http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ_09-152_LROC_images.html
News release on active mission, and links to source webpages.

http://wms.lroc.asu.edu/lroc_browse/view/nacl000000fd
A first calibration image of 128MB.

The initial source image shows unusual geological activity possibly. Possible venting and sublimed or explosive sourcing of phase changes in materials?

Pitiful ... pitiful ...

The sparse microbes the scientists discovered appeared to be partially subsisting on hydrogen atoms released when radioactive elements at the bottom of the ocean decayed and broke apart water molecules.

This somewhat rare process produces only small amounts of food. The other half of the microbes' diet comes from organic matter that drifts from the surface down to the depths of the ocean.

"If you can support the concentrations we see on a food source that's basically half hydrogen from the radioactive splitting of water, then maybe you can support a few hundred cells in wet sediments on Mars or Europa," D'Hondt said. "It suggests that life is resilient enough under very low access to food."

All I can say, is that nothing has been given to me to pass along, except that which has already been revealed.

I will say that I have been getting some vibes regarding the "land of the rising sun" producing the key component being added to the space station during the upcoming mission, however, I haven't been moved to publish the "vibe," which may or may not be of any concern. I'm much more concerned about the need to keep landing in California.

What must also be considered, is the time of the year which the attempt to fly is being made. You saw what happened the last time. Call it a coincidence if you want, but some ["theological arguments"] are not without merit.

http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/7e9c2...ed2e29f16.html
http://www.physorg.com/news164468762.html

The old shorelines are in Shalbatana Vallis:

"Estimated to be more than 3 billion years old, the lake appears to have covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada, said CU-Boulder Research Associate Gaetano Di Achille, who led the study. The shoreline evidence, found along a broad delta, included a series of alternating ridges and troughs thought to be surviving remnants of beach deposits.

"This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars," said Di Achille. "The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago."

The "huge and sudden" bursts of dry lightning are in large dust storms:

"What we saw on Mars was a series of huge and sudden electrical discharges caused by a large dust storm," Ruf said. "Clearly, there was no rain associated with the electrical discharges on Mars. However, the implied possibilities are exciting."

Paul

Interesting to see future missions will be NASA/ESA badged with both agencies pulling resources to get there on budget and sometime in our life time. Even Soyuz vehicles are soon to be launched from the ESA site in French Guyana. It is the only way to go in such times.

Still 7 years to launch and another to get there the gap is to long.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8102086.stm

After more than 120,000 years trapped beneath a block of ice in Greenland, a tiny microbe has awoken. The long-lasting bacteria may hold clues to what life forms might exist on other planets.

The new bacteria species was found nearly 2 miles (3 km) beneath a Greenland glacier, where temperatures can dip well below freezing, pressure soars, and food and oxygen are scarce.

"We don't know what state they were in," said study team member Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University. "They could've been dormant, or they could've been slowly metabolizing, but we don't know for sure."

Dormant would mean the bacteria were in a spore-like state in which there's not a lot of metabolism going on, so the bacteria wouldn't be reproducing much.

It's possible the bacteria could have been slowly metabolizing and replicating.

"Microbes have found ways to survive in harsh conditions for long times that we don't yet fully understand," Brenchley told LiveScience.

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

To coax the bacteria back to life, Brenchley, Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and their Penn State colleagues incubated the samples at 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) for seven months, followed by more than four months at 41 degrees F (5 degrees C).

The resulting colonies of the originally purple-brown bacteria, now named Herminiimonas glaciei, are alive and well.

"We were able to recover it and get it to grow in our laboratory," Brenchley said. "It was viable."

Such vigor is partially due to the microbe's small size, the scientists speculate ... cont. at link above.

-------------------------------------------

Another interesting thing to ponder; what if we melt the polar ice caps and release some long hidden killer into the environment?

Perhaps what killed off some of our ancestors is lurking in the ice someplace. :shock:

:shock:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3377/3627460273_f1a823313d_o.jpg

An interesting read, especially as it relates to what we might see on Mars, if we could somehow melt the oceans. Would the seas be deep or extensive enough to provide a magnetosphere?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17271-japanese-probe-set-to-crash-into-moon.html

The Anglo-Australian Telescope captured images showing a bright flash at the time of impact.

My question is:
What was the bright flash composed of?

Was it simply a could of moon dust thrown up upon impact and if so why was it just a brief flash instead of lingering for a few moments.

or

Was the bright flash the result of the 3 ton probe impacting the surface at 4,000 to 6,000 mph and generating heat and light as the forward momentum was converted to friction and energy.

I wonder how long it took the Sun to blow the Martian Atmosphere away and when did it finally hit Triple Point and start to boil its Oceans away? The Earth Metoerite experiments need to be carried out on a Meteorite from a return mission onboard the ISS as I don't think we can get neither Man or the right type of ovens up there for the foreseable future. In fact our most realistic plan is to do a sample return from one of the Moons, easier to land easier to take off again.

Could MSL or ExoMars do this? I am not aware of that type of equipment being installed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8079796.stm

"
Mars Phoenix Lander Mission Data
The NASA Planetary Data System announces the third and final release of data from the Mars Phoenix Lander mission. This release includes raw and derived data products from Sols 91 through 152, July 27 - October 29, 2008.

Data are being released for the following experiments:

* ASE - EDRs only
* MET LIDAR and Pressure-Temperature Sensors (includes reprocessing of data from Releases 1 and 2.) MECA (TECP, AFM, and WCL only; AFM RDRs to be released by approximately June 1, 2009) TEGA Telltale Anemometer

For OM, RAC and SSI data, please check the Imaging Node site for release status.

PDS offers two services for searching the Phoenix archives:

* The Planetary Image Atlas at the Imaging Node allows selection of Phoenix data by specific search criteria.
* The Phoenix Analyst's Notebook at the Geosciences Node allows searching and browsing of Phoenix data in the context of mission events, for the expert user.
"

You learn by doning, a shame Mars is so far away

"New Scientist reports that instead of identifying chemicals that could point to life, NASA's robot explorers may have been toasting them by mistake. Even if Mars never had life, comets and asteroids that have struck the planet should have scattered at least some organic molecules over its surface but landers have failed to detect even minute quantities of organic compounds. Now scientists say they may have stumbled on something in the Martian soil that may have, in effect, been hiding the organics: a class of chemicals called perchlorates. At low temperatures, perchlorates are relatively harmless but when heated to hundreds of degrees Celsius perchlorates release a lot of oxygen, which tends to cause any nearby combustible material to burn. The Phoenix and Viking landers looked for organic molecules by heating soil samples to similarly high temperatures to evaporate them and analyse them in gas form. When Douglas Ming of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and colleagues tried heating organics and perchlorates like this on Earth, the resulting combustion left no trace of organics behind. "We haven't looked the right way," says Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center. Jeffrey Bada of the University of California, San Diego, agrees that a new approach is needed. He is leading work on a new instrument called Urey which will be able to detect organic material at concentrations as low as a few parts per trillion. The good news is that, although Urey heats its samples, it does so in water, so the organics cannot burn up."

http://www.vk3ukf.com/index2.htm

I have also written a GUI for Bill Allen's Bippy PDS scripts, this acts as a standalone PDS *.IMG file viewer and header reader for Phoenix, MER, MPF, Stardust.

Mariner 4 images when first received were done in crayons and numbers.

http://gizmodo.com/5266151

http://www.vk3ukf.com/Mars3PSP_006154_1345-001.jpg

Hirise image PSP_006154_1345
pixel location 5215x2965

Don

Sol 1870 ( Apr 28, 2009 ) R12 4x1 pan after 12 meter move from sol 1868 postion:

Distant view of head
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all/2/p/1871/2P292472221EFFB188P2361L2M1.JPG

Close up view

.
A find by MPJ, also known as Mars Photo Journal, of a large bright object on a steep slope in HiRISE image PSP_010423_1720, associated with bright material in the layered and recently exposed terrain, additional to this view of a possible source of liquid water standing in bodies around impact craters, has nearly proven beyond any doubt that liquids, especially water, can, and do, exist on Mars, and at times will erode the terrain of the flatter areas where the crater energy sources occur. As to whether the liquid existed prior to, or after the impact, and what the true composition of the liquid is, we can only expect it will probably be water.
The crater is 120 pixels wide in diameter.
The standing eroded pool depression is about 600 pixels in diameter, and has substantial depth. Can someone estimate the total liquid volume in the pool surrounding the crater?

Can this be another of the many proofs of liquids on Mars?

Are there any weaknesses to the argument, and are the bright item of MPJ's discovery, and the crater at the approximate source of the bright object, a pair of related items?

Can we assume the liquid was water?
Was the liquid a impact produced event?
Is there a volume of ice in the layered terrain, or is this a climate factored event?
Is there any other explanation for the eroded margin area around the crater?
.