Japan space robots start asteroid survey

Yahoo – AFP, 22 September 2018

The rovers will jump around on the surface -- soaring as high as 15 metres
and staying in the air for as long as 15 minutes

A pair of robot rovers have landed on an asteroid and begun a survey, Japan's space agency said Saturday, as it conducts a mission aiming to shed light on the origins of the solar system.

The rover mission marks the world's first moving, robotic observation of an asteroid surface, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The round, cookie tin-shaped robots successfully reached the Ryugu asteroid a day after they were released from the Hayabusa2 probe, the agency said.

"Each of the rovers is operating normally and has started surveying Ryugu's surface," JAXA said in a statement.

Taking advantage of the asteroid's low gravity, the rovers will jump around on the surface -- soaring as high as 15 metres (49 feet) and staying in the air for as long as 15 minutes -- to survey the asteroid's physical features.

"I am so proud that we have established a new method of space exploration for small celestial bodies," said JAXA project manager Yuichi Tsuda.

The agency tried but failed in 2005 to land a rover on another asteroid in a similar mission.

Hayabusa2 will next month deploy an "impactor" that will explode above the asteroid, shooting a two-kilo (four-pound) copper object to blast a small crater into the surface.

From this crater, the probe will collect "fresh" materials unexposed to millennia of wind and radiation, hoping for answers to some fundamental questions about life and the universe, including whether elements from space helped give rise to life on Earth.

The probe will also release a French-German landing vehicle named the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) for surface observation.

Hayabusa2, about the size of a large fridge and equipped with solar panels, is the successor to JAXA's first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa -- Japanese for falcon.

That probe returned from a smaller, potato-shaped, asteroid in 2010 with dust samples despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year odyssey and was hailed as a scientific triumph.

The Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014 and will return to Earth with its samples in 2020.

Scientists identify rock that crashed through shed roof as meteorite

DutchNews, June 26, 2017

Photo: Naturalis

 A rock that crashed through the roof of a shed has been confirmed as only the sixth meteorite to be recovered in the Netherlands. 

The 4.5 billion-year-old lump of stone, which weighs around 500g, landed in the village of Broek in Waterland, Noord-Holland province, in January. 

The owners discovered it the next morning and contacted Naturalis museum in Leiden after looking up meteorites on the internet. Two experts confirmed that it was a L6 chrondite type, which dates from the birth of the solar system. 

It is believed to be the same meteorite recorded by a Belgian motorist who filmed it blazing through the sky on January 11. 

Geologist Leo Kriegsman told NOS: ‘It’s from the area between Mars and Jupiter, which is an area full of space junk and small planets where lots of meteorites come from.’ 

The museum currently has the meteorite on loan from the owners and is hoping to acquire it permanently. It is thought it could fetch around €1,000 on the open market. 

Scientists estimate that a meteorite lands somewhere in the Netherlands every two to three years on average, but most are never found.

Dutch scientists celebrate discovery of only the sixth meteorite found in The Netherlands in recent history https://t.co/sPtTQtAriN pic.twitter.com/VVbIfeDEkE

— AFP news agency (@AFP) June 26, 2017

Comet contains glycine, key part of recipe for life

Yahoo – AFP,  May 27, 2016

Glycine, an organic compound contained in proteins, was found in the cloud around
 Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the European Space Agency's probe,
Rosetta (AFP Photo)

Miami (AFP) - An important amino acid called glycine has been detected in a comet for the first time, supporting the theory that these cosmic bodies delivered the ingredients for life on Earth, researchers said Friday.

Glycine, an organic compound contained in proteins, was found in the cloud around Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the European Space Agency's probe, Rosetta, said the study in the journal Science Advances.

The discovery was made using an instrument on the probe, called the Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) mass spectrometer.

"This is the first unambiguous detection of glycine in the thin atmosphere of a comet," said lead author Kathrin Altwegg, principal investigator of the ROSINA instrument at the Center of Space and Habitability of the University of Bern.

