Protons smash lead ions in first LHC collisions of 2013

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research logo.

Jan. 23, 2013

The LHC accelerator team declared "stable beams" yesterday as lead ions collided with protons in the first LHC physics beams of 2013.

Image above: The first proton-lead collisions of 2013 send showers of particles through the ALICE detector (Image: CERN).

At 3.08pm yesterday, after a week of tests with beams of protons and lead ions, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) team declared "stable beams" as protons collided with lead ions in the first LHC physics beams of 2013.

"The declaration of stable beams for collisions at a new energy, or with new particles colliding, always produces a feeling of elation as a new physics domain is opened up for exploration," says accelerator physicist John Jowett of the LHC’s heavy-ion team. "In this case, the boost in energy with respect to previous collisions of a similar type is a factor of 25 – one of the largest such gains in the history of particle accelerators. It’s wonderful that many young physicists and engineers who made vital contributions can experience this at the LHC."

Reyes Alemany Fernández of the LHC operations group says the declaration of stable beams feels likes a welcome break in a difficult journey."But there are challenges ahead," she says. 

To maximize the collision rate in more experiments than ever before, Jorg Wenninger of the LHC operations group led the commissioning of a new “squeeze”, the 15-minute phase at 4 TeV that focuses the beams down to a size of about 25 micrometres at the interaction points.

The counter-rotating beams of protons and lead ions started in the LHC on centred orbits with different revolution frequencies, and were ramped separately to the accelerator's maximum collision energy. "Before physics the two beams are locked to a common frequency, then gently rotated to achieve encounters in the centre of the detectors," says Philippe Baudrenghien of the Radiofrequency group. "This 'cogging' mechanism is unique to the proton-ion operation.” The resulting collisions sent showers of particles through the detectors ATLAS, CMS, LHCb and ALICE.

Setting up the proton and lead-ion beams after the end-of-year technical stop went smoothly, says Jowett, thanks to the dedication of the teams working on the injectors. "The Linac 3 team kept the lead source running throughout the technical stop and recovery of the accelerator complex was rapid," he says. "The new proton and lead beams were soon ready in their parallel chains of injectors, with a bunch filling pattern that ensures they will match up in the LHC.  The LEIR machine even attained a new ion-beam intensity record."

The collisions mark the start of a lead-proton run that is set to continue until February, when the LHC begins its two-year shutdown.

Large Hadron Collider (LHC): http://home.web.cern.ch/about/accelerators/large-hadron-collider

ALICE scrutinizes lead-proton run for quark-gluon plasma

Image above: Protons collide with lead ions in the ALICE dectector in the first LHC physics beams of 2013 (Image: CERN).

ALICE, a specialized heavy-ion detector on the LHC, will be watching the lead-proton collisions closely to tease out the effects of lead ions from the effects of quark-gluon plasma. The LHC experiments ATLAS, CMS and LHCb are also taking data.

On Sunday afternoon the control team for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) brought protons into collision with lead ions for the LHC's first physics beams of 2013. The collisions were the first in a lead-proton run that is set to continue until February, when the LHC begins its two-year shutdown.

The LHC experiments ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb are all still taking data. ALICE is specialized in scrutinizing heavy-ion collisions to investigate the properties of the elusive quark-gluon plasma, the primordial state of matter that existed in the first moments after the big bang, just before the phase transition to matter made of nucleons (protons and neutrons).

Proton collisions with lead ions in the ALICE detector. Photo taken at the trial run of September 2012 (Image: CERN)

The LHC usually collides protons or lead ions. To study quark-gluon plasma, physicists need to create the high-temperature matter that is formed in the collisions of heavy ions. In lead-lead collisions ALICE physicists can deduce some properties of the plasma - from its effect on particles moving through it, for instance. But they also need to distinguish effects caused by the hot plasma from effects caused by the cold nuclear matter that makes up lead nuclei.

In the current run, the LHC is colliding protons with lead ions, which are made of 208 nucleons. Comparing the results of lead-proton collisions to those of lead-lead collisions will help ALICE physicists to decouple the effects of the plasma from effects that stem from having lead ions in the initial state.

"The lead-proton run will help us to understand the complexity of the lead-lead interaction at many levels," says ALICE physicist Despina Hatzifotiadou. "There is somehow a missing link in the game: We know that the configurations of the quarks and gluons that make up the protons and neutrons of the incoming lead nucleus can be somewhat different from the configurations of the quarks and gluons of the incoming protons. We want to measure if part of the effects we find when comparing lead-lead and proton-proton collisions is due to this configuration difference rather than the formation of the plasma. Proton-lead collisions, where we do not expect formation of quark-gluon plasma but we do have an incoming lead nucleus, are an ideal tool for this study."

Hatzifotiadou says the data from the lead-proton collisions will represent an ultimate benchmark to fully understand results from lead-lead collisions. "It will allow physicists to decouple the cold nuclear matter effects and thus will shed light on our study of the quark-gluon plasma," she says.

More on this story: "A bullet though an apple" – symmetry: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/january-2013/a-bullet-through-an-apple

Note:

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the Universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter — the fundamental particles. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.

For more information about CERN, visit: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/Welcome.html

Images (mentioned), Text, Credit: CERN.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Setting the Dark on Fire

ESO - European Southern Observatory logo.

23 January 2013

 Setting the Dark on Fire

A new image from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile shows a beautiful view of clouds of cosmic dust in the region of Orion. While these dense interstellar clouds seem dark and obscured in visible-light observations, APEX’s LABOCA camera can detect the heat glow of the dust and reveal the hiding places where new stars are being formed. But one of these dark clouds is not what it seems.

In space, dense clouds of cosmic gas and dust are the birthplaces of new stars. In visible light, this dust is dark and obscuring, hiding the stars behind it. So much so that, when astronomer William Herschel observed one such cloud in the constellation of Scorpius in 1774, he thought it was a region empty of stars and is said to have exclaimed, "Truly there is a hole in the sky here!" [1]

Reflection Nebula NGC 1999 in Orion

In order to better understand star formation, astronomers need telescopes that can observe at longer wavelengths, such as the submillimetre range, in which the dark dust grains shine rather than absorb light. APEX, on the Chajnantor Plateau in the Chilean Andes, is the largest single-dish submillimetre-wavelength telescope operating in the southern hemisphere, and is ideal for astronomers studying the birth of stars in this way.

Located in the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), 1500 light-years away from Earth, the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth, and contains a treasury of bright nebulae, dark clouds and young stars. The new image shows just part of this vast complex in visible light, with the APEX observations overlaid in brilliant orange tones that seem to set the dark clouds on fire. Often, the glowing knots from APEX correspond to darker patches in visible light — the tell-tale sign of a dense cloud of dust that absorbs visible light, but glows at submillimetre wavelengths, and possibly a site of star formation.

The wide-field area around NGC 1999 in Orion

The bright patch below of the centre of the image is the nebula NGC 1999. This region — when seen in visible light — is what astronomers call a reflection nebula, where the pale blue glow of background starlight is reflected from clouds of dust. The nebula is mainly illuminated by the energetic radiation from the young star V380 Orionis [2] lurking at its heart. In the centre of the nebula is a dark patch, which can be seen even more clearly in a well-known image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Normally, a dark patch such as this would indicate a dense cloud of cosmic dust, obscuring the stars and nebula behind it. However, in this image we can see that the patch remains strikingly dark, even when the APEX observations are included. Thanks to these APEX observations, combined with infrared observations from other telescopes, astronomers believe that the patch is in fact a hole or cavity in the nebula, excavated by material flowing out of the star V380 Orionis. For once, it truly is a hole in the sky!

Setting the Dark on Fire (zoom)

The region in this image is located about two degrees south of the large and well-known Orion Nebula (Messier 42), which can be seen at the top edge of the wider view in visible light from the Digitized Sky Survey.

