Three billion years ago, Earth was a very different place.
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The Rover Naming Contest
And that’s only the beginning! It’ll take about six months for each of the two Mars Exploration Rovers to reach the Red Planet, but if you’re the winner of the contest, the names you choose for the Rovers will be part of Space Exploration History forever!
NASA announced this week a collaboration with the LEGO Company in this ‘Name the Rovers’ contest for America’s school kids. The Planetary Society will join LEGO in managing the contest. The robotic explorers, part of NASA’s upcoming Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, will land at two different locations on the mysterious Red Planet ...
November 07, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Studying Europa From the Outside In
At a recent Geological Society of America meeting in Colorado, several papers were presented on new research and technologies that might enhance our understanding of Europa. One of these papers outlined a method to “listen” to the moon’s internal structure by landing an instrument package that contains a geophone on Europa’s surface. This device would allow scientist to hear cracks and quakes inside the moon as it was stressed in its orbit around Jupiter. For more on this release, visit GSA’s news release page
Another paper given by a research team at the University of Colorado presents ...
November 06, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Building Planets in Cyberspace
Recipe: Take a rocky mass [about 12.8 thousand kilometers (nearly 8 thousand miles) wide], add carbon dioxide, water vapor and methane. Place in stable, circular orbit, the same distance from a sunlike star as the distance between Earth and the Sun. Heat to an average of 10 degree Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) for 1 billion years.
November 05, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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NAI Lead Team Member Awarded Donath Medal
Established in 1988, the Young Scientist Award grants recognition for “outstanding achievement in contributing to geologic knowledge through original research that marks a major advance in the earth sciences.” In order to be eligible, a researcher must be 35 or younger during the award year. Dr. Anbar is a member of the NAI Harvard and JPL 1 Lead Teams and he is a co-chair of the Mission to Early Earth Focus Group. He holds the rank of Associate Professor in the Departments of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Chemistry at the University of Rochester. His research involves using novel ...
October 24, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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NASA Researchers Seek Astrobiology Insights on the Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign
Meteor showers may be a beautiful, heavenly spectacle that can provide for a good evening of entertainment, but they are also much more. Meteors, or “shooting stars,” are streaks of light that appear in the sky when small particles from space enter Earth’s atmosphere. They have amazed stargazers for millennia. But only recently have scientists realized their importance to understanding the evolution of the solar system—and their connection to astrobiology. One shower in particular, the Leonids, has been especially strong recently. And this year, stargazers and scientists alike are in for a spectacular show, and astrobiologists will be ...
October 18, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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NASA Astrobiologists to Study Extreme Life at Earth's Highest Lake
During October, the scientists will explore several lakes in the region, including the highest freshwater lake in the world, in the caldera of the Licancabur volcano, almost 20,000 feet high. The information they gather will help astrobiologists devise strategies and technologies to search for life on planets like Mars during future missions.
“If there was life on Mars 3.5 billion years ago, it could have used defense mechanisms similar to those used by the organisms at Licancabur volcano to survive,” said expedition principal investigator Dr. Nathalie Cabrol of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. “This ...
October 10, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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NAI Congratulates and Welcomes Another Nobel Prize Winner
Brenner’s work on C. elegans proved to it be a novel experimental model organism. “This provided a unique opportunity to link genetic analysis to cell division, differentiation and organ development – and to follow these processes under the microscope,” says the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet. For the complete press release, visit http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/2002/press.html
Dr. Sydney Brenner advised the Ames Center Director in the early stages of developing the NAI, and he has served as a member of the distinguished NAI Director’s Science Council from the time of its establishment by Director ...
October 09, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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G. Scott Hubbard Named NASA Ames Research Center Director
G. Scott Hubbard, Deputy Director for Research at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has been selected as Center Director, effective immediately.
September 19, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Do You See What I See?
NAI molecular biologist Michael Cummings studies one of the most basic interactions an organism has with its environment – the perception of light and color. But does the world hold the same colors for everyone?
September 16, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Mars Exploration Rover 2003 Landing Sites
With the Mars Exploration Rover (or MER) landing sites narrowed from 150 alternatives, the prospect of roaming around ancient lakebeds has the orbital cameras clicking.
September 13, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Runnegar to Lead NASA Astrobiology Institute
Runnegar currently is a professor in UCLA’s Department of Earth and Space Sciences and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP). For the past four years, he also has served as the Director of the IGPP’s Center for Astrobiology, one of the 11 original lead teams of the Astrobiology Institute. Educated in Australia at the University of Queensland, Runnegar became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1987.
“Dr. Runnegar is an internationally recognized paleontologist and astrobiologist whose breadth of knowledge and excellence in research and teaching are respected throughout the scientific and academic communities ...
September 06, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Bacteria: Survival in Siberia
Find out more about a test that could help determine if life once existed on Mars-or even if living organisms still reside in the Martian permafrost.
August 27, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Rehearsal Readies Scientists for NASA's Next Mars Landing
With less than a year to go before the launch of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission, scientists have spent the last few weeks at a high-tech summer camp.
August 21, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Prospecting for Viruses
Scientists are prospecting for viruses in the hot springs of Yellowstone National Park – and they are being richly rewarded with intriguing new finds.
August 15, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue
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Eukaryotic Origins
Scientists are still struggling to understand the evolutionary relationships among different types of cells.
August 06, 2002 • Posted by: Shige Abe • Report issue