells him, remembering NASA’s embarrassing back-to-back Mars flops in 1999. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before,” Pace replies. Weeks later, Pace laughs as he recalls the conversation. He’s admiring the spacecraft that he’s been charged with overseeing, the 2001 Mars Odyssey, scheduled for launch April 7.
February 18th, 2001
Microbes May Live in Antarctic Lake
Buried under thousands of feet of ice in the Antarctic are a series of fresh water lakes unexposed to the open air for millions of years but possibly holding a thriving community of microbes, scientists say. Researchers probing beneath the permanent ice shield around the South Pole have located at least 76 lakes, including one that is about 5,400 square miles, comparable to Lake Ontario. Lake Vostok, the largest of the polar lakes, lies beneath more than two miles of ice and is thought to have a liquid pool with a depth of about 3,000 feet, said John C. Priscu of Montana State University. Probing Lake Vostok may help in the future search for life in outer space. Priscu said the lake may resemble subsurface lakes thought to exist on Mars and on Europa, a moon of Jupiter.