Early Mars: A Warm Wet Niche for Life

Exploration of Mars has begun to unveil the history of the planet. Combinations of remote sensing, in situ compositional measurements and photographic observations have shown Mars had a dynamic and active geologic evolution. Mars geologic evolution had conditions that were suitable for supporting life. A habitable planet must have water, carbon and energy sources along with a dynamic geologic past. Mars meets all of these requirements. The first 600 Ma of Martian history were ripe for life to develop because of the abundance of: (i) Water-as shown by carved canyons and oceans or lakes with the early presence of near surface water shown by precipitated carbonates in ALH84001, well-dated at approx.3.9 Ga, (ii) Energy from the original accretional processes, a molten core which generated a strong magnetic field leaving a permanent record in the early crust, active volcanism continuing throughout Martian history, and continuing impact processes, (iii) Carbon, water and a likely thicker atmosphere from extensive volcanic outgassing (i.e. H2O, CO2, CH4, CO, O2, N2, H2S, SO2, etc.) and (iv) crustal tectonics as revealed by faulting and possible plate movement reflected by the magnetic patterns in the crust [1]. The question arises: "Why would life not develop from these favorable conditions on Mars in its first 600 Ma?" During this period, environmental near-surface conditions on Mars were more favorable to life than at any later time. Standing bodies of water, precipitation and flowing surface water, and possibly abundant hydrothermal energy would favor the formation of early life. (Even if life developed elsewhere on Earth, Venus, or on other bodies-it was transported to Mars where surface conditions were suitable for life to evolve

Development of Life on Early Mars

Exploration of Mars has begun to unveil the history of the planet. Combinations of remote sensing, in situ compositional measurements and photographic observations have shown Mars had a dynamic and active geologic evolution. Mars geologic evolution encompassed conditions that were suitable for supporting life. A habitable planet must have water, carbon and energy sources along with a dynamic geologic past. Mars meets all of these requirements. The first 600 My of Martian history were ripe for life to develop because of the abundance of (i) Water- as shown by carved canyons and oceans or lakes with the early presence of near surface water shown by precipitated carbonates in ALH84001, well-dated at ~3.9 Gy, (ii) Energy from the original accretional processes, a molten core which generated a strong magnetic field leaving a permanent record in the early crust, active volcanism continuing throughout Martian history, and continuing impact processes, (iii) Carbon, water and a likely thicker atmosphere from extensive volcanic outgassing (i.e. H20, CO2, CH4, CO, O2, N2, H2S, SO2, etc.) and (iv) crustal tectonics as revealed by faulting and possible plate movement reflected by the magnetic pattern in the crust [1]. The question arises: "Why would life not develop from these favorable conditions on Mars in its first 600 My?" During this period, environmental near-surface conditions on Mars were more favorable to life than at any later time. Standing bodies of water, precipitation and flowing surface water, and possibly abundant hydrothermal energy would favor the formation of early life. (Even if life developed elsewhere on Earth, Venus, or on other bodies-it was transported to Mars where surface conditions were suitable for life to evolve). The commonly stated requirement that life would need hundreds of millions of year to get started is only an assumption; we know of no evidence that requires such a long interval for the development of life, if the proper habitable conditions are meet. Perhaps it could start in a very short interval during the first tens of millions of years after crustal formation. Even with impact-driven extinction events, such a short start-up time would allow life to restart multiple times until it persevered. If panspermia is considered, life could be introduced as soon as liquid surface water was present and could instantly thrive and spread

Conditions on Early Mars Might Have Fostered Rapid and Early Development of Life

The exploration of Mars during the past decades has begun to unveil the history of the planet. The combinations of remote sensing, in situ geochemical compositional measurements and photographic observations from both above and on the surface have shown Mars to have a dynamic and active geologic evolution. Mars geologic evolution clearly had conditions that were suitable for supporting life. For a planet to be able to be habitable, it must have water, carbon sources, energy sources and a dynamic geologic past. Mars meets all of these requirements. The first 600 My of Martian history were ripe for life to develop because of the abundance of (i) Water-carved canyons and oceans or lakes with the early presence of near surface water shown by precipitated carbonates in ALH84001 well-dated at approx.3.9 Gy., (ii) Energy from the original accretional processes, a molten core which generated a strong magnetic field leaving a permanent record in the early crust, early active volcanism continuing throughout Martian history, and, and continuing impact processes, (iii) Carbon and water from possibly extensive volcanic outgassing (i.e. H2O, CO2, CH4, CO, O2, N2, H2S, SO2, etc.) and (iv) some crustal tectonics as revealed by faulting and possible plate movement reflected by the magnetic pattern in the crust. The question arises: "Why would life not evolve from these favorable conditions on early Mars in its first 600 My?" During this period, it seems likely that environmental near-surface conditions on Mars were more favorable to life than at any later time. Standing bodies of water, precipitation and flowing surface water, and possibly abundant hydrothermal energy would all favor the formation of early life. Even if life developed elsewhere (on Earth, Venus, or on other solar systems) and was transported to Mars, the surface conditions were likely very hospitable for that introduced life to multiply and evolve

Life on Mars: Evidence from Martian Meteorites

New data on martian meteorite 84001 as well as new experimental studies show that thermal or shock decomposition of carbonate, the leading alternative non-biologic explanation for the unusual nanophase magnetite found in this meteorite, cannot explain the chemistry of the actual martian magnetites. This leaves the biogenic explanation as the only remaining viable hypothesis for the origin of these unique magnetites. Additional data from two other martian meteorites show a suite of biomorphs which are nearly identical between meteorites recovered from two widely different terrestrial environments (Egyptian Nile bottomlands and Antarctic ice sheets). This similarity argues against terrestrial processes as the cause of these biomorphs and supports an origin on Mars for these features

ProsPA: A miniature chemical laboratory for in-situ assessment of lunar volatile resources

A Package for Resource Observation and in-Situ Prospecting for Exploration, Commercial exploitation and Transportation (PROSPECT) is in development by ESA for application at the lunar surface as part of international lunar exploration missions in the coming decade, including the Russian Luna-27 mission planned for 2020. Establishing the utilisation potential of resources found in-situ on the Moon may be key to enabling future sustainable exploration. PROSPECT will support the identification of potential resources, assess the utilisation potential of those resources at a given location and provide information to help establish the broader distribution. PROSPECT will also perform investigations into resource extraction methodologies that maybe applied at larger scales in the future and provide data with important implications for fundamental scientific investigations on the Moon. PROSPECT comprises two main elements: a drill system named ProSEED designed to access samples from depths up to 2 m, and ProsPA (Figure 1), a miniature chemical laboratory for the extraction and characterisation of volatiles within those samples

Reduced Martian Carbon: Evidence from Martian Meteorites

Identification of indigenous reduced carbon species on Mars has been a challenge since the first hypotheses about life on Mars were proposed. Ranging from the early astronomical measurements to analyses of samples from the Martian surface in the form of Martian meteorites. The first direct attempt to analyze the carbon species on the surface was in 1976 with the Viking GC-MS in-situ experiment which gave inconclusive results at two sites on Mars [1]. With the recognition in 1983 that samples of the Martian surface were already present on Earth in the form of Martian meteorites by Bogard and Johnson [2] new opportunities became available for direct study of Mars's samples in te rlraesbtrioalratories. Carbon isotopic compositional information suggested a reduced carbon component was present in the Martian meteorites [3-5]. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons associated with carbonate globules in ALH84001 were later identified [6,7]. Jull et al [8] noted that an insoluble component was present within Nakhla and more than 75% of its C lacked any 14C, which is modern-day carbon contaminant. This carbon fraction was believed to be either indigenous (i..e. Martian) or ancient meteoritic carbon phase. Within the fractures of Nakhla and ALH84001, Fisk et al [9,10] identified reduced carbon-enriched areas. Gibson et al. [11] using a combination of NanoSIMS, Focused Electron microscopy, Laser Raman Spectroscopy and Stepped-Combustion Static Mass Spectrometry analyses the presence of possible indigenous reduced carbon components within the 1.3 Ga old Nakhla

High-mass star formation at high luminosities: W31 at >10^6 L_sun

Context: High-mass star formation has been a very active field over the last decade, however, most studies targeted regions of luminosities between 10^4 and 10^5 L_sun. Methods: We selected the W31 star-forming complex with a total luminosity of ~6x10^6 L_sun for a multi-wavelength spectral line and continuum study covering wavelengths from the near- and mid-infrared via (sub)mm wavelength observations to radio data in the cm regime. Results: While the overall structure of the multi-wavelength continuum data resembles each other well, there are several intriguing differences. The 24mum emission stemming largely from small dust grains follows tightly the spatial structure of the cm emission tracing the ionized free-free emission. Hence warm dust resides in regions that are spatially associated with the ionized hot gas (~10^4 K) of the HII regions. Furthermore, we find several evolutionary stages within the same complexes, ranging from infrared-observable clusters, via deeply embedded regions associated with active star formation traced by 24\,$\mu$m and cm emission, to at least one high-mass gas clump devoid of any such signature. The 13CO(2-1) and C18O(2-1) spectral line observations reveal a large kinematic breadth in the entire region with a total velocity range of approximately 90 km/s. While the average virial mass ratio for W31 is close to unity, the line width analysis indicates large-scale evolutionary differences between the southern and northern sub-regions (G10.2-0.3 and G10.3-0.1) of the whole W31 complex. The clump mass function - tracing cluster scales and not scales of individual stars - derived from the 875mum continuum data has a slope of 1.5+-0.3, consistent with previous cloud mass functions.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted for Astronomy and Astrophysics, high-resolution version of paper at http://www.mpia.de/homes/beuther/papers.htm

Recombination in Streptococcus pneumoniae Lineages Increase with Carriage Duration and Size of the Polysaccharide Capsule

Streptococcus pneumoniae causes a high burden of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) globally, especially in children from resource-poor settings. Like many bacteria, the pneumococcus can import DNA from other strains or even species by transformation and homologous recombination, which has allowed the pneumococcus to evade clinical interventions such as antibiotics and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs). Pneumococci are enclosed in a complex polysaccharide capsule that determines the serotype; the capsule varies in size and is associated with properties including carriage prevalence and virulence. We determined and quantified the association between capsule and recombination events using genomic data from a diverse collection of serotypes sampled in Malawi. We determined both the amount of variation introduced by recombination relative to mutation (the relative rate) and how many individual recombination events occur per isolate (the frequency). Using univariate analyses, we found an association between both recombination measures and multiple factors associated with the capsule, including duration and prevalence of carriage. Because many capsular factors are correlated, we used multivariate analysis to correct for collinearity. Capsule size and carriage duration remained positively associated with recombination, although with a reduced P value, and this effect may be mediated through some unassayed additional property associated with larger capsules. This work describes an important impact of serotype on recombination that has been previously overlooked. While the details of how this effect is achieved remain to be determined, it may have important consequences for the serotype-specific response to vaccines and other interventions

Soft branes in supersymmetry-breaking backgrounds

We revisit the analysis of effective field theories resulting from non-supersymmetric perturbations to supersymmetric flux compactifications of the type-IIB superstring with an eye towards those resulting from the backreaction of a small number of anti-D3-branes. Independently of the background, we show that the low-energy Lagrangian describing the fluctuations of a stack of probe D3-branes exhibits soft supersymmetry breaking, despite perturbations to marginal operators that were not fully considered in some previous treatments. We take this as an indication that the breaking of supersymmetry by anti-D3-branes or other sources may be spontaneous rather than explicit. In support of this, we consider the action of an anti-D3-brane probing an otherwise supersymmetric configuration and identify a candidate for the corresponding goldstino.Comment: 36+5 pages. References added, minor typos correcte

Evidence for alignment of the rotation and velocity vectors in pulsars

We present strong observational evidence for a relationship between the direction of a pulsar's motion and its rotation axis. We show carefully calibrated polarization data for 25 pulsars, 20 of which display linearly polarized emission from the pulse longitude at closest approach to the magnetic pole. Such data allow determination of the position angle of the linear polarisation which in turn reflects the position angle of the rotation axis. Of these 20 pulsars, 10 show an offset between the velocity vector and the polarisation position angle which is either less than 10\degr or more than 80\degr, a fraction which is very unlikely by random chance. We believe that the bimodal nature of the distribution arises from the presence of orthogonal polarisation modes in the pulsar radio emission. In some cases this orthogonal ambiguity is resolved by observations at other wavelengths so that we conclude that the velocity vector and the rotation axis are aligned at birth. Strengthening the case is the fact that 4 of the 5 pulsars with ages less than 3 Myr show this relationship, including the Vela pulsar. We discuss the implications of these findings in the context of the Spruit & Phinney (1998)\nocite{sp98} model of pulsar birth-kicks. We point out that, contrary to claims in the literature, observations of double neutron star systems do not rule out aligned kick models and describe a possible observational test involving the double pulsar system.Comment: MNRAS, In Pres