Martian Dust

Going to Mars The Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft containing the Curiosity rover, was launched from Earth in November 2011 and arrived at Gale crater on Mars in August 2012. Zeitlin et al. (p. 1080 ) report measurements of the energetic particle radiation environment inside the spacecraft during its cruise to Mars, confirming the hazard likely to be posed by this radiation to astronauts on a future potential trip to Mars. Williams et al. (p. 1068 , see the Perspective by Jerolmack ) report the detection of sedimentary conglomerates (pebbles mixed with sand and turned to rock) at Gale crater. The rounding of the rocks suggests abrasion of the pebbles as they were transported by flowing water several kilometers or more from their source.

Of all the planets of our Solar system, Mars is by far the most similar one to Earth, despite it being an inhabitable, radiation-rich land with a toxic atmosphere. Its position with respect to the Sun, its rocky environments and its mass - all of which may have, a long time ago, helped it host liquid water and some form of ancient life - make the Red Planet the perfect candidate for the future of manned missions.
As a matter of fact, having a permanent ground station on in-between planets and satellites, like our Moon and Mars, may be a giant leap towards space exploration. This may lead to a better understanding of our Universe. However, in order to reach that stage of human civilization, many small steps are yet to be taken. Firstly, we should prioritize the protection and well being of astronauts during months long travels in micro-gravity. Next, we should focus on the protection and well being of astronauts during their permanence on the celestial body. Finally, we should ensure astronauts have a safe return trip, via secure fuel provisioning.
Nevertheless, these goals are not easy to achieve, especially due to the fact that not every resource needed for survival can be brought on board, given the limited capacity of the spaceship and the extremely high cost to weight ratio of a single launch.
In fact, it would be much cheaper to manipulate some of the resources already present on Mars (or the Moon) so as to create all that is needed from scratch.


This paper will discuss the methodologies that can be used to manipulate Mars’ natural resources, a practice known as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). In the coming years, ISRU will be the main focus of many aerospace companies, as it constitutes the next step towards human colonization of Mars and the Moon.
The purpose of this paper is to suggest an indicative guideline for the exploitation of most martian resources. At the start, this will be carried out by using automated equipment. Then, it will continue via human-run hardware installed in-situ. This will be necessary in order to build a livable habitat and fabricate fuel for the return trip.
Given the low technology readiness level (TRL) of numerous technological applications that this paper will explore, some of the solutions to the challenges that ISRU puts before engineers will be discussed in qualitative rather than quantitative terms.
A strong emphasis will be put in the design of the power system of a hypothetical martian habitat using exclusively photovoltaic panels, as this is the most representative topic of my course of studies.

Descriptions of cosmic impacts and meteorite falls are found throughout Australian Aboriginal oral traditions. In some cases, these texts describe the impact event in detail, sometimes citing the location, suggesting that the events were witnessed. We explore whether cosmic impacts and meteorite falls may have been witnessed by Aboriginal Australians and incorporated into their oral traditions. We discuss the complications and bias in recording and analysing oral texts but suggest that these texts may be used both to locate new impact structures or meteorites and model observed impact events. We find that, while detailed Aboriginal descriptions of cosmic impacts are abundant in the literature, there is currently no physical evidence connecting these accounts to impact events currently known to Western science.

Planetary biology can be considered in terms of four
components: (1) planetary protection, (2) the search for life, (3)
human life support and (4) ecopoiesis and terraforming.
Initially, contamination of a planet with Earth life is to be
minimized in order to facilitate a search for planetary life.
Meanwhile, humans, if present, must be sustained.
Subsequently, large-scale modifications of a planetary
environment can be considered. “Ecopoiesis” is a term
introduced by McKay and Haynes to describe the initiation of a
living, self-sustaining ecosystem in a planetary (Mars)
environment. “Ecosynthesis” refers to the development of an
ecosystem that includes succession (ecosystem maturation by
the replacement of organisms). “Terraforming” refers to
creating an Earth-like world and includes planetary engineering.
A considerable amount of debate, discussion and publication has
been devoted to these subjects, but, at least in the case of
ecopoiesis, there has been very little, if any, experimental
research. The speakers in this session address, in order, issues
of planetary environments and habitability with reference to
Earth analogues, the role of extremophiles as pioneer organisms
in ecopoiesis, and the concept of succession

We present a comprehensive analysis of Australian Aboriginal accounts of meteors. The data used were taken from anthropological and ethnographic literature describing oral traditions, ceremonies, and Dreamings of 97 Aboriginal groups representing all states of modern Australia. This revealed common themes in the way meteors were viewed between Aboriginal groups, focusing on supernatural events, death, omens, and war. The presence of such themes around Australia was probably due to the unpredictable nature of meteors in an otherwise well-ordered cosmos.

We work out the impact that the recently determined time-dependent component of the
Pioneer Anomaly (PA), if interpreted as an additional exotic acceleration of gravitational
origin with respect to the well-known PA-like constant one, may have on the orbital
motions of some planets of the solar system. By assuming that it points towards the
Sun, it turns out that both the semi-major axis a and the eccentricity e of the orbit of
a test particle would experience secular variations. For Saturn and Uranus, for which
modern data records cover at least one full orbital revolution, such predicted anomalies
are up to 2–3 orders of magnitude larger than the present-day accuracies in empirical
determinations of their orbital parameters from the usual orbit determination procedures
in which the PA was not modeled. Given the predicted huge sizes of such hypothetical
signatures, it is unlikely that their absence from the presently available processed data
can be attributable to an “absorption” for them in the estimated parameters caused by
the fact that they were not explicitly modeled. The magnitude of a constant PA-type
acceleration at 9.5 au cannot be larger than 9 × 10−15 m s−2 according to the latest
observational results for the perihelion precession of Saturn.