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Thread: Mars

  1. #11
    Curiosity's Mars Rock Drilling Discussed

  2. #12
    http://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/mar...030350124.html

    Excerpt:

    Mars Could Once Have Supported Life: What You Need to Know

    By Mike Wall | SPACE.com – 9 hours ago



    • Related Content






    • View PhotoThis set of images shows the results from the rock abrasion tool from NASA's Mars …
    • View PhotoThis set of images compares rocks seen by NASA's Opportunity rover and Curiosity …




    Mars was capable of supporting microbial life in the distant past, scientists announced today (March 12).
    They reached this conclusion after studying the latest observations from NASA's Curiosity rover, which just analyzed the first-ever sample collected from the interior of a Red Planet rock.

  3. #13
    Senior Member majicbar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by calikid View Post
    Danger Will Robinson!
    Along with a good AntiVirus package, timely system updates are the best defense for your system.
    Keep current, or risk infection/loss of personal data.


    Microsoft's latest patches address new USB hack

    The software giant discovers a Windows vulnerability that lets attackers gain access to data in locked or logged-off computers with a USB thumb drive.
    by Dara Kerr

    A new kind of vulnerability popped up recently, one that lets hackers stick a USB thumb drive into a computer -- even if it's logged-off or locked -- type out a bit of attack code and steal whatever data they want.

    In an effort to avoid this type of cyberattack, Microsoft issued its monthly software patches today and included a fix for this Windows vulnerability called MS13-027. This vulnerability lets a hacker get into the computer with a thumb drive and take over administrative privileges.

    "When the Windows USB device drivers enumerate the device, parsing a specially crafted descriptor, the attacker could cause the system to execute malicious code in the context of the Windows kernel," Microsoft wrote in a blog post today. "Because the vulnerability is triggered during device enumeration, no user intervention is required. In fact, the vulnerability can be triggered when the workstation is locked or when no user is logged in, making this an un-authenticated elevation of privilege for an attacker with casual physical access to the machine."
    Story Continues
    I'd suggest this should be posted in the Saloon, this is a very important story and a distrubing development. I know the military/DOD is not allowing the use of any thumb drives inside the milnet.

  4. #14
    Senior Member majicbar's Avatar
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    http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ms...l20130312.html

    NASA Rover Finds Conditions Once Suited for Ancient Life on Mars

    03.12.13

    PASADENA, Calif. -- An analysis of a rock sample collected by NASA's Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have supported living microbes.

    Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon -- some of the key chemical ingredients for life -- in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red Planet last month.

    "A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at the agency's headquarters in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."

    Clues to this habitable environment come from data returned by the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments. The data indicate the Yellowknife Bay area the rover is exploring was the end of an ancient river system or an intermittently wet lake bed that could have provided chemical energy and other favorable conditions for microbes. The rock is made up of a fine-grained mudstone containing clay minerals, sulfate minerals and other chemicals. This ancient wet environment, unlike some others on Mars, was not harshly oxidizing, acidic or extremely salty.

    The patch of bedrock where Curiosity drilled for its first sample lies in an ancient network of stream channels descending from the rim of Gale Crater. The bedrock also is fine-grained mudstone and shows evidence of multiple periods of wet conditions, including nodules and veins.

    Curiosity's drill collected the sample at a site just a few hundred yards away from where the rover earlier found an ancient streambed in September 2012.

    "Clay minerals make up at least 20 percent of the composition of this sample," said David Blake, principal investigator for the CheMin instrument at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

    These clay minerals are a product of the reaction of relatively fresh water with igneous minerals, such as olivine, also present in the sediment. The reaction could have taken place within the sedimentary deposit, during transport of the sediment, or in the source region of the sediment. The presence of calcium sulfate along with the clay suggests the soil is neutral or mildly alkaline.

    Scientists were surprised to find a mixture of oxidized, less-oxidized, and even non-oxidized chemicals, providing an energy gradient of the sort many microbes on Earth exploit to live. This partial oxidation was first hinted at when the drill cuttings were revealed to be gray rather than red.

    "The range of chemical ingredients we have identified in the sample is impressive, and it suggests pairings such as sulfates and sulfides that indicate a possible chemical energy source for micro-organisms," said Paul Mahaffy, principal investigator of the SAM suite of instruments at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

    An additional drilled sample will be used to help confirm these results for several of the trace gases analyzed by the SAM instrument.

    "We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new 'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life," said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "Curiosity is on a mission of discovery and exploration, and as a team we feel there are many more exciting discoveries ahead of us in the months and years to come."

    Scientists plan to work with Curiosity in the "Yellowknife Bay" area for many more weeks before beginning a long drive to Gale Crater's central mound, Mount Sharp. Investigating the stack of layers exposed on Mount Sharp, where clay minerals and sulfate minerals have been identified from orbit, may add information about the duration and diversity of habitable conditions.

    NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project has been using Curiosity to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale Crater ever has offered an environment favorable for microbial life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed seven months ago to begin its two-year prime mission. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

    For more about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ . You can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at: http://www.facebook.com/marscuriosity and http://www.twitter.com/marscuriosity

  5. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by majicbar View Post
    I'd suggest this should be posted in the Saloon, this is a very important story and a distrubing development. I know the military/DOD is not allowing the use of any thumb drives inside the milnet.
    I copied it and moved it to Cutting Edge Technology for him, as I'm sure he meant to post it there. You can start a thread on it if you like and we can sort out any duplication later.

  6. #16
    Lead Moderator calikid's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doc View Post
    I copied it and moved it to Cutting Edge Technology for him, as I'm sure he meant to post it there. You can start a thread on it if you like and we can sort out any duplication later.
    Thanks for moving the post.
    My mistake; posted to wrong thread by accident.

    CaliKid
    The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
    progress. -- Joseph Joubert
    Attachment 1008

  7. #17
    Mars Once Habitable on This Week @NASA


  8. #18
    A Dutch start-up named Mars One is hoping to send a select group of brave astronauts on a one-way trip to the Red Planet in the year 2023 with the aim of establishing a permanent human colony.

    If all proceeds as planned, Mars One would launch four astronauts on the interplanetary voyage in 2022, landing the team on the surface of Mars in 2023, after which they would begin constructing the colony. Every two years, a team of four additional astronauts would arrive to reinforce the existing colony.

    Founded in 2010 by 36-year-old engineer Bas Lansdorp, Mars One says it has developed a road map and financing plan for the project, and that the mission is perfectly feasible. "Mars One has developed a precise, realistic plan based entirely upon existing technologies," the website says. "It is both economically and logically feasible, in motion through the integration of existing suppliers and experts in space exploration."

    Lansdorp told ABC News the primary colony, which will consist of several interlocked modules, will include small bedrooms, a larger common room, and areas for computer and research work. "It will look a lot like an Arctic station," said Lansdorp.
    Read more at ABC News

  9. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by CasperParks View Post
    Ya know, I was just thinking yesterday, why we don't have "one-way" explorers like the brave souls that plowed the oceans in feeble wooden ships 2 or 3 hundred years ago. Out of the several billions of people we have pumped out on this planet, I'm sure there are many who would jump at the chance for a oneway trip of this rock!

    Must be the $$$ thing...

  10. #20
    NASA released billion-pixel images of Mars. Below is a youtube video.



    The video at CBS is better focused:
    View decent video at CBS News, click here.

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