In addition to the simple amino acid glycine, the instrument also found phosphorus. The two are key components of DNA and cell membranes.

Glycine has been detected in the clouds around comets before, but in previous cases scientists could not rule out the possibility of Earthly contamination.

This time, however, they could, because the mass spectrometer directly detected the glycine, and there was no need for a chemical sample preparation that could have introduced contamination.

"The multitude of organic molecules already identified by ROSINA, now joined by the exciting confirmation of fundamental ingredients like glycine and phosphorus, confirms our idea that comets have the potential to deliver key molecules for prebiotic chemistry," said Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist of the European Space Agency ESA.

"Demonstrating that comets are reservoirs of primitive material in the Solar System, and vessels that could have transported these vital ingredients to Earth, is one of the key goals of the Rosetta mission, and we are delighted with this result."

Scientists have long debated the question of whether comets and asteroids brought the components of life to Earth by smashing into oceans on our planet.

More than one hundred molecules have been detected on comets and in their dust and gas clouds, including many amino acids.

Previous data from Rosetta has shown that water on Comet 67P/C-G is significantly different from water on Earth, suggesting that comets did not play as big a role in delivering water as once thought.

However, the latest finding shows "they certainly had the potential to deliver life's ingredients," said a statement by the University of Bern.

Related Article:

Discovery of oxygen on comet 'big surprise'

At sea, scientists drill into crater for dino clues

Yahoo – AFP, Yemeli Ortega, May 18, 2016

The L/B MYRTLE Offshore Support Vessel, a scientific platform in the Gulf
of Mexico (AFP Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

MYRTLE PLATFORM IN THE GULF OF MEXICO (México) (AFP) - Sharks swim around a platform off Mexico's east coast as scientists drill deep into the ocean floor, extracting the remains of the asteroid widely blamed for the demise of the dinosaurs.

Some 30 meters (98 feet) above the ocean floor, the researchers pull out cylinders filled with rocks that could unlock the mysteries of life and death caused by the cataclysmic crash in the Gulf of Mexico some 66 million years ago.

The remains of the space rock might even give them clues about the possibility of life on other planets.

The $15 million Expedition 364, an international team at sea since April, is the first to peer into the offshore side of the 200-kilometer wide Chicxulub crater. The crater is large enough to also straddle part of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.

"One of the exciting questions is what caused the environmental changes that led to a mass extinction and what insights arise from biologic recovery in the Paleogene (period)," Sean Gulick, professor at the Institute of Geophysics of the University of Texas, told AFP in the first visit for journalists to the platform.

The search is like looking for a needle in a haystack because the asteroid was pulverized by its apocalyptic impact, which destroyed 75 percent of life on Earth.

A team of 30 geologists, paleontologists and microbiologists from the United States, Mexico, Japan, China, Australia, Canada and Europe are working on the platform, which is located 33 kilometers off the Mexican coastline.

The scientists are drilling 1.5 kilometers (one mile) below the ocean floor, seeking microfossils and remains from the space rock.

Sailors and workers load supplies for the the L/B MYRTLE Offshore Support 

Vessel -a scientific platform in the Gulf of Mexico (AFP Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Life in other planets?

Wearing helmets and protective gear, the scientists communicate with hand signals or by screaming over the loud noise from the heavy machinery as they work around the clock on the L/B Myrtle platform, a flat, seagoing vessel that jacks up on three pillars.

As they removed dark rocks from a meter-long tube, Auriol Rae, a geologist from the Imperial College of London, could hardly contain his excitement.

"These are the rocks we expected, but 30 meters shallower than we thought it would be," Rae said, staring at the material that will later be cleaned, refrigerated and analyzed.

The rocks will be sent to Bremen, Germany, when the mission ends in early June, so that scientists can write about their discoveries.

For now, they know that the asteroid's impact was so powerful caused material to fly into orbit and fall back into Earth like fireballs. Later, ash covered the skies, turning the planet into a dark and cold place.

"This created a chain of extinction. Months later, the dust fell on the continents and oceans, changing the chemistry of the oceans," said expedition chief Jaime Urrutia, president of the Mexican Science Academy.

While there are still debates about whether the asteroid is solely to blame for the disappearance of dinosaurs, scientists agree that it caused great destruction and had a role in how life evolved after its crash.

The scientists of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) hope that Expedition 364 can provide more answers about how life was extinguished on Earth, and then revived following the asteroid's crash.

They have extracted thin and clear or black and shiny rocky material, as well as yellowish or green sediment.

The research aims to find evidence of the origin of the universe and the

evolution of life on Earth (AFP Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Each layer corresponds to a moment in time between the Cretaceous -- the last period of the dinosaurs -- and Paleogene periods, said Ligia Perez, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

The crater has a circle of mountains known as the "peak ring" that are up to 500 meters high. The Myrtle platform's three pillars stand on top of one of those peaks.

"There's so much fracturing of rocks inside the peak ring that you think hot fluids rushed through it, that we might anticipate that there's a great place for microbial life to occupy," Gulick said.

"If it turns out that impacts are great places for life then maybe that's why we should be looking for microbial life in other planets," he said.

Joanna Morgan, a British scientist, said that before the impact the ocean's microorganisms were diverse, large and complex.

But they became "much smaller and simpler" immediately after the asteroid's hit.

Drilling angers fishermen

Scientists may be excited about their work on the platform, but local fishermen are not pleased with the presence of the foreign object in their seas.

A scientific mission studies the Chicxulub impact crater on the Gulf of Mexico, 

created after an asteroid crashed 66 million years ago (AFP Photo/Ronaldo Schemidt)

Guadalupe Alvarez, leader of a fishing cooperative, said the drilling noise has scared away fish such as red or yellowtail snapper.

"In places we used to catch 100 kilos, now we catch nothing," Alvarez said.

The local government has agreed to pay 30 liters of fuel to each of the 1,000 fishermen because they have to travel farther to find fish.

But Urrutia said the machines were barely making any noise because the engines are on the platform.

A video taken by a submarine showed little fish swimming around the undersea drill as it perforated the soil.

Related Articles:

Guizhou radio telescope may pick up signs of alien life (China)

NASA discovers closest Earth-twin yet (USA)

Hawking launches biggest-ever search for alien life (UK/Russia)


"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" -  Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere.

How much life might there be? How long has it been "out there"? When science starts to realize the scope of how long life has been in your galaxy, they will begin to see something counterintuitive to evolution - their own Human history. How old is your Universe? Ask your scientists and they will say about 13 billion years. That's OK. Let's use their numbers. How old is your own planet - 4 or 5 billion, perhaps? Correct. But how old is humanity? Why weren't you here with the dinosaurs? You think the earth wasn't ready? Do you think that perhaps that which controls evolution was a little too stupid to make a Human sooner, but the process could make a dinosaur? Have you ever thought about these things?

If you put the earth's entire history into a 24-hour clock, life itself only started in the last hour and humanity, all of civilization, happened the last few seconds. Isn't that odd to you? Therefore, in a Universe that may be 13 billion years old, you arrived in the last few seconds. Did you ever think maybe you're the newest ones on the block? Well, you'd be right.

If the Universe is really that old, do you think perhaps there are civilizations in your galaxy that might be a billion or more years older than you? If that's the case, do you think perhaps they have gone through anything you're going through? Do you think any of them might have had your DNA attributes? Perhaps they also went through what you are going through spiritually? Perhaps they even went into a quantum ascension status? The answer is dozens of them.

You already know them and you've listed them in your publications. The ones who directly seeded you are called Pleiadians. The ones who seeded them might be Octurian and the ones who seeded them may be even Orion. They're everywhere, and they're all here as well. They're looking at you, for you are the ones who are next, and you are passing this marker of the shift.

Oh, dear ones, it's going to be a long time before you really know any of these things to be your reality. The first step is peace on Earth. The next is a new kind of Human evolution that is going to increase your DNA efficiency to 100% and you're going to live a long time. Every time I say that, there are Humans in their intellectual mind saying, "Well, there is a geometric birth rate going on. We're not going to make it. It's going to over-crowd and we are going to run out of food. So what you're saying, Kryon, can't be a good thing. We're all going to be suffering and killing each other for food."

Let me address this, for if that is your thought, Human, you are assuming Humans are stupid and haven't figured out what's going on and why there's so much birth. You assume they can't control it because they haven't figured it out? I want to tell you, you're going to see something you didn't expect. You're going to see a decline in birth rate because Humans are smart and they're getting smarter. They're going to see that quality of life is linked to the number of children they have, and they're going to figure out the solution. It won't be how many children their church says they should have. They are going to do it intuitively. You're going to see it sooner than not.

You are going to see wisdom on the planet in many areas that no sociologist would ever have predicted. You will surprise them all, and it's going to happen without a government program. It's going to happen because you decide you want it. It's going to happen collectively, and you may even see it soon. Look for negative birth rates in first-world countries. Where Humans are able to see a larger picture and have freedom of information, the situation will not be what you have predicted.

Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?

Not long ago, if you wanted to communicate to someone far away, you sent a letter. It was carried by a horse. It took a month to get a response. Now you communicate instantly!  Why is this so unbelievable to you about travel?

I will tell you, as long as you stay in 3D, you'll still be getting in little metal cans and air suits and going to planets. As soon as you begin the quantum age, however, you will simply wish yourself there, because you will be entangled with everything and can go with intent. If you don't believe this now, you will later, for what I give you is true. It may be lifetimes and lifetimes from now, but the group that is before me is the group that is going to come back over and over and over. The difference is that you're done coming back in an old energy. This is a new energy. ..”

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“..  Physics - Sticking To The Known

Physicists are among the kinds of scientists who expect change through discovery, and who absolutely know that they are unaware of how everything works. It comes with the territory of being a physicist. Yet the mistakes they make in their bias are the same as the computer scientist. They take their truth from known absolute physics in 3D and then apply this truth to everything they don't know.

I point to the revelation and the discoveries of astronomer Vera Rubin. When she found out that stars that orbit the middle of your galaxy don't behave within the gravitational laws of Newton or the laws of planetary motion from Kepler, it was a major discovery. Your solar system moves around the sun in highly definable 3D laws of motion. The objects that are further away from the sun go slower. The ones closer to the sun go faster. However, her discovery showed that stars orbiting the galaxy had this reversed! The stars that are further away from the middle go faster. What she discovered was that all of the stars go the same speed in relationship to the middle, like they were pasted on a plate, all revolving together around the center. They do not follow the rules of the physics that you know.

So, what did the physicists and astronomers do with this major new information? Instead of seeing a brand new paradigm, they instead used Newton's laws and computed what would have to be "out there" to make this happen. Dark matter! It had to be mysterious, invisible matter that was creating this very strange and enormous new Newtonian attribute. Instead of looking at this and saying, "There is a new law of physics happening here that we don't yet know about," they kept it within the Newton box and renamed it, "Altered Newtonian Physics". That's funny! That's like a situation when you discovered the earth was round and called it the "Altered Flat-Earth Principle"!

Newton's name is still attached, but his 3D laws have nothing to do with anything Ruben discovered. Dark matter does not exist! It's a made-up energy to satisfy an old law that doesn't apply! Instead, there is a new law of physics that you haven't seen yet. It's a multidimensional law having to do with modified entanglement. Modified entangled objects are created because of what is in the middle of the galaxy. The immense push-pull twin energy at the middle of each galaxy is not simplistic like your sun is to your own solar system. It does not have Kepler rules, since it's not mass that's just orbiting naturally. Yet, you think it is, since it looks similar: The galaxy has stars circling it in space. Someday, you'll slap your heads in revelation of what you did with this, and you will change the rules.

Now to esoteric astronomy: Look what you've done with the idea that you came from the Pleiadians. There are some scientists laughing right now who smugly say that the mythology of the Pleiadians being your seed biology is simply not possible. It's not possible because of astronomical history, and what they now know about the constellation itself.

Pleiadian Connection - Mythology?

Let's talk about the Pleiadian system, the Seven Sisters. Let's talk about the truth of it, and then let's discuss what science says is the mythology of it. We will tell you what you don't see and don't comprehend, simply because of your existing knowledge.

You call this constellation the Seven Sisters [M45]. The physical facts are that there are hundreds of stars in this Pleiades group. Circling these stars is a nebula (dust particles and gas). This creates a wonderful blue tinge that you can see in the heavens on a clear night. With distance and atmospheric attributes against you, the naked eye can only perceive what appears to be seven stars (or clusters), hence the name Seven Sisters. However, there are actually nine when you use a telescope. Each of the nine have been identified with names, but again, there are actually hundreds of stars.

The Seven Sisters are approximately 440 light years away. From the viewpoint of astronomy and distances, that's close - very close! Now, here's what science says is wrong with your mythology about the Pleiadians: The constellation is way too young! The whole system of the Pleiades is far too young to have developed life. It's only approximately 100 million years old - a baby! The galaxy is four billion years old [according to your science] and your planet is at least a billion of that. Yet, the Pleiadians are only a tiny fraction of that, only 100 million.

So here is what science says: The mythology has most of the ancients of this planet claiming the Pleiadians as their seeds. However, this is impossible due to the age of the stars. The suppositions and logic are applied this way: What you saw on earth happens everywhere in the galaxy. That's incorrect, and quite humorous! Your bias is that life develops only a certain way, based upon the way it developed here. Not only is that incorrect in general, but the possibility has never even been broached that perhaps, just perhaps, the Pleiadian life as you think it exists was actually implanted there! How about that? Perhaps it didn't evolve from there at all! So to dismiss a possibility completely due to only the knowledge of what you have here may result in a totally illogical conclusion. Then there is the question, "How did those Pleiadians get so advanced so quickly?" [Wink]

These are just little vignettes of possibility, which I throw to you this evening to give you things to think about. The Pleiadians who are here are smiling, and they know you so well. You may be the new kids on the block because life just developed on your planet, but the Pleiadians had an entirely different scenario from what you had. To become an ascended planet, they needed certain kinds of pushes from certain other kinds of planets. They had their own seed biology! Dear ones, it's important to start thinking out of the box of your knowledge and open up to possibilities that are not what you've seen here.  ….”

"FUTURE AND PHYSICS (#)" - May 16-17, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (#) New major Discoveries (This channel will become a historical channel in the future, prove that Kryon is a real communication from the Creative Source/God to Humanity - 'Óur Family') - (Text version Physics)

1 To see and measure multi-dimensional/quantum physics, instrument (super-cooling quantum plasma lens)

2 Two more laws of multi-dimensional physics revealed: explanation of dark matter & acknowledgement of free energy (controlling mass)

3 God in the atom. God has - provable - part in physics. Intelligent/benevolent design. (Will bring religion and science together.)

4 Human Consciousness is an attribute of physics. (Pleiadians - Humans ancestors / Humans free choice only planet in the Milky Way Galaxy. Other galaxies have their own spiritual systems and physics)

5.Coherent DNA. Multidimensional DNA coherent between dimensions will give Enhanced DNA

"Earth, the only planet with free choice in the Milky Way Galaxy"

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"Recalibration of the Universe"– Jan 25, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text Version)

“… The entire galaxy revolves as one plate, in a very counter-intuitive way. The stars and the constellations do not orbit within the rules of Newtonian physics that you are used to seeing all around you in your own solar system. For the stars and clusters in your galaxy, distance from the center does not matter. All the stars rotate as one. This is because the galaxy is entangled with the middle of itself. In that state, there is no time or distance. The change of consciousness on this planet has changed the center of the galaxy. This is because what happens here, dear one, is "known" by the center.

It's interesting to us what your reaction to all this is scientifically. You saw that the "creative event" of your Universe is missing some energy in order for it to have formed as it did. In addition, the unusual way the galaxy rotates, as I just stated, was also noted. So you have calculated that for all this to be in place, there has to be missing 3D matter, and you have given it a name - dark matter. How funny! Did you ever think that there could be a multidimensional effect going on that you now can observe and calculate - that has immense power, but can't be seen? It's not "matter" at all and it's not 3D. It's quantum energy.

Let me tell you something about physics. Yet again, I'll make it simple. Everything your scientists have seen in physics happens in pairs. At the moment, there are four laws of physics in your three-dimensional paradigm. They represent two pairs of energy types. Eventually, there will be six. At the center of your galaxy is what you call a black hole, but it is not a single thing. It is a duality. There is no such thing as "singularity". You might say it's one energy with two parts - a weak and a strong quantum force. And the strangest thing is it knows who you are. It is the creator engine. It's different in other galaxies than this one. It's unique.

The very physics of your galaxy is postured by what you do here. The astronomers can look into the cosmos and they will discover different physics in different galaxies. Could it be that there's something going on in the other galaxies like this one? I'm not going to answer that. … “

"The Physics of Consciousness - The Future Revealed" - June 29, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

Police arrest meteorite thieves with 1,500 kilos of rock in Argentina

Police in Argentina have arrested four men who were trying to steal meteorites in the northern province of Chaco. The region is world famous for the space rocks which are protected under law.

Deutsche Welle, 31 May 2015

The 215 large pieces of meteorites weighing 1,500 kilos (3,300 pounds) were hidden in a truck which was stopped in a random search by police on Saturday. Three Argentines and one Paraguayan were detained by police.

Planeaban robo masivo de meteoritos en Argentina: La policía los descubrió http://t.co/ZzzKQFrox2 pic.twitter.com/WGfcSpPzg0

— Emol.com (@Emol) 31 mei 2015

The province of Chaco in the north of Argentina is famous for meteorites which are protected under Argentine law. There is an area called the "Field of Heaven," covering 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) - an area that scientists say got pelted 4,000 years ago by a major meteor shower.

State minister Javier Oteo said that "there was still no information on the place from where the meteorites had been stolen" but the "Field of Heaven" was just 32 kilometers (20 miles) from General Pinedo where the truck was stopped.

"The information we have is minimal and preliminary," Oteo said. "We are interested in the case because it concerns public property belonging to people from Chaco, Argentinians and all of humanity."

Among the meteorites in the "Field of Heaven" is the 37.4 tonne "El Chaco," the largest in Argentina and believed to be the second-largest in the world. In 1990 it was on the point of being sold illegally to a collector in the US.

jm/jr (EFE, dpa)

Bright lights on dwarf planet perplex NASA as probe nears

Yahoo – AFP, 27 Feb 2015

A NASA Dawn spacecraft image of the dwarf planet Ceres on February 19,

2015 (AFP Photo)

Washington (AFP) - The discovery of another bright light on the dwarf planet Ceres has NASA scientists perplexed as the US Dawn probe prepares to enter the orbit of the largest object in the asteroid belt and possibly resolve the mystery.

The images taken nearly 29,000 miles (46,000 kilometers) from Ceres show that a bright spot on the planet scientists previously discovered appears next to another slightly darker spot, NASA said in a news release.

The light appears in the same basin as the other spot, images released by NASA show.

"This may be pointing to a volcano-like origin of the spots, but we will have to wait for better resolution before we can make such geologic interpretations," Chris Russell from the Dawn mission said.

The Dawn probe will enter the orbit of Ceres March 6. Scientists expect to receive better views of the mystery lights as the spacecraft closes in and spirals nearer the dwarf planet.

"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres. This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us," said scientist Andreas Nathues who is in charge of the camera.

Scientists detected water vapor emitting from Ceres in 2012 and NASA reports the surface of the body contains "water-bearing minerals."

Launched in 2007, the Dawn probe was sent to investigate the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter.

Dawn explored giant asteroid Vesta starting in 2011, providing measurements and images. After 2012, the probe left Vesta's orbit and began its journey to Ceres.

Ceres has a diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers) and Vesta has a diameter of about 326 miles (525 kilometers).

Methane ‘spikes’ fuel speculation of life on Mars

Nasa’s Curiosity rover measures fluctuations of gas not easily explained by geology or organic material dropped by meteorites

The Guardian, Ian Sample and agencies,16 December 2014

The sun rises over Gale Crater on Mars where the Curiosity rover detected
the methane fluctuations. Photograph: Stocktrek Images/Alamy

Nasa’s robotic rover, Curiosity, has detected fluctuating wafts of methane on Mars, fuelling speculation that the gas may be coming from a form of life on the red planet.

An instrument on the six-wheeled robot measured mysterious spikes of methane that cannot easily be explained by geology or organic material transported to the planet by comets or asteroids.

“That we detect methane in the atmosphere on Mars is not an argument that we have found evidence of life on Mars, but it’s one of the few hypotheses that we can propose that we must consider,” John Grotzinger, a scientist on the Curiosity team, told the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. “Large organic molecules present in ancient rocks on Mars is also not an argument that there was once life on ancient Mars, but it is the kind of material you’d look for if life had ever originated on Mars.”

The instrument recorded a 10-fold increase in methane in the atmosphere around it and detected other organic molecules in powdered rock collected by the rover’s drill, the first definitive detection of organics in surface materials of Mars. These organics could either have formed on Mars or landed on Mars via meteorites.

“This temporary increase in methane, sharply up and then back down, tells us there must be some relatively localised source,” said Sushil Atreya, of the Curiosity science team at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “There are many possible sources, biological or non-biological, such as interaction of water and rock.”

Mars satellites have detected plumes of methane from the surface before, but none as extraordinary as the sudden venting of the gas measured at Gale Crater, where evidence suggests water once flowed billions of years ago.

Curiosity, one of Nasa’s two Mars exploration rovers, landed in the 96-mile-wide crater in August 2012 and has been exploring the region since. Last year the US space agency reported that Gale contained the remains of an ancient freshwater lake that may have been a hospitable environment for life in the distant past. 

 A computer-generated image of the
Curiosity rover. Photograph: Nasa/PA

The latest discovery, reported in the journal Science, followed studies of gas samples by Curiosity’s tunable laser spectrometer (TAS), which uses intense light to carry out chemical analysis. It revealed a low background level of methane which spiked over 60 Martian days.

In four sequential measurements, Curiosity showed the methane level soaring from about 0.69 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) to 7.2 ppbv. The spikes occurred within 200 to 300 metres of each other and less than a kilometre from where the lower readings were detected.

By the time Curiosity had travelled a further kilometre, the higher methane levels had disappeared. Researchers led by Chris Webster at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, wrote: “The persistence of the high methane values over 60 sols (Martian days) and their sudden drop 47 sols later is not consistent with a well-mixed event, but rather with a local production or venting that, once terminated, disperses quickly.”

The wind direction indicated a source to the north of the rover.

Life is the chief producer of methane on Earth, but many non-biological processes can generate the gas.

The low background level of methane detected by Curiosity could be explained by the Sun’s rays degrading organic material possibly deposited by meteors, the Nasa scientists said. But the spikes of methane required an additional source, which was unlikely to be a recent impact by a comet or asteroid. Such an object would have had to measure several metres across and would have left a large crater, no sign of which was visible.

The short timescale of the methane spikes did not suggest the gas was released from volcanic deposits trapped in ice, called clathrates. Nor did it appear to come from the release of gaseous methane that had become bound to the soil.

The Nasa authors were cautious about jumping to conclusions, but concluded that “methanogenesis” – the formation of methane by microbial bugs known as methanogens – may be one answer to the riddle.

“Our measurements spanning a full Mars year indicate that trace quantities of methane are being generated on Mars by more than one mechanism or a combination of proposed mechanisms – including methanogenesis either today or released from past reservoirs, or both.”

Monica Grady, a planetary scientist at Open University, said: “They have repeated their measurements over an extended period of time, and performed careful calibrations, so I’m sure the data are good.

“They consider several different origins, including destruction by UV radiation of in-falling organic material from interplanetary dust and meteorites, release from clathrates and even methane-generating bugs. Without additional data, such as knowing the carbon and hydrogen isotopic composition of the gas, it is difficult to assign a specific source. My own preference, based on nothing other than instinct, would be to go for clathrates rather than bugs.”

Gale Crater

Gale Crater, on the Martian equator, was created when a large meteor struck the planet 3.5bn to 3.8bn years ago. At its centre is a high mountain, named Mount Sharp, that rises 18,000ft above the crater floor. Flowing water appears to have carved channels in the sides of the mountain and the crater walls.

Another major discovery by Curiosity was that of water bound in the fine-grained soil within the crater. Each cubic foot of Martian soil was found to contain around two pints of water, not freely accessible but attached to minerals.

The rover has reached the base of Mount Sharp and over the coming months will begin a slow ascent. Scientists are keen to explore the mountain because its sedimentary layers provide snapshots of Martian history.

The question of whether there is, or was, life on Mars may finally be answered by the European Space Agency’s ExoMars mission, which will land a 300kg rover there in 2019. It will be equipped with a two-metre drill and the ability to detect biomarkers of life. It will not be heading for Gale Crater, however. Because it will land with less precision than Curiosity, the crater and its mountain are considered too potentially hazardous. 

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Meteorite evidence suggests life on Mars: Chinese researcher

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2014-12-15

A meteorite. (File photo/CNS)

A research team formed by scientists from China, Switzerland, Germany and Japan conducted a series of tests on a meteorite and have found evidence suggesting life on Mars, reports state broadcaster China National Radio.

The broadcaster interviewed Lin Yangting, the team leader and a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Geology and Geophysics.

The team found dozens of carbon particles, only one-tenth of a hair's width in size, on a meteorite found on Earth. It was attributed to a Mars origin because of its elements profile, which matches what the US analyzed and documented when the country explored the planet in 1976.

The scientists were able to determine that carbon particles did not come from pollutants that could have "clung" to the meteorite after entering the earth's atmosphere. The 120th Mars rock ever discovered on Earth was found "unlikely to be contaminated" in the desert of Morocco in 2011. It was also the youngest meteorite, dated at appromixately 600 million years old, said Lin.

The carbon particles could be pure carbon or organic matter, so the team examined them under a Raman spectroscopy device that can measure in nanometers. Then the hydrogen, oxygen and carbon structure of the contents were analyzed. The team compared the data with coal and ruled that the particles are organic matter and possibly sediments from underground water.

Another US research team which also analyzed the particles, however, disagreed with Lin's conclusions. They believe the particles to have been formed by lava, meaning the carbon content does not prove life existed on Mars.

Lin's team found an article in an international journal which claims that groundwater existed on Mars 200 million years ago. The Chinese researcher said the life of the planet would be quite simple and primitive, such as bacteria, since so far no one has seen any living creature on the red planet.