XPost: alt.alien.visitors, sci.astronomy

The first mission in a joint European-Russian campaign to look for
life on Mars is scheduled for launch on Monday.



Play Video


Meteorite Reveals Secrets of Mars' Past

A piece of rock found its way all the way from Mars to a desert in
northwest Africa. And now it has the potential to tell us all kinds of
things about the Red Planet.

The primary satellite, called Trace Gas Orbiter, or TGO, is designed
to circle Mars looking for telltale chemicals in the planet’s
atmosphere. Of particular interest is methane, which on Earth is
mostly tied to biological activity.

PHOTOS: Tour 'The Martian' Movie Set... On Mars

Methane on Mars, which has appeared in inexplicable spurts, is a more complicated story, one that may or may not have to do with indigenous populations of past or living microorganisms.

Easily broken apart by ultraviolet light from the sun, methane should
have a fairly short lifetime in the Martian atmosphere so its
occasional appearance and puzzling disappearance over particular
locations at particular times is one of the biggest mysteries of
current-day Mars.

The methane could be a byproduct of subsurface, olivine-rich rocks
interacting with water, a geological process known as
serpentinization. Another option is that methane was produced long ago
and is trapped in ice-like, crystal structures called clathrates,
which occasionally melt or break apart, releasing the gas.

PHOTOS: Europe's Next Mars Mission Prepares for Launch

Most alluring is the prospect that methane-producing microbes living
deep beneath the planet’s radiation-blasted surface are producing the
gas today.

With four science instruments, TGO is designed to very precisely map
locations and times when methane and other trace gases appear in the atmosphere. That information should help scientists pin down the
source.

TGO sets the stage for a more ambitious mission to directly search for
life. The ExoMars rover, scheduled for launch in 2018, will be able to
tunnel down into the planet’s surface and hunt for past and
present-day microbes.

TGO is carrying a demonstration lander called Schiaparelli that will
collect data during its six-minute descent through the Martian
atmosphere.

“It’s basically a technology demonstration practice, which we exercise
the full process of entry, descent and landing,” said ExoMars 2016
project scientist Hakan Svedhem, with the European Space Agency.

NEWS: Europe Probe's Sole Mission: Find Mars Life

Once on the planet’s surface, Schiaparelli’s batteries should have
enough power for humidity, pressure, temperature and other sensors to
operate for a few days.

NASA, which has two rovers currently operating on Mars, has taken a
different tact in the quest to learn if the planet most like Earth in
the solar system has or ever had life. After discovering many signs of
past water on Mars, NASA dispatched the Curiosity rover to see if Mars
had the chemical ingredients and environments suitable for
terrestrial-like life to exist.

With its first sample analysis, Curiosity scientists were able to
answer that question with a definitive yes. Now they are trying to
learn what conditions on Mars might best preserve the organic
chemistry that would be proof of life. With NASA’s next rover,
scheduled to fly in 2020, scientists want to not only have a better
idea of where to look for life, but also use the rover to cache
samples for an eventual return to Earth.

TGO and Schiaparelli are due to launch aboard a Russian Proton rocket
at 5:31 a.m. EDT Monday (Daylight Savings Time starts on Sunday) from
the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The trip to Mars will take seven months, with TGO putting itself into
orbit and Schiaparelli landing on the surface on Oct. 19. TGO will
spend about a year skimming the Martian atmosphere to get itself into
position for its science mission, which is scheduled to begin at the
end of 2017.


http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/europes-life-hunting-mars-mission-ready-for-launch-160313.htm

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: news@netfront.net ---

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)