Analogue Research and Instrumentation Seminar

When May 18, 2009 (Mon) ~

Where Virtual

September 19, 2008 / Posted by: Estelle Dodson

The next Forum for Astrobiology (FAR) Seminar will be Monday, May 18th at 11:00am PT (8:00am HT, 12:00pm MT, 1:00pm CT, 2:00pm ET). This seminar is broadcast live by NAI – you can “attend” locally from a videoconferencing room or from your desktop (see instructions below). Please join us for Sanjoy Som’s (University of Washington) presentation, “Sustainability of liquid water on early Mars” and Jason Sahl’s (Colorado School of Mines), “An autonomous exploration of water-filled cenotes by the deep phreatic thermal explorer (DEPTHX)”.

Titles, abstracts and connection information are at the end of this email. Please forward this to your colleagues; attendance is open to the entire community. Please send me an email if you have any questions.

We look forward to your participation,
Estelle Dodson
estelle.dodson@nasa.gov
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Sustainability of liquid water on early Mars
Sanjoy Som
University of Washington

An ancient era of flowing liquids on Mars has been inferred for decades based upon its presently dry channels and valleys. Traditionally interpreted as carved by dilute or “pure” water, these fluvial landforms have been invoked as compelling evidence for changes in climate because dilute water is now unstable in its liquid form on Mars. This assumption has underpinned the widely accepted hypothesis that an early warm wet climate on Mars preceded today’s cold dry climate. The “follow the water” theme of the Mars Exploration Rovers is based on these observations, and has fueled martian astrobiology research because of the obvious link between liquid water and potential life. However, recent data strongly suggest that Mars once had saline and acid ephemeral shallow surface waters and groundwaters. I will present a synthesis of morphological observations of martian landforms and physical sedimentology experiments that show morphologic similarity between martian channels and those carved by acid brines. Based on this and surface mineralogy, I argue for an alternate interpretation of Mars climate history because sulfuric acid brines are capable of remaining liquid at current martian conditions. I will end on a short discussion on the implications of this study for habitability.

An autonomous exploration of water-filled cenotes by the deep phreatic thermal explorer (DEPTHX)
Jason Sahl
Colorado School of Mines

The deep phreatic thermal explorer (DEPTHX) is a submersible vehicle engineered to advance technologies in exploratory autonomous robotics. In the Spring of 2007, DEPTHX successfully navigated deep water-filled cenotes and obtained a microbiological sample, all based on autonomous decisions. These technologies may be applicable to future missions which focus on obtaining microbiologial samples on extraterrestrial water bodies, such as the Jovian moon Europa.

Participation Instructions:

To participate using a videoconferencing system such as Polycom….RSVP to Estelle Dodson (Estelle.dodson@nasa.gov) and join Adobe Connect to view the slides live http://nasa-nai.acrobat.com/far_may2009/