The APEX observations used in this image were led by Thomas Stanke (ESO), Tom Megeath (University of Toledo, USA), and Amy Stutz (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany). APEX is a collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), the Onsala Space Observatory (OSO) and ESO. Operation of APEX at Chajnantor is entrusted to ESO.

Setting the Dark on Fire (pan)

Notes:

[1] In German, "Hier ist wahrhaftig ein Loch im Himmel!"

[2] V380 Orionis has a high surface temperature of about 10 000 Kelvin (about the same in degrees Celsius), nearly twice that of our own Sun. Its mass is estimated to be 3.5 times that of the Sun.

More information:

The year 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the European Southern Observatory (ESO). ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 15 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world’s largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is the European partner of a revolutionary astronomical telescope ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. ESO is currently planning the 39-metre European Extremely Large optical/near-infrared Telescope, the E-ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links:

The research into the dark patch in NGC 1999 discussed above is described in a paper by T. Stanke et al., A&A 518, L94 (2010) http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201014612, also available as a preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.2202

Images, Text, Credits: ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/T. Stanke et al./Digitized Sky Survey 2 / Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin / IAU and Sky & Telescope / Videos: ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/T. Stanke et al./Digitized Sky Survey 2/Nick Risinger (skysurvey.org). Music: movetwo.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

NASA's Veteran Mars Rover Ready to Start 10th Year

NASA - Mars Exploration Rover "Opportunity" (MER-B) patch / NASA - Mars Exploration Rovers patch.

Jan. 22, 2013

As NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity neared the ninth anniversary of its landing on Mars, the rover was working in the 'Matijevic Hill' area seen in this view from Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam). Opportunity landed Jan. 24, 2004, PST (Jan. 25 UTC). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State Univ.

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, one of the twin rovers that bounced to airbag-cushioned safe landings on Mars nine years ago this week, is currently examining veined rocks on the rim of an ancient crater.

Opportunity has driven 22.03 miles (35.46 kilometers) since it landed in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars on Jan. 24, 2004, PST (Jan. 25, Universal Time). Its original assignment was to keep working for three months, drive about 2,000 feet (600 meters) and provide the tools for researchers to investigate whether the area's environment had ever been wet. It landed in a backyard-size bowl, Eagle Crater. During those first three months, it transmitted back to Earth evidence that water long ago soaked the ground and flowed across the surface.

Opportunity's Pancam took the component images for this mosaic during the period from the mission's 3,137th Martian day, or sol, (Nov. 19, 2012) through Sol 3150 (Dec. 3, 2012). Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

Since then, the mission's team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has driven Opportunity across the plains of Meridiani to successively larger craters for access to material naturally exposed from deeper, older layers of Martian history.

Opportunity has operated on Mars 36 times longer than the three months planned as its prime mission.

"What's most important is not how long it has lasted or even how far it has driven, but how much exploration and scientific discovery Opportunity has accomplished," said JPL's John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Project. The project has included both Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, which ceased operations in 2010.

This 360-degree stereo panorama assembled from images taken by the navigation camera on NASA's Mars Exporation Rover The image combines views from the left eye and right eye of the Pancam to appear three-dimensional when seen through blue-red glasses with the red lens on the left. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

This month, Opportunity is using cameras on its mast and tools on its robotic arm to investigate outcrops on the rim of Endeavour Crater, 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter. Results from this area of the rim, called "Matijevic Hill," are providing information about a different, possibly older wet environment, less acidic than the conditions that left clues the rover found earlier in the mission.

Mars Exploration Rover "Opportunity". Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Timed with the anniversary of the landing, the rover team has prepared a color panorama of the Matijevic Hill area. The image is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/multimedia/pia16703.html .

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Exploration Rover Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL also manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project and its rover, Curiosity.

For more information about Opportunity, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rovers and http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov . You can follow the project on Twitter and on Facebook at: http://twitter.com/MarsRovers and http://www.facebook.com/mars.rovers .

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / JPL / Guy Webster.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Asteroids inflame lust

Space Colonization.

Jan. 22, 2013

Asteroids potentially rich in precious metals or water as ice, stir the envy of investors in the United States

Deep Space Industries plans to introduce from 2015 a fleet of probes to explore and exploit crossing asteroids near Earth. "Use the resources in space is the only way to ensure sustainable spatial development," said the CEO of the company, David Gump.

"We discovered over 900 new asteroids passing near the Earth every year and these objects can be as important for space activities of this century that were deposits of iron ore from Minnesota for the automotive industry in Detroit twentieth century, "he says in a statement.

Deep Space Industries, FireFlies probes

Deep Space Industries begin to evaluate promising targets for mining with small spacecraft baptized 25 kilos "FireFlies" (image above) which should be launched in 2015 for missions from two to six months. Society in search of customers and investors, working with NASA and other companies and organizations to identify asteroids with the greatest potential.

Power plants on orbits

Deep Space Industries, Power plants on orbits

These probes will be economical, says Deep Space Industries: made with elements of low-cost miniaturized satellite, they will be launched at low cost launchers carrying on board already big communications satellites.

These probes will be economical, says Deep Space Industries: made with elements of low-cost miniaturized satellite, they will be launched at low cost launchers carrying on board already big communications satellites.

From 2016, the company will begin to launch probes heavier than 32 kilos, "Dragonflies" ("Dragonfly"), capable of reaching an asteroid and return to Earth samples from 27 to 68 pounds during journeys during two to four years.

Deep Space Industries, Dragonflies probe

In 10 years, Deep Space Industries plans to exploit asteroids for their metals and other materials that will build large platforms of communication to replace satellites. In the longer term, the company is betting on the deployment orbit solar power plants that feed the Earth.

Finally, the creators of Deep Space Industries rely extract platinum asteroid for use on Earth especially in control systems. Already in April 2012, a group of wealthy investors including billionaire Larry Page, Google CEO, unveiled the first company prospecting and mining asteroids, Planetary Resources.

Deep Space Industries, Micro Gravity Foundry concept

A wealth ... platinum

The extraction of wealth by these entrepreneurs have many benefits for mankind and one day generate economic activity weighing tens of billions of dollars annually. A single asteroid 500 meters long as a platinum that the entire quantity of the metal mined in the history of humanity, according to the creators of Planetary Resources.

(Editor's Note: this is a problem that mining companies do not think maybe if rare metals (Gold, Platinum etc ...) are no longer, they will lose their values ​​and risk cause a global monetary crash, it will revisit our value systems.)

Deep Space Industries, Harvestor concept

In addition, near-Earth asteroids, which contain a lot of water ice, serve "so oasis" for shipments to distant space exploration, providing the necessary water and fuel.

Of the more than 9000 asteroids identified by NASA whose orbit passes in the vicinity of Earth, more than 1,500 have access as easy as the moon, according to investors.

Planetary Resources has already developed space telescopes that will be placed in low Earth orbit by 2014 to identify promising asteroids. The company is also planning to launch small spacecraft to go explore.

Planetary Resources logo

Space telescopes that track the asteroids in search of valuable materials and water probes that are going to meet these giant rocks floating in space for mine, fueling stations to support future colonization of space ... Today it is science fiction, but can be much longer.

Indeed, January 22, 2013 a new company with the aim of achieving realize these scenarios will be announced at the Santa Monica Museum of Flying, California. Currently few details have been released but we know that this company is founded by the former president of Astrobotic Technology (a company that aims to send a rover on the moon in 2015 for the Google Lunar Xprize) and it planning to conceive it the first fleet of probes prospectrices. And this is not the first to announce such plans: April 24, 2012, the company has also unveiled Planetary Resources an ambitious program to make it the first mining company in the world.

The company was founded by Peter Diamandis and Erik Anderson, two figures of private space and is funded by several billionaires that Larry Page, one of the founders of Google. Planetary Resources Plan is to achieve operation of an asteroid through three phases. The first is to send several space telescopes in Earth orbit, the ARKYD SERIES 100 (image below), to identify interesting targets.

Planetary Resources ARKYD SERIES 100

Then, phase 2 involves sending probes ARKYD SERIES 200 or "interceptor" to fly asteroids identified and studied in detail. Finally, ARKYD SERIES 300 or "rendezvous prospector" will be sent to the chosen target to accurately determine its composition, shape, surface composition, density ... After this last step in the mining itself will begin with robots whose details have not yet been released. The first probe ARKYD SERIES 100 should be launched before 2015.

NASA Artist's concept of the asteroid retrieval

Finally, and we enter an area even closer to science fiction, NASA scientists have devised a mission would be to bring an asteroid directly into lunar orbit by capturing it with a kind of container and the propelling means of an ion thruster (image above). Once in orbit around the Moon, it would be easier to send probes to explore or even send astronauts on its surface. This mission is a hypothetical concept proposed by engineers and is not a validated project by NASA.

Related links:

Deep Space Industries: http://deepspaceindustries.com/

Planetary Resources: http://www.planetaryresources.com/

Images, Text, Credits: ATS / Deep Space Industries / Planetary Resources / NASA / Orbiter.ch Aerospace.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Betelgeuse Braces for a collision

ESA - Herschel Mission patch.

22 January 2013

Multiple arcs are revealed around Betelgeuse, the nearest red supergiant star to Earth, in this new image from ESA’s Herschel space observatory. The star and its arc-shaped shields could collide with an intriguing dusty ‘wall’ in 5000 years.

Betelgeuse rides on the shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter. It can easily be seen with the naked eye in the northern hemisphere winter night sky as the orange–red star above and to the left of Orion’s famous three-star belt.

Roughly 1000 times the diameter of our Sun and shining 100 000 times more brightly, Betelgeuse’s impressive statistics come with a cost. For this star is likely on its way to a spectacular supernova explosion, having already swelled into a red supergiant and shed a significant fraction of its outer layers.

The new far-infrared view from Herschel shows how the star’s winds are crashing against the surrounding interstellar medium, creating a bow shock as the star moves through space at speeds of around 30 km/s.

A series of broken, dusty arcs ahead of the star’s direction of motion testify to a turbulent history of mass loss.

ESA / NASA Herschel space observatory

Closer to the star itself, an inner envelope of material shows a pronounced asymmetric structure. Large convective cells in the star’s outer atmosphere have likely resulted in localised, clumpy ejections of dusty debris at different stages in the past.

An intriguing linear structure is also seen further away from the star, beyond the dusty arcs. While some earlier theories proposed that this bar was a result of material ejected during a previous stage of stellar evolution, analysis of the new image suggests that it is either a linear filament linked to the Galaxy’s magnetic field, or the edge of a nearby interstellar cloud that is being illuminated by Betelgeuse.

If the bar is a completely separate object, then taking into account the motion of Betelgeuse and its arcs and the separation between them and the bar, the outermost arc will collide with the bar in just 5000 years, with the red supergiant star itself hitting the bar roughly 12 500 years later.

Related links:

Herschel - ESA's giant infrared observatory: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Herschel

Herschel overview: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Herschel

Herschel Images OSHI: http://oshi.esa.int/

Herschel in depth: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=16

Herschel Science Centre: http://herschel.esac.esa.int/

Images, Text, Credits: ESA / Herschel / PACS / L. Decin et al.

Cheers, Orbiter.ch

A day in the life of Venus Express

ESA - Venus Express Mission patch.

21 January 2013

A day in the life of Venus Express

Bright and dark cloud bands wind around the poles of Venus in this beautiful sequence tracked by ESA’s Venus Express as it makes a rollercoaster orbit around the planet.

We join the spacecraft from a staggering 66 000 km above the south pole, staring down into the swirling south polar vortex. From this bird’s-eye view, half of the planet is in darkness, the ‘terminator’ marking the dividing line between the day and night sides of the planet.

Intricate features on smaller and smaller scales are revealed as Venus Express dives to just 250 km above the north pole and clouds flood the field of view, before regaining a global perspective as it climbs away from the north pole.

The movie is based on images snapped by the Venus Monitoring Camera over a period of 18 hours during one of the spacecraft’s 24-hour orbits around the planet on 7–8 January last year. It was compiled using public data from the Venus Express data archive.

The camera observes the planet in ultraviolet wavelengths, revealing intriguing patterns in the cloud tops, which ride around the planet about 70 km above the surface.

The observed pattern of bright and dark markings is caused by variations in an unknown absorbing chemical at the Venus cloud tops.

Venus Express

The clouds are driven by extremely strong winds, sweeping around the planet once every four days. By comparison, the planet takes 243 days to complete one rotation about its own axis.

Venus Express has been orbiting the planet since 2006. It carries seven scientific instruments investigating the surface, atmosphere and ionosphere of Venus.

Where is Venus Express now?: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Venus_Express/Where_is_Venus_Express_now2

Venus Express in-depth: http://sci.esa.int/venusexpress

Image, Video, Text, Credits: ESA / MPS / DLR / IDA, M. Pérez-Ayúcar & C. Wilson.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Martian Crater May Once Have Held Groundwater-Fed Lake

NASA - Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) patch.

Jan. 21, 2013

This view of layered rocks on the floor of McLaughlin Crater shows sedimentary rocks that contain spectroscopic evidence for minerals formed through interaction with water. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona.

 The new information comes from researchers analyzing spectrometer data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater. The Martian crater is 57 miles (92 kilometers) in diameter and 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers) deep. McLaughlin's depth apparently once allowed underground water, which otherwise would have stayed hidden, to flow into the crater's interior.

Layered, flat rocks at the bottom of the crater contain carbonate and clay minerals that form in the presence of water. McLaughlin lacks large inflow channels, and small channels originating within the crater wall end near a level that could have marked the surface of a lake.

Together, these new observations suggest the formation of the carbonates and clay in a groundwater-fed lake within the closed basin of the crater. Some researchers propose the crater interior catching the water and the underground zone contributing the water could have been wet environments and potential habitats. The findings are published in Sunday's online edition of Nature Geoscience.

"Taken together, the observations in McLaughlin Crater provide the best evidence for carbonate forming within a lake environment instead of being washed into a crater from outside," said Joseph Michalski, lead author of the paper, which has five co-authors. Michalski also is affiliated with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., and London's Natural History Museum.

Michalski and his co-authors used the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to check for minerals such as carbonates, which are best preserved under non-acidic conditions.

"The MRO team has made a concerted effort to get highly processed data products out to members of the science community like Dr. Michalski for analysis," said CRISM Principal Investigator Scott Murchie of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. "New results like this show why that effort is so important."

Launched in 2005, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and its six instruments have provided more high-resolution data about the Red Planet than all other Mars orbiters combined. Data are made available for scientists worldwide to research, analyze and report their findings.

"A number of studies using CRISM data have shown rocks exhumed from the subsurface by meteor impact were altered early in Martian history, most likely by hydrothermal fluids," Michalski said. "These fluids trapped in the subsurface could have periodically breached the surface in deep basins such as McLaughlin Crater, possibly carrying clues to subsurface habitability."

This image is an artist's concept of a view looking down on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The spacecraft is pictured using its Shallow Radar (SHARAD) to "look" under the surface of Mars. Image credit: NASA/JPL.

McLaughlin Crater sits at the low end of a regional slope several hundreds of miles, or kilometers, long on the western side of the Arabia Terra region of Mars. As on Earth, groundwater-fed lakes are expected to occur at low regional elevations. Therefore, this site would be a good candidate for such a process.

"This new report and others are continuing to reveal a more complex Mars than previously appreciated, with at least some areas more likely to reveal signs of ancient life than others," said Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project Scientist Rich Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., provided and operates CRISM. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the orbiter.

To see an image of the carbonate-bearing layers in McLaughlin Crater, visit: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA16710 .

For more about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mro .

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA / Dwayne Brown / JPL / Guy Webster / Planetary Science Institute / Alan Fischer.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch