Venus, Mars, and the ices on Mercury and the moon: astrobiological implications and proposed mission designs

Venus and Mars likely had liquid water bodies on their surface early in the Solar System history. The surfaces of Venus and Mars are presently not a suitable habitat for life, but reservoirs of liquid water remain in the atmosphere of Venus and the subsurface of Mars, and with it also the possibility of microbial life. Microbial organisms may have adapted to live in these ecological niches by the evolutionary force of directional selection. Missions to our neighboring planets should therefore be planned to explore these potentially life-containing refuges and return samples for analysis. Sample return missions should also include ice samples from Mercury and the Moon, which may contain information about the biogenic material that catalyzed the early evolution of life on Earth (or elsewhere). To obtain such information, science-driven exploration is necessary through varying degrees of mission operation autonomy. A hierarchical mission design is envisioned that includes spaceborne (orbital), atmosphere (airborne), surface (mobile such as rover and stationary such as lander or sensor), and subsurface (e.g., ground-penetrating radar, drilling, etc.) agents working in concert to allow for sufficient mission safety and redundancy, to perform extensive and challenging reconnaissance, and to lead to a thorough search for evidence of life and habitability.     

Towards a new paradigm: from a quasi-steady description to a dynamical description of the magnetosphere

A great deal of the research done on the dynamical process of the solar wind- magnetosphere interaction is based on large-scale, quasi-steady theoretical models, such as the classical reconnection model. However, it can be argued that the theoretical and observational foundations of these commonly believed paradigms are not always strong, and support for these models is sometimes weak, controversial or inconsistent. This paper discusses the need for a transition from an oversimplified quasi-steady paradigm towards a more realistic one including the dynamics of MHD waves and wave packets. The effects of localized wave packets may be most important in active plasma regions, where ideal MHD breaks down and localized, time-dependent processes become dominant. New insights into the theories of field-aligned current generation, auroral particle acceleration and the concept of reconnection may be found by including MHD wave propagation and wave packet dynamics.     

Observational support of reconnection in solar flares

We present a detailed analysis of the magnetic topology of flaring active region. TheH kernels are found to be located at the intersection of the separatrices with the chromosphere when the shear, deduced from the fibrils or/and transverse magnetic field direction, is taken into account. We show that the kernels are magnetically connected by field lines passing close to the separator. We confirm, for other flares, previous studies which show that photospheric current concentrations are located at the borders of flare ribbons. Moreover we found two photospheric current concentrations of opposite sign, linked in the corona by field lines which follow separatrices. These give evidence that magnetic energy is released by reconnection processes in solar flares.     

REMS: The Environmental Sensor Suite for the Mars Science Laboratory Rover

The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) will investigate environmental factors directly tied to current habitability at the Martian surface during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. Three major habitability factors are addressed by REMS: the thermal environment, ultraviolet irradiation, and water cycling. The thermal environment is determined by a mixture of processes, chief amongst these being the meteorological. Accordingly, the REMS sensors have been designed to record air and ground temperatures, pressure, relative humidity, wind speed in the horizontal and vertical directions, as well as ultraviolet radiation in different bands. These sensors are distributed over the rover in four places: two booms located on the MSL Remote Sensing Mast, the ultraviolet sensor on the rover deck, and the pressure sensor inside the rover body. Typical daily REMS observations will collect 180 minutes of data from all sensors simultaneously (arranged in 5 minute hourly samples plus 60 additional minutes taken at times to be decided during the course of the mission). REMS will add significantly to the environmental record collected by prior missions through the range of simultaneous observations including water vapor; the ability to take measurements routinely through the night; the intended minimum of one Martian year of observations; and the first measurement of surface UV irradiation. In this paper, we describe the scientific potential of REMS measurements and describe in detail the sensors that constitute REMS and the calibration procedures.     

EXPOSE-E: an ESA astrobiology mission 1.5 years in space

The multi-user facility EXPOSE-E was designed by the European Space Agency to enable astrobiology research in space (low-Earth orbit). On 7 February 2008, EXPOSE-E was carried to the International Space Station (ISS) on the European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) platform in the cargo bay of Space Shuttle STS-122 Atlantis. The facility was installed at the starboard cone of the Columbus module by extravehicular activity, where it remained in space for 1.5 years. EXPOSE-E was returned to Earth with STS-128 Discovery on 12 September 2009 for subsequent sample analysis. EXPOSE-E provided accommodation in three exposure trays for a variety of astrobiological test samples that were exposed to selected space conditions: either to space vacuum, solar electromagnetic radiation at >110?nm and cosmic radiation (trays 1 and 3) or to simulated martian surface conditions (tray 2). Data on UV radiation, cosmic radiation, and temperature were measured every 10?s and downlinked by telemetry. A parallel mission ground reference (MGR) experiment was performed on ground with a parallel set of hardware and samples under simulated space conditions. EXPOSE-E performed a successful 1.5-year mission in space.     

Astrobiology through the ages of Mars: the study of terrestrial analogues to understand the habitability of Mars

Mars has undergone three main climatic stages throughout its geological history, beginning with a water-rich epoch, followed by a cold and semi-arid era, and transitioning into present-day arid and very cold desert conditions. These global climatic eras also represent three different stages of planetary habitability: an early, potentially habitable stage when the basic requisites for life as we know it were present (liquid water and energy); an intermediate extreme stage, when liquid solutions became scarce or very challenging for life; and the most recent stage during which conditions on the surface have been largely uninhabitable, except perhaps in some isolated niches. Our understanding of the evolution of Mars is now sufficient to assign specific terrestrial environments to each of these periods. Through the study of Mars terrestrial analogues, we have assessed and constrained the habitability conditions for each of these stages, the geochemistry of the surface, and the likelihood for the preservation of organic and inorganic biosignatures. The study of these analog environments provides important information to better understand past and current mission results as well as to support the design and selection of instruments and the planning for future exploratory missions to Mars.     

Teaching astronomy for pre-service elementary teachers: A comparison of methods

This study investigates the effect of text structure and “hands-on” methods in the acquisition of the concepts of moon phases and seasons for pre-service elementary teachers. The goal is to evaluate the most appropriate method for facilitating conceptual change. The presentation of two main misconceptions associated with each concept (moon phases and seasons) is tested. Sixty pre-service elementary teachers are divided into three same size experimental groups after a pre-test on their knowledge about astronomy: one group read a simple expository text that presents factual information about seasons and moon phases, another group read a refutation text that moreover presents explicitly two main and usual misconceptions about each concept and arguments to refute them; the last group participates to a refutation modelling activity by testing, for each concept, three hypothesis: the scientific explanation and the two common misconceptions. The hands-on method is used as a way to refute the pre-conceptions thanks to a collaborative activity in small groups.     

Assessment of gas temperature fluctuations in the GTE combustion chamber exit section at generalizing experimental data on fuel combustion efficiency

It is suggested that gas composition at every point of the combustion chamber exit section be characterized by the temperature values T _i (“ideal” temperature) corresponding to the local values of the air-to-fuel coefficient α _i under complete fuel combustion (ν _comb ≈ 1). It is assumed that the values of T _i are distributed over the exit section area (gas mass) linearly and the values of T _imax and T _imin can be determined by the experimental data on the gas temperature fields in the combustion chambers. The distribution of temperatures T _i is used when it is necessary to generalize the experimental data on fuel combustion efficiency in GTE combustion chambers.     

TARANIS—A Satellite Project Dedicated to the Physics of TLEs and TGFs

TARANIS “Tool for the Analysis of RAdiations from lightNIngs and Sprites” is a CNES satellite project dedicated to the study of impulsive transfers of energy between the Earth atmosphere and the space environment. Such impulsive transfers of energy, identified by the observation at ground and in space (rocket, balloons, FORMOSAT 2 satellite) of Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) and the detection on satellites (CGRO, RHESSI) of Terrestrial Gamma ray Flashes (TGFs), are likely to occur in other astrophysical environments as well. The TARANIS mission and instrumentation is presented. The way the TARANIS programme (associated ground-based and balloon-based measurements included) may answer questions about the physics of TLEs and TGFs is examined. The questions addressed include: TLEs and TGFs source regions, associated phenomena, transfers of energy between the radiation belts and the atmosphere, TLEs and TGFs generation mechanisms, input parameters to the modelling of the variation of the atmosphere and the electric circuit.