Planetary rover technology development requirements

Planetary surface (including lunar) mobility and sampling capability is required to support proposed future National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) solar system exploration missions. The NASA Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) is addressing some of these technology needs in its base research and development program, the Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI) and a new technology initiative entitled Pathfinder. The Pathfinder Planetary Rover (PPR) and Sample Acquisition, Analysis and Preservation (SAAP) programs will develop and validate the technologies needed to enable both robotic and piloted rovers on various planetary surfaces. The technology requirements for a planetary roving vehicle and the development plans of the PPR and SAAP programs are discussed

Characterization of organic matter in the Torridonian using Raman spectroscopy

We gratefully acknowledge two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Earth System Evolution and Early Life: a Celebration of the Work of Martin Brasier. ed. / A. T. Brasier; D. McIlroy; N. McLoughlin. 978-1-78620-279-6Peer reviewedPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprin

M-Dwarf Fast Rotators and the Detection of Relatively Young Multiple M-Star Systems

We have searched the Kepler light curves of ~3900 M-star targets for evidence of periodicities that indicate, by means of the effects of starspots, rapid stellar rotation. Several analysis techniques, including Fourier transforms, inspection of folded light curves, 'sonograms', and phase tracking of individual modulation cycles, were applied in order to distinguish the periodicities due to rapid rotation from those due to stellar pulsations, eclipsing binaries, or transiting planets. We find 178 Kepler M-star targets with rotation periods, P_rot, of < 2 days, and 110 with P_rot < 1 day. Some 30 of the 178 systems exhibit two or more independent short periods within the same Kepler photometric aperture, while several have three or more short periods. Adaptive optics imaging and modeling of the Kepler pixel response function for a subset of our sample support the conclusion that the targets with multiple periods are highly likely to be relatively young physical binary, triple, and even quadruple M star systems. We explore in detail the one object with four incommensurate periods all less than 1.2 days, and show that two of the periods arise from one of a close pair of stars, while the other two arise from the second star, which itself is probably a visual binary. If most of these M-star systems with multiple periods turn out to be bound M stars, this could prove a valuable way of discovering young hierarchical M-star systems; the same approach may also be applicable to G and K stars. The ~5% occurrence rate of rapid rotation among the ~3900 M star targets is consistent with spin evolution models that include an initial contraction phase followed by magnetic braking, wherein a typical M star can spend several hundred Myr before spinning down to periods longer than 2 days.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Raman spectral shifts in naturally faulted rocks

Acknowledgements. We thank Colin Taylor at UoA for help in sample preparation.This study was supported by the School of Geosciences at the University of Aberdeen and in part by the NERC Centre for Doctoral Training in Oil & Gas (Grant Number: NE/R01051x/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Quantum conductance problems and the Jacobi ensemble

In one dimensional transport problems the scattering matrix $S$ is decomposed into a block structure corresponding to reflection and transmission matrices at the two ends. For $S$ a random unitary matrix, the singular value probability distribution function of these blocks is calculated. The same is done when $S$ is constrained to be symmetric, or to be self dual quaternion real, or when $S$ has real elements, or has real quaternion elements. Three methods are used: metric forms; a variant of the Ingham-Seigel matrix integral; and a theorem specifying the Jacobi random matrix ensemble in terms of Wishart distributed matrices.Comment: 10 page

Observations of reservoir quality alteration in proximity to igneous intrusions for two distinct sandstones units in Scotland

Acknowledgements We thank the reviewers and editor for their helpful comments which greatly improved this manuscript. Thanks to John Still from the University of Aberdeen (ACEMAC ) for guidance with SEM/EDS, Colin Taylor for MICP tests and Walter Ritchie for making thin sections. Lorenza Sardisco and Jonathan Wilkins at X-Ray Minerals for XRD analysis and Prof. M.J. Wilson from the James Hutton Institute for valuable discussion of XRD results. Dave Healy acknowledges the support of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC, UK) through the award NE/N003063/1 ‘Quantifying the Anisotropy of Permeability in Stressed Rock’.Peer reviewedPostprin

Increased Depth of Cellular Imaging in the Intact Lung Using Far-Red and Near-Infrared Fluorescent Probes

Scattering of shorter-wavelength visible light limits the fluorescence imaging depth of thick specimens such as whole organs. In this study, we report the use of four newly synthesized near-infrared and far-red fluorescence probes (excitation/emission, in nm: 644/670; 683/707; 786/814; 824/834) to image tumor cells in the subpleural vasculature of the intact rat lungs. Transpelural imaging of tumor cells labeled with long-wavelength probes and expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP; excitation/emission 488/507 nm) was done in the intact rat lung after perfusate administration or intravenous injection. Our results show that the average optimum imaging depth for the long-wavelength probes is higher (27.8 ± 0.7  μm) than for GFP (20 ± 0.5  μm; p = 0.008; n = 50), corresponding to a 40% increase in the volume of tissue accessible for high-resolution imaging. The maximum depth of cell visualization was significantly improved with the novel dyes (36.4 ± 1  μm from the pleural surface) compared with GFP (30.1 ± 0.5  μm; p = 0.01; n = 50). Stable binding of the long-wavelength vital dyes to the plasma membrane also permitted in vivo tracking of injected tumor cells in the pulmonary vasculature. These probes offer a significant improvement in the imaging quality of in situ biological processes in the deeper regions of intact lungs

Raman Spectroscopy : an effective thermal marker in low temperature carbonaceous fold-thrust belts

Special Publication title- Fold and Thrust Belts: Structural Style, Evolution and Exploration Acknowledgments Z. Crawford and A. Marpino were funded through the University of Aberdeen, School of Geosciences for MGeol and MSc project work. Bond, Butler and Watkins were supported through the Fold-Thrust Research Group, sponsored by Oil Search, Santos and Interoil.Peer reviewedPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprintPostprin

Making Oil From Magma

Volume title: Application of Analytical Techniques to Petroleum Systems Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank W. Meredith and F. Bebb for constructive reviews that greatly improved this manuscript. S. Bowden is thanked for useful discussions on earlier drafts. Finally, we would like to thank P. Dowey for his editorial management of this volume. Funding M. Duffy is supported by a School of Geosciences Scholarship and N. Mark is supported by JX Nippon Exploration & Production (UK) as part of the Volcanic Margin Research Consortium Phase 2.Peer reviewedPostprintPostprin

Ten-fold spectral resolution boosting using TEDI at the Mt. Palomar NIR Triplespec spectrograph

An optical technique called "interferometric spectral reconstruction" (ISR) is capable of increasing a spectrograph's resolution and stability by large factors, well beyond its classical limits. We have demonstrated a 6- to 11-fold increase in the Triplespec effective spectral resolution (R=2,700) to achieve R=16,000 at 4100 cm-^(1) to 30,000 at 9600 cm^(-1) by applying special Fourier processing to a series of exposures with different delays (optical path differences) taken with the TEDI interferometer and the near-infrared Triplespec spectrograph at the Mt. Palomar Observatory 200 inch telescope. The TEDI is an externally dispersed interferometer (EDI) used for Doppler radial velocity measurements on M-stars, and now also used for ISR. The resolution improvement is observed in both stellar and telluric features simultaneously over the entire spectrograph bandwidth (0.9-2.45 μm). By expanding the delay series, we anticipate achieving resolutions of R=45,000 or more. Since the delay is not continuously scanned, the technique is advantageous for measuring time-variable phenomena or in varying conditions (e.g. planetary fly-bys). The photon limited signal to noise ratio can be 100 times better than a classic Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) due to the benefit of dispersion