Scientists can use various clues to figure out what’s under Earth’s surface without actually having to do any digging – including firing super-fine lasers thinner than a human hair at minerals found in beach sand.
This technique has been used in a new study that points to a 4-billion-year-old piece of Earth’s crust about the size of Ireland, which has been sitting under Western Australia and influencing the geological evolution of the area across millions of millennia.
It might be able to provide clues to how our planet went from being uninhabitable to supporting life.
The researchers think that the huge expanse of crust would have heavily influenced the formation of rocks as old materials were mixed with new, having first appeared as one of the planet’s earliest protocrust formations and surviving multiple mountain-building events.
“When comparing our findings to existing data, it appears many regions around the world experienced a similar timing of early crust formation and preservation,” says geology PhD student and lead author Maximilian Dröellner, from Curtin University in Australia.
“This suggests a significant change in the evolution of Earth some 4 billion years ago, as meteorite bombardment waned, crust stabilized, and life on Earth began to establish.”
The lasers were used to vaporize grains of the mineral zircon, taken from sand sampled from rivers and beaches in Western Australia.
Technically known as laser ablation split stream-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, the method enables scientists to date the grains and compare them with others to see where they might have come from.
This gave the team an insight into the crystalline basement under Earth’s surface in this particular region – showing where the grains had originally eroded from, the forces used to create them, and how the geology of the region had built up over time.
As well as the significance of the protocrust remnant still being there – about 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) of it – the boundaries of the block will also help scientists to chart out what else is hidden away under Earth’s surface, and how it might have evolved to be in its current state.
“The edge of the ancient piece of crust appears to define an important crustal boundary controlling where economically important minerals are found,” says research supervisor geologist Milo Barham, from Curtin University.
“Recognizing these ancient crustal remnants is important for the future of optimized sustainable resource exploration.”
As you might expect after 4 billion years, there’s not much left of Earth’s original crust to study, which makes findings like this one all the more interesting and useful to experts – giving us an important window into the distant past.
The shifting of Earth’s crust and the swirling of the hot mantle underneath are difficult to predict and to retrospectively map out. When evidence of interior movement and geology can be found on the surface, scientists are therefore very keen to make use of it.
Further down the line, the results of the study described here could also help scientists who are looking at other planets – the way these planets are formed, how their earliest crust is shaped, and even how alien life might get established on them.
“Studying the early Earth is challenging given the enormity of time that has elapsed, but it has profound importance for understanding life’s significance on Earth and our quest to find it on other planets,” says Barham.
The research has been published in the journal Terra Nova.
It’s been nearly two years since the tiny helicopter Ingenuity and the one-ton rover Perseverance left planet Earth and they’ve come a very long way since then. In February, last year, they landed in a hazardous and previously unexplored part of Mars called the Jezero Crater, where Perseverance is looking for signs of ancient life. Two months after landing, Ingenuity disconnected from Perseverance’s belly and made history – performing the first flights ever in the atmosphere of another planet. It’s hard to imagine, but worth remembering, as you watch this story we first reported last year, that this all happened millions of miles away, in outer space.
Ingenuity and Perseverance on Mars
Last year, on April 6, in this desolate Martian crater, 170 million miles from Earth, Perseverance posed for a selfie with Ingenuity, the little helicopter it had just dropped off. Two weeks later, the rover’s cameras recorded Ingenuity’s historic first flight, hovering ten feet off the ground for 30 seconds. It may not look like much, but for those who’d worked so long to make it happen it was a reason to rejoice.
Project manager Mimi Aung led the team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California that’s been working on Ingenuity for six years.
Anderson Cooper: How hard is it to fly a helicopter on Mars?
Mimi Aung: Very, very, very (LAUGHTER) hard. We really– truly started with the question of, “Is it possible?”
Anderson Cooper: A lot of people thought it– it could not be done?
Mimi Aung: Because it’s really counter-intuitive. I mean, you need atmosphere for the blades to push atmosphere to get lift. And the–
Anderson Cooper: The atmosphere on Mars is completely different
Mimi Aung: The atmosphere–on Mars is so thin. I mean, the room we’re in, right, it’s– compared to that, it was 1% of the atmospheric density over there. So, the question of, really, can you generate enough lift, you know, to really build– to lift up anything, that was the fundamental question.
Mimi Aung
In subsequent flights, Ingenuity has gone higher and farther, traveling more than four miles in all, over the surface of Mars. It is a triumph not only for NASA but for its partners in the private sector who helped make various parts of the helicopter.
Matt Keennon has a history of making unusual things that can fly. He’s an engineer at a company called AeroVironment, which produces drones for military and civilian use.
Anderson Cooper: I mean that’s incredible.
Ten years ago, for a military research project, Keennon and his team created this robotic hummingbird, which has a tiny camera onboard.
Anderson Cooper: Whoa (LAUGH)
Matt Keennon: There it is.
Anderson Cooper: Oh, my God. That’s amazing.
Keennon and engineer Ben Pipenberg led the aerovironment team that created Ingenuity’s rotors, motors, and landing gear.
Anderson Cooper: Why was this so challenging?
Ben Pipenberg: Because it has to be a spacecraft as well as an aircraft. And– and flying it as a– as an aircraft on Mars is pretty challenging because of the density of the air. It’s similar to about Earth at 100,000 feet.
Anderson Cooper: How do you go about it?
Ben Pipenberg: Well, so building everything extremely lightweight is– really, really critical.
The helicopter’s blades, for example, are made of a styrofoam-like material coated with carbon fiber.
They’re stiff and strong.
Ben Pipenberg: You get a sense of how lightweight and stiff that is.
Anderson Cooper: It weighs nothing.
Ben Pipenberg: Yeah, it weighs nothing.
…but incredibly light.
Anderson Cooper, Matt Keennon and Ben Pipenberg check out “Terry.”
Matt Keennon: Here we go, taking off.
This is the first time they’ve shown an outsider this version of Ingenuity, which they plan to use for education and research. They call it “Terry.”
Here on Earth, Terry’s blades are spinning at about 400 revolutions per minute. On Mars, in the thin atmosphere, they’d have to spin six times faster to generate the same lift.
Ingenuity cost $85 million dollars to build and operate, “Terry” a lot less. But it’s still nerve-wracking to be handed its controls.
Matt Keennon: All right, go ahead. You’ve got it. Slide it right. You can push it all the way to the right if you want. Slide left.
Anderson Cooper: Wow.
Matt Keennon: I’ll bring it up a little bit. Now stop.
The joysticks we used to fly Terry are of no use on Mars. Radio signals take too long to get there.
Even someone as good at flying drones — and hummingbirds — as Matt Keennon couldn’t fly a helicopter on Mars. Here’s what happened in 2014 in a test chamber that replicated the atmosphere on Mars when Keennon tried to use a joystick to fly an early version of Ingenuity.
Mimi Aung: Surprise.
Anderson Cooper: Wow. (LAUGH) So much for that vehicle…
Anderson Cooper: So, this very quick demonstration must have showed you a human being can’t respond quickly enough to control it.
Mimi Aung: Exactly.
So engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory equipped Ingenuity with a computerized system that allows it to stabilize itself and navigate on its own. In 2016, the new system aced the chamber test…
Mimi Aung: The blades are being commanded, you know, 400 or 500 times per second.
They proved it could fly. But Ingenuity still had to weigh under four pounds and fit in the belly of Perseverance.
And it had to be tough enough to survive the journey to Mars.
On July 30, 2020, Perseverance and Ingenuity took off from Cape Canaveral.
Nearly seven months later, as this simulation shows, the spacecraft’s heat shield hit the Martian atmosphere going 12,000 miles per hour.
Al Chen
As he sat in the control room, Al Chen, the leader of the landing team, had absolutely no control. Radio signals would take about 11 minutes to travel from Earth to Mars. The spacecraft was pre-programmed to descend, maneuver, and pick a landing site on its own. All the work his colleagues hoped to do on Mars would be impossible if his part of the mission failed.
Anderson Cooper: How long have you been working on this mission?
Al Chen: Coming up on nine years, or so.
Anderson Cooper: Really? That’s a lot of work for seven minutes of–
Al Chen: Yep. Nine–
Anderson Cooper: –terror.
Al Chen: — nine years of work, seven minutes of terror. (LAUGH)
Anderson Cooper: It’s done if the parachute doesn’t work.
Al Chen: That’s right. You know, no one wants to be that– the guy the drops the baton.
No landing by a spacecraft has ever been recorded as well as this one. There were six cameras capturing it all from different angles. The parachute deployed. Then the heat shield fell away like a lens cap, and Perseverance got its first look at the ground. This is not a simulation. This is what it looks like to parachute onto Mars.
Anderson Cooper: How fast is it moving at this point?
Al Chen: Yeah, we’re still going about 350 miles an hour, and still slowing down
Anderson Cooper: So it looks gentle here, but in fact you’re– the– it’s falling at more than 300 miles an hour.
Al Chen: That’s right. We’re heading straight down at– at near-racecar speeds.
A shot of Perseverance as it lands on Mars
Below lay a series of safe landing spots. But the wind was blowing the spacecraft towards more treacherous territory to the east. And Perseverance sent a message to Earth saying the thrusters it needed to slow down might not be working properly.
Anderson Cooper: So you get a reading saying the jets that are going to help it slow down and control the landing, that they’re not working?
Al Chen: The stopping power.
Anderson Cooper: So what do you do?
Al Chen: There’s nothing you can do, right? Everything already happened. That’s the mind-bending part of this, right?
Anderson Cooper: You are sweating now, you were just talking about it.
Al Chen: Yeah, exactly, I’m right back there again. (LAUGHTER). So, ah, yeah.
To Al Chen’s relief, Perseverance’s computerized landing system did what it was designed to do: it found a suitable landing spot even in rocky terrain. And despite the warning, the thrusters worked. You can see them kicking up dust as they fire to slow the spacecraft down.
The descent stage known as the “skycrane” lowered Perseverance to the ground. It hovered for a moment, then flew off to crash a safe distance away.
Al Chen: And there goes the descent stage.
Anderson Cooper: Wow.
Al Chen: At that point, big sigh of relief– you know? I almost– collapsed over this console.
For two months after the landing on the red planet, a team of engineers, programmers and scientists here on Earth were living on Mars time. It’s their job to monitor the rover’s health and tell it where to go and how to search for signs of life. While Perseverance slept to conserve energy during the freezing Martian nights, the team on earth analyzed the photographs and instrument readings it had sent back. They then prepared a list of things for it to do the following morning when it woke up.
Matt Wallace: And so it’s just after midnight on Mars. The vehicle’s asleep.
Project manager Matt Wallace explained that a day on Mars is 40 minutes longer than on Earth. The team’s schedule was constantly changing.
Anderson Cooper: So people here are– are Mars night shift workers.
Matt Wallace: (LAUGH) Yeah, that’s a good way to think of it.
Anderson Cooper: But, I mean, working night shift is tough enough. But– this is a night shift that’s constantly shifting–
Matt Wallace: Constantly moving.
Anderson Cooper: Yeah–
Matt Wallace: That’s right. Yeah.
On Perseverance’s fourth day on Mars, it swiveled the powerful camera on its mast and took a look around. A space enthusiast named Sean Doran put the images together, set them to music, and posted the movie on YouTube.
Even one of the top scientists on the project was moved when he saw it.
Ken Farley: I went and got a beer and watched this thing scroll by. And that… that was the moment (CLICK) when I felt like I was there.
Ken Farley leads the science team that will direct Perseverance through the Jezero Crater. It’s an area that scientists have long wanted to search for signs of ancient life that may be hidden in the rocks.
Ken Farley: The oldest evidence of life on Earth is about three and a half billion years old. Those rocks were deposited in a shallow sea. This crater that you see here was a lake three and a half billion years ago. So we are looking at the same environment in the same time period on two different planets.
Anderson Cooper: And if it’s determined, however long in the future, that, “No, there was not ever life,” what does that mean?
Ken Farley: The place where Perseverance landed, here in Jezero Crater– is the most habitable time period of Mars and the most habitable environment that we know about. This is– this is as good as it gets, at least with our current understanding of what Mars has to offer. And if we don’t find life here, it does make us worry that perhaps it doesn’t exist anywhere.
Boulders on Mars
Perseverance hadn’t strayed far from its landing site when its telescopic camera spotted a large number of boulders that scientist Ken Farley says he didn’t expect to see in the middle of an ancient lake.
Anderson Cooper: So this has surprised you.
Ken Farley: Absolutely, yeah.
Anderson Cooper: So what did those boulders tell you?
Ken Farley: The most reasonable interpretation is a flood. You don’t have fast flowing water out in the middle of a lake. You get fast flowing water in a river. And so what that’s telling us is: there was a river that was capable of transporting boulders that were this big.
Anderson Cooper: So what? The lake would have gone down perhaps and then later on there was a flood?
Ken Farley: Yeah. Exactly.
Perseverance was supposed to leave Ingenuity behind after a 30-day demonstration of its flying ability. But NASA officials decided to keep the duo together longer to explore how rovers and helicopters might work together in the future.
The fastest that Perseverance was designed to travel is a tenth of a mile per hour. Ingenuity has already gone 120 times faster, according to project manager Mimi Aung.
Mimi Aung: Adding an aerial vehicle, a flying vehicle for space exploration will be game changing.
Anderson Cooper: It frees you, in a way.
Mimi Aung: Absolutely, yes. So, a flying vehicle, a rotorcraft would allow us to get to places we simply can’t access today, like sites of steep cliffs, you know, inside deep crevices.
After Perseverance explored the floor of Jezero Crater, it headed to what’s believed to be the remnant of an ancient river delta, where billions of years ago conditions should have been ripe for microorganisms to exist.
The rover’s robotic arm can collect about 40 core samples of rock that’ll be sealed in special tubes and left on the planet’s surface. NASA plans to send another mission to Mars to retrieve the tubes and bring them back to Earth. In about ten years, Ken Farley says, scientists examining those samples may be confronted with a new and perplexing question.
Ken Farley: How do you look for life that may not be life as you know it? We’ve never had to do that before, we’ve never had to actually ask the question…
Anderson Cooper: “Is there a form of life that we can’t even conceive of?”
Ken Farley: Yeah, we’re gonna have to conceive of it. I think that’s the whole point of this: We’re gonna have to start conceiving of life as we don’t know it.
If all goes according to plan, Perseverance will be making tracks on Mars for years to come. Since it’s carrying the first working audio microphones on the red planet, we leave you with what it sounds like as the one-ton rover slowly moves across the vast, lonely expanses of Mars.
Earlier this year, NASA and the European Space Agency agreed on a plan to send three new spacecraft to Mars in 2027 and 2028. Their mission would be to retrieve the samples Perseverance is collecting on the Red Planet and bring them back to Earth.
Produced by Andy Court. Associate producer, Evie Salomon. Broadcast associate, Annabelle Hanflig. Edited by Richard Buddenhagen.
Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” has contributed to 60 Minutes since 2006. His exceptional reporting on big news events has earned Cooper a reputation as one of television’s pre-eminent newsmen.
With a lava flow in the distance, a primitively feathered theropod dinosaur carries off a mammalian victim during a snowy volcanic winter caused by massive eruptions during the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction. A new study says dinosaurs survived because they were already adapted to freezing conditions at high latitudes. Credit: Painting by Larry Felder
Thriving in a Series of Sudden Global Chills That Killed Competitors
Many of us are familiar with the popular theory of how the dinosaurs died 66 million years ago: in Earth’s violent collision with a meteorite, followed by a global winter caused by dust and debris choking the atmosphere. But there was a far more mysterious and less discussed previous extinction: the one 202 million years ago, which wiped out the big reptiles who up until then ruled the planet, and apparently cleared the way for dinosaurs to take over. What caused the so-called
The telltale indicators are dinosaur footprints along with odd rock fragments that only could have been deposited by ice. The authors of the study explain that during the extinction, cold snaps already happening at the poles spread to lower latitudes, killing off the cold-blooded reptiles. Dinosaurs, which had already adapted, survived the evolutionary bottleneck and spread out. The rest is ancient history.
“Dinosaurs were there during the Triassic under the radar all the time,” said Paul Olsen, a geologist at
The supercontinent of Pangaea 202 million years ago, shortly before the Triassic-Jurassic Extinction. Evidence of early dinosaurs has been found in the indicated areas; most species were confined to the high latitudes, and those few nearer the tropics tended to be smaller. Red area at the top is the Junggar Basin, now in northwest China. Credit: Olsen et al., Science Advances, 2022
Dinosaurs are thought to have first appeared during the Triassic Period in temperate southerly latitudes about 231 million years ago, when most of the planet’s land was joined together in one giant continent geologists call Pangaea. They made it to the far north by about 214 million years ago. Until the mass extinction at 202 million years, the more expansive tropical and subtropical regions in between were dominated by reptiles including relatives of crocodiles and other fearsome creatures.
During the Triassic, and for most of the Jurassic, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide ranged at or above 2,000 parts per million—five times today’s levels—so temperatures must have been intense. There is no evidence of polar ice caps then, and excavations have shown that deciduous forests grew in polar regions. However, some climate models suggest that the high latitudes were chilly some of the time; even with all that CO2, they would have received little sunlight much of the year, and temperatures would decline at least seasonally. But until now, no one has produced any physical evidence that they froze.
At the end of the Triassic, a geologically brief period of perhaps a million years saw the extinction of more than three-quarters of all terrestrial and marine species on the planet, including shelled creatures, corals and all sizable reptiles. Some animals living in burrows, such as turtles, made it through, as did a few early mammals. It is unclear exactly what happened, but many scientists connect it to a series of massive volcanic eruptions that could have lasted hundreds of years at a stretch. At this time, Pangaea started to split apart, opening what is now the Atlantic Ocean, and separating what are now the Americas from Europe, Africa and Asia. Among other things, the eruptions would have caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to skyrocket beyond its already high levels, causing deadly temperatures spikes on land, and turning ocean waters too
A shale cliff in the Junggar Basin in northwest China, where scientists found ice-rafted pebbles amid otherwise fine-grained sediments. Credit: Paul Olsen/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
The authors of the new study cite a third factor: During the eruptions’ fiercest phases, they would have belched sulfur aerosols that deflected so much sunlight, they caused repeated global volcanic winters that overpowered high greenhouse-gas levels. These winters might have lasted a decade or more; even the tropics may have seen sustained freezing conditions. This killed uninsulated reptiles, but cold-adapted, insulated dinosaurs were able to hang on, say the scientists.
The researchers’ evidence: fine-grained sandstone and siltstone formations left by sediments in shallow ancient lake bottoms in the Junggar Basin. The sediments formed 206 million years ago during the Late Triassic, through the mass extinction and beyond. At that time, before landmasses rearranged themselves, the basin lay at about 71 degrees north, well above the Arctic Circle. Footprints found by the authors and others show that dinosaurs were present along shorelines. Meanwhile, in the lakes themselves, the researchers found abundant pebbles up to about 1.5 centimeters across within the normally fine sediments. Far from any apparent shoreline, the pebbles had no business being there. The only plausible explanation for their presence: they were ice-rafted debris (IRD).
Briefly, IRD is created when ice forms against a coastal landmass and incorporates bits of underlying rock. At some point, the ice becomes unmoored and drifts away into the adjoining water body. When it melts, the rocks drop to the bottom, mixing with normal fine sediments. Geologists have extensively studied ancient IRD in the oceans, where it is delivered by glacial icebergs, but rarely in lake beds; the Junggar Basin discovery adds to the scant record. The authors say the pebbles were likely picked up during winter, when lake waters froze along pebbly shorelines. When warm weather returned, chunks of that ice floated off with samples of the pebbles in tow, and later dropped them.
“This shows that these areas froze regularly, and the dinosaurs did just fine,” said study co-author Dennis Kent, a geologist at Lamont-Doherty.
How did they do it? Evidence has been building since the 1990s that many if not all non-avian dinosaurs including tyrannosaurs had primitive feathers. If not for flight, some coverings could have used for mating display purposes, but the researchers say their main purpose was insulation. There is also good evidence that, unlike the cold-blooded reptiles, many dinosaurs possessed warm-blooded, high-metabolism systems. Both qualities would have helped dinosaurs in chilly conditions.
“Severe wintery episodes during volcanic eruptions may have brought freezing temperatures to the tropics, which is where many of the extinctions of big, naked, unfeathered vertebrates seem to have occurred,” said Kent. “Whereas our fine feathered friends acclimated to colder temperatures in higher latitudes did OK.”
The findings defy the conventional imagery of dinosaurs, but some prominent specialists say they are convinced. “There is a stereotype that dinosaurs always lived in lush tropical jungles, but this new research shows that the higher latitudes would have been freezing and even covered in ice during parts of the year,” said Stephen Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at the University of Edinburgh. “Dinosaurs living at high latitudes just so happened to already have winter coats [while] many of their Triassic competitors died out.”
Randall Irmis, curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum of Utah, and specialist in early dinosaurs, agrees. “This is the first detailed evidence from the high paleolatitudes, the first evidence for the last 10 million years of the Triassic Period, and the first evidence of truly icy conditions,” he said. “People are used to thinking of this as being a time when the entire globe was hot and humid, but that just wasn’t the case.”
Olsen says the next step to better understand this period is for more researchers to look for fossils in former polar areas like the Junggar Basin. “The fossil record is very bad, and no one is prospecting,” he said. “These rocks are gray and black, and it is much harder to prospect [for fossils] in these strata. Most paleontologists are attracted to the late Jurassic, where it’s known there are many big skeletons to be had. The paleo-Arctic is basically ignored.”
Reference: “Arctic ice and the ecological rise of the dinosaurs” by Paul Olsen, Jingeng Sha, Yanan Fang, Clara Chang, Jessica H. Whiteside, Sean Kinney, Hans-Dieter Sues, Dennis Kent, Morgan Schaller and Vivi Vajda , 1 July 2022, Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo6342
The study was co-authored Jingeng Sha and Yanan Fang of Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology; Clara Chang and Sean Kinney of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory; Jessica Whiteside of the University of Southampton; Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian Institution; Morgan Schaller of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; and Vivi Vajda of the Swedish Museum of Natural History.
For the past 10 years, the Curiosity rover has traveled across the Martian terrain, looking for clues to the planet’s potentially habitable past. Recently, the car-sized robot drove through a transition zone, going from an area that may have once hosted lakes on the surface to one that signifies drier conditions for the Red Planet.
NASA’s Curiosity rover took note of the change in scenery higher up on a Martian mountaintop, which the robot has been climbing since 2014. The 3.4-mile-tall (5-kilometer) Mount Sharp is the central peak in Mars’ Gale Crater, which the rover is exploring for signs of ancient water. At the base of Mount Sharp, Curiosity collected evidence for clay minerals that formed from lakes and streams that once ran through Gale Crater. But higher up on the mountain, those streams had seemingly dried up into trickles and sand dunes, which had formed above the lake sediments.
This so-called transition zone is marked by a shift from a clay-rich region to one filled with the salty mineral sulfate, and could potentially signify a major shift in Mars’ climate that took place billions of years ago. The higher up Curiosity goes on Mount Sharp, it detects less clay, and more sulfate. Curiosity will soon start drilling the last rock sample collected in the transition zone in hopes of learning more about the change in the mineral composition of the rocks in that area.
“We no longer see the lake deposits that we saw for years lower on Mount Sharp,” Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a NASA news release. “Instead, we see lots of evidence of drier climates, like dry dunes that occasionally had streams running around them. That’s a big change from the lakes that persisted for perhaps millions of years before.”
The Curiosity rover captured this panorama of a sulfate-bearing region on Mars.Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
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The area that Curiosity is currently exploring also boasts hills that may have formed in dry conditions, and those hills are marked by large, wind-swept sand dunes that likely hardened into rock over time, according to NASA. Meanwhile, the rover also found evidence of sediments that were carried over by streams of water through the sand dunes. Those sediments now appear as stacked layers of flaky-looking rocks.
Although Mars is a desolate, dry planet today, scientists believe that it may have once been habitable, hosting lakes and other bodies of water on its surface. Early on in its history, Mars somehow lost some of its atmosphere, and its water dried up. Various robotic missions, from NASA and other space agencies, have worked to piece together this ancient history. A newer Mars rover, Perseverance, landed on the planet in February 2021 and has been searching for microfossils—preserved evidence of ancient microbial life.
As it inches closer to its 10-year anniversary on Mars, Curiosity has started to show some signs of aging. On June 7, Curiosity went into the dreaded safe mode when a temperature reading showed warmer temperatures than usual, according to NASA. The rover was back in action two days later, but NASA engineers are still looking into the cause of the issue, hoping that it won’t affect the rover’s operations as it climbs to the top of a new era of Martian history.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of a sulfate-bearing region using its Mastcam on May 2, 2022. Dark boulders seen near the center are thought to have formed from sand deposited in ancient streams or ponds. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Striking rock formations documented by the Curiosity rover provide evidence of a drying climate in the Red Planet’s ancient past.
The clay minerals formed when lakes and streams once rippled across Gale Crater, depositing sediment at what is now the base of Mount Sharp, the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain whose foothills Curiosity has been ascending since 2014. Higher on the mountain in the transition zone, Curiosity’s observations show that the streams dried into trickles and sand dunes formed above the lake sediments.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of layered, flaky rocks believed to have formed in an ancient streambed or small pond. The six images that make up this mosaic were captured using Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on June 2, 2022, the 3,492nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“We no longer see the lake deposits that we saw for years lower on Mount Sharp,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Instead, we see lots of evidence of drier climates, like dry dunes that occasionally had streams running around them. That’s a big change from the lakes that persisted for perhaps millions of years before.”
As the rover climbs higher through the transition zone, it is detecting less clay and more sulfate. Curiosity will soon drill the last rock sample it will take in this zone, providing a more detailed glimpse into the changing mineral composition of these rocks.
NASA’s spacecraft on Mars are all affected by the winds of the Red Planet, which can produce a tiny dust devil or a global dust storm. Credit: NASA/
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree panorama near a location nicknamed Sierra Maigualida on May 22, 2022. The panorama is made up of 133 individual images captured by Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Ten Years On, Going Strong
Curiosity will celebrate its 10th year on Mars Aug. 5. While the rover is showing its age after a full decade of exploring, nothing has prevented it from continuing its ascent.
On June 7, Curiosity went into safe mode after detecting a temperature reading on an instrument control box within the body of the rover that was warmer than expected. Safe mode occurs when a spacecraft senses an issue and automatically shuts down all but its most essential functions so that engineers can assess the situation.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured evidence of layers that built up as windblown sand both accumulated and was scoured away at a location nicknamed “Las Claritas.” This image was captured using Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam, on May 19, 2022, the 3,478th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Although Curiosity exited safe mode and returned to normal operations two days later, JPL’s engineers are still analyzing the exact cause of the issue. They suspect safe mode was triggered after a temperature sensor provided an inaccurate measurement, and there’s no sign it will significantly affect rover operations since backup temperature sensors can ensure the electronics within the rover body aren’t getting too hot.
The rover’s aluminum wheels are also showing signs of wear. On June 4, the engineering team commanded Curiosity to take new pictures of its wheels – something it had been doing every 3,281 feet (1,000 meters) to check their overall health.
The team discovered that the left middle wheel had damaged one of its grousers, the zig-zagging treads along Curiosity’s wheels. This particular wheel already had four broken grousers, so now five of its 19 grousers are broken.
The previously damaged grousers attracted attention online recently because some of the metal “skin” between them appears to have fallen out of the wheel in the past few months, leaving a gap.
The team has decided to increase its wheel imaging to every 1,640 feet (500 meters) – a return to the original cadence. A traction control algorithm had slowed wheel wear enough to justify increasing the distance between imaging.
“We have proven through ground testing that we can safely drive on the wheel rims if necessary,” said Megan Lin, Curiosity’s project manager at JPL. “If we ever reached the point that a single wheel had broken a majority of its grousers, we could do a controlled break to shed the pieces that are left. Due to recent trends, it seems unlikely that we would need to take such action. The wheels are holding up well, providing the traction we need to continue our climb.”
Typhoid fever might be rare in developed countries, but this ancient threat, thought to have been around for millennia, is still very much a danger in our modern world.
According to new research, the bacterium that causes typhoid fever is evolving extensive drug resistance, and it’s rapidly replacing strains that aren’t resistant.
Currently, antibiotics are the only way to effectively treat typhoid, which is caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi (S Typhi). Yet over the past three decades, the bacterium’s resistance to oral antibiotics has been growing and spreading.
Sequencing the genomes of 3,489 S Typhi strains contracted from 2014 to 2019 in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India, researchers found a recent rise in extensively drug-resistant (XDR) Typhi.
XDR Typhi is not only impervious to frontline antibiotics, like ampicillin, chloramphenicol, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, but it is also growing resistant to newer antibiotics, like fluoroquinolones and third-generation cephalosporins.
Even worse, these strains are spreading globally at a rapid rate.
While most XDR Typhi cases stem from south Asia, researchers have identified nearly 200 instances of international spread since 1990.
Most strains have been exported to Southeast Asia, as well as East and Southern Africa, but typhoid superbugs have also been found in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.
“The speed at which highly-resistant strains of S. Typhi have emerged and spread in recent years is a real cause for concern, and highlights the need to urgently expand prevention measures, particularly in countries at greatest risk,” says infectious disease specialist Jason Andrews from Stanford University.
Scientists have been warning about drug-resistant typhoid for years now, but the new research is the largest genome analysis on the bacterium to date.
In 2016, the first XDR typhoid strain was identified in Pakistan. By 2019, it had become the dominant genotype in the nation.
Historically, most XDR typhoid strains have been fought with third-generation antimicrobials, like quinolones, cephalosporins, and macrolides.
But by the early 2000s, mutations that confer resistance to quinolones accounted for more than 85 percent of all cases in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Singapore. At the same time, cephalosporin resistance was also taking over.
Today, only one oral antibiotic is left: the macrolide, azithromycin. And this medicine might not work for much longer.
The new study found mutations that confer resistance to azithromycin are now also spreading, “threatening the efficacy of all oral antimicrobials for typhoid treatment”. While these mutations have not yet been adopted by XDR S Typhi, if they are, we are in serious trouble.
If untreated, up to 20 percent of typhoid cases can be fatal, and today, there are 11 million cases of typhoid a year.
Future outbreaks can be prevented to some extent with typhoid conjugate vaccines, but if access to these shots is not expanded globally, the world could soon have another health crisis on its hands.
“The recent emergence of XDR and azithromycin-resistant S Typhi creates greater urgency for rapidly expanding prevention measures, including use of typhoid conjugate vaccines in typhoid-endemic countries,” the authors write.
“Such measures are needed in countries where antimicrobial resistance prevalence among S Typhi isolates is currently high, but given the propensity for international spread, should not be restricted to such settings.”
South Asia might be the main hub for typhoid fever, accounting for 70 percent of all cases, but if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that disease variants in our modern, globalized world are easily spread.
To prevent that from happening, health experts argue nations must expand access to typhoid vaccines and invest in new antibiotic research. One recent study in India, for instance, estimates that if children are vaccinated against typhoid in urban areas, it could prevent up to 36 percent of typhoid cases and deaths.
Pakistan is currently leading the way on this front. It is the first nation in the world to offer routine immunization for typhoid. Last year, millions of children were administered the vaccine, and health experts argue more nations need to follow suit.
Antibiotic resistance is one of the world’s leading causes of death, claiming the lives of more people than HIV/AIDS or malaria. Where available, vaccines are some of the best tools we have to prevent future catastrophe.
Thousands of distant, primordial galaxies in different shapes and sizes glow in infrared light in a newly released image from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The oldest galaxies are about 13 billion years old, dating from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. By looking at those galaxies in ultraviolet light, scientists can discover what chemicals lie inside those galaxies — information that is key to understanding how galaxies form and evolve. But there’s a problem with this method: That primordial ultraviolet light gets absorbed before it can reach us.
But scientists can look at many, many galaxies that are just a little younger, 11 billion years old. And that’s what astronomers have done with the Hubble Space Telescope, helping to create this image of a very old, very far crop of galaxies.
Related:Hubble Space Telescope’s largest-ever infrared image peers back 10 billion years
The image is part of a recent survey called UVCANDELS. Over about 10 days of observational time, Hubble imaged about 140,000 galaxies. Some of them are visible in the newly released image — numerous types of galaxies, seen from a range of angles.
UVCANDELS provides unique “insight into ongoing star formation in galaxies both near and far,” said Xin Wang, an astronomer at Caltech who presented the results June 14 at the American Astronomical Society conference in California.
UVCANDELS is the sequel to another survey, CANDELS, which examined infrared and redder visible light. Hubble retraced, with ultraviolet and purpler visible light, the parts of the sky that CANDELS examined, including the one in the newly released image, known as the Extended Groth Strip. By combining layers from both studies, scientists created this new image.
These surveys allow scientists to look back at an era of the early universe known as reionization. During this epoch, kicked off by the formation of the first galaxies, the first light sources began to pierce the cosmic veil, bringing an end to the universe’s “dark age.“
Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have mapped the composition of asteroid Psyche, revealing a surface of metal, sand, and rock. Credit: Screenshot courtesy of NASA
The varied surface of asteroid Psyche suggests a dynamic history, which could include metallic eruptions, asteroid-shaking impacts, and a lost rocky mantle.
Later this year,
This illustration, updated in April 2022, depicts NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. Set to launch in August 2022, the Psyche mission will explore a metal-rich asteroid of the same name that lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The spacecraft will arrive in early 2026 and orbit the asteroid – also shown in this illustration – for nearly two years to investigate its composition. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU
Overall, Psyche’s surface was found to be surprisingly varied in its properties.
The new maps hint at the asteroid’s history. Its rocky regions could be vestiges of an ancient mantle — similar in composition to the rocky outermost layer of Earth, Mars, and the asteroid Vesta — or the imprint of past impacts by space rocks. Finally, craters that contain metallic material support the idea proposed by previous studies that the asteroid may have experienced early eruptions of metallic lava as its ancient core cooled.
“Psyche’s surface is very heterogeneous,” says lead author Saverio Cambioni, the Crosby Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS). “It’s an evolved surface, and these maps confirm that metal-rich asteroids are interesting, enigmatic worlds. It’s another reason to look forward to the Psyche mission going to the asteroid.”
Cambioni’s co-authors are Katherine de Kleer, assistant professor of planetary science and astronomy at Caltech, and Michael Shepard, professor of environmental, geographical, and geological sciences at Bloomsburg University.
Telescope Power
The surface of Psyche has been a focus of numerous previous mapping efforts. Researchers have observed the asteroid using various telescopes to measure light emitted from the asteroid at infrared wavelengths, which carry information about Psyche’s surface composition. However, these studies could not spatially resolve variations in composition over the surface.
Cambioni and his colleagues instead were able to see Psyche in finer detail, at a resolution of about 20 miles per pixel, using the combined power of the 66 radio antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array ( On the left, this map shows surface properties on Psyche, from sandy areas (purple/low) to rocky areas (yellow/high). The map on the right shows metal abundances on Psyche, from low (purple) to high (yellow).
To catch a match
In the new study, Cambioni ran simulations of Psyche to see which surface properties might best match and explain the measured thermal emissions. In each of hundreds of simulated scenarios, he set the asteroid’s surface with different combinations of materials, such as areas of different metal abundances. He modeled the asteroid’s rotation and measured how simulated materials on the asteroid would give off thermal emissions. Cambioni then looked for the simulated emissions that best matched the actual emissions measured by ALMA. That scenario, he reasoned, would reveal the likeliest map of the asteroid’s surface materials.
“We ran these simulations area by area so we could catch differences in surface properties,” Cambioni says.
The study produced detailed maps of Psyche’s surface properties, showing that the asteroid’s façade is likely covered in a large diversity of materials. The researchers confirmed that, overall, Psyche’s surface is rich in metals, but the abundance of metals and silicates varies across its surface. This may be a further hint that, early in its formation, the asteroid may have had a silicate-rich mantle that has since disappeared.
They also found that, as the asteroid rotates, the material at the bottom of a large depression — likely a crater — changes temperature much faster than material along the rim. This suggests that the crater bottom is covered in “ponds” of fine-grained material, like sand on Earth, which heats up quickly, whereas the crater rims are composed of rockier, slower-to-warm materials.
“Ponds of fine-grained materials have been seen on small asteroids, whose gravity is low enough for impacts to shake the surface and cause finer materials to pool,” Cambioni says. “But Psyche is a large body, so if fine-grained materials accumulated on the bottom of the depression, this is interesting and somewhat mysterious.”
“These data show that Psyche’s surface is heterogeneous, with possible remarkable variations in composition,” says Simone Marchi, staff scientist at the Southwest Research Institute and a co-investigator on NASA’s Psyche mission, who was not involved in the current study. “One of the primary goals of the Psyche mission is to study the composition of the asteroid surface using its gamma rays and neutron spectrometer and a color imager. So, the possible presence of compositional heterogeneties is something that the Psyche Science Team is eager to study more.”
Reference: “The Heterogeneous Surface of Asteroid (16) Psyche” by Saverio Cambioni, Katherine de Kleer and Michael Shepard, 19 May 2022, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. DOI: 10.1029/2021JE007091
This research was supported by the EAPS Crosby Distinguished Postodoctoral Fellowship, and in part by the Heising-Simons Foundation.
When you think about precious crown jewels, a 400-year-old gallstone is probably not what springs to mind!
However, a team of scientists have found something very valuable inside calcified balls extracted from a 16th century Italian prince’s gallbladder.
Remnants of early E. Coli were found to be present, and researchers from McMaster University in Canada have used them to reconstruct the first ancient genome of the bacteria.
This can act as a ‘point of comparison’ to tell us information about how the notorious superbug has evolved over the past 400 years.
The findings, published today in the journal Communications Biology, could allow researchers to eventually pinpoint when E. Coli acquired antibiotic resistance.
Remnants of early E. Coli bacteria were present in the gallstones of a mummified Italian prince
The liver and gallbladder of Giovani d’Avalos. The gallstones can be seen in the red rectangle, which contain fragments of E. Coli. Scale bar represents 1cm
George Long (pictured) is co-lead author of the study and said ‘we were able to identify what was an opportunistic pathogen, dig down to the functions of the genome, and provide guidelines to aid researchers who may be exploring other, hidden pathogens’
The mummified remains of Giovani d’Avalos were recovered from the Abbey of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples in 1983, along with those of other Italian nobles from the Renaissance period.
The Neapolitan nobleman, who died in 1586 aged 48, is thought to have suffered from chronic inflammation of the gallbladder due to gallstones.
Study lead author George Long said: ‘When we were examining these remains, there was no evidence to say this man had E. coli.
‘Unlike an infection like smallpox, there are no physiological indicators. No one knew what it was.’
E. coli, or Escherichia coli, can infect the organs that contribute to the production and transportation of bile, including the gall bladder.
It is able to release an enzyme that can turn bilirubin, a chemical produced during the normal breakdown of haemoglobin, into calcium salts – the first step in pigment stone formation.
As well as contributing to gallstone formation, E. Coli can cause food poisoning, diarrhoea, urinary tract infections and pneumonia.
It is known as a ‘commensal’ – a bacteria that resides within us and can act as an opportunistic pathogen infecting its host during periods of stress, underlying disease or immunodeficiency.
E. Coli is also known to be resistant to antibiotics, giving it its title as a ‘superbug’.
E. Coli (pictured) is also known to be resistant to antibiotics, giving it its title as a ‘superbug’
WHAT IS E. COLI AND WHY IS IT DANGEROUS?
E. coli (Escherichia coli) are bacteria that generally live in the intestines of healthy people and animals.
Infections can occur after coming into contact with the faeces of humans or animals, or by eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water.
Symptoms of an E.coli infection include bloody diarrhea, stomach cramps, nausea and vomiting.
In rare cases, sufferers can develop a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).
This is a condition in which there is an abnormal destruction of blood platelets and red blood cells.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the damaged blood cells can clog the kidney’s filtering system, resulting in life-threatening kidney failure.
No treatment currently exists to treat these infections. They usually disappear within one week, but medical professionals recommend resting and drinking fluids to help prevent dehydration and fatigue.
Researchers had to meticulously isolate fragments of the target bacterium, which had been degraded by environmental contamination from several sources.
They used the recovered material to reconstruct the first ancient E. Coli genome.
However, the research team explained that its full evolutionary history remains a mystery, including when it acquired antibiotic resistance.
Research leader Professor Hendrik Poinar said ‘A strict focus on pandemic-causing pathogens as the sole narrative of mass mortality in our past misses the large burