Searching for Life Across Space and Time Proceedings of a Workshop (2017) / Chapter Skim
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2 Habitable Environments in the Solar System
2 Habitable Environments in the Solar System
Pages 15-26
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From page 15... ...
While true, layered rocks are also suggestive of sedimentary geologies, and sedimentary basins are chemical reactors converting heat and fluid flows into aqueous minerals, as shown by Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory mission rover. Earth's sedimentary rock, Grotzinger said, is an archive of Earth's earliest 15
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From page 16... ...
Langevin, 2011, Subsurface water and clay mineral formation during the early history of Mars, Nature 479(7371) :53-60, copyright 2011; presented in John Grotzinger, California Institute of Technology, "Habitable Environments of Ancient Mars; Deciphering the Rock Record," presentation to the Workshop on Searching for Life across Space and Time, December 5, 2016.
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From page 17... ...
instrument used X-ray diffraction to examine the lake deposit sample and compared it to Gale soil samples representing primary igneous compositions. At Yellowknife Bay, compared to the soils, the drilled lake deposits showed that igneous minerals have been altered into other minerals, mostly an iron-magnesium clay mineral, but also some magnetite.
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From page 18... ...
Gale Crater, he said, gives an opportunity to look at both environments: a long-lived environment possibly thermally warm enough for olivine to dissolve into and maybe even to allow a pathway towards hydrogen production or, alternatively, surface waters that could proceed with a different molecular chemistry. Grotzinger finished by talking about groundwater.
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From page 19... ...
According to a workshop participant, recent origin-of-life work published in Nature showed that every detail Grotzinger talked about, even olivines remaining in the residual sedimentary rocks eroding from an igneous facies, is exactly what is needed to go from formaldehyde, generated by the photochemical decomposition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, all the way to RNA. The audience member said that he just published a paper showing that opal CT, which was in one of the martian facies, absorbs oligomeric RNA and all of its intermediate steps.
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From page 20... ...
In the Jovian system, the liquid water is maintained through tidal heating and some radiogenic decay. Tidal energy dissipation would usually fade away as the orbits circularize, but the Laplace resonance of the interior three Jovian moons (Io, Europa, and Ganymede)
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From page 21... ...
HABITABLE ENVIRONMENTS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM 21 TABLE 2.1 Potential Geophysical Properties and Processes Relevant to Origin of Life on Various Moons Significant Geophysically Tidal Energy and to Help Induced Ocean in Name, Geochemically Maintain Magnetic Activity Contact with Moon Planet Plausible? Ocean?
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From page 22... ...
:258-273, copyright 2006, with permission from Elsevier; presented in Kevin Hand, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "On the Habitability of Ocean Worlds," presentation to the Workshop on Searching for Life across Space and Time, December 5, 2016.
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From page 23... ...
SOURCE: Kevin Hand, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, "On the Habitability of Ocean Worlds," presentation to the Workshop on Searching for Life across Space and Time, December 5, 2016.
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From page 24... ...
The ocean worlds of the outer solar system provide prime locales for testing the biology hypothesis and whether or not biology works beyond Earth. Audience Participation A member of the audience commented that Hand provided an explanation of Europa's surface discoloration that does not require minerals, only salt.
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From page 25... ...
By the mid-2020s, they plan to put a prototype of the Mars transfer vehicle into orbit around the Moon to test the environmental control and life support systems as a concept demonstration for a crewed Mars mission. NASA plans to continue sending robotic rover missions to Mars, such as the Mars 2020 rover.
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From page 26... ...
Stofan agreed that it was a good point and again said that a study by the National Academies is needed to determine the necessity of doing a sample return mission before sending humans. Another member of the audience asked whether the evolution of our understanding of rocky exoplanets changes what we are planning to look for in our own solar system's rocky planets.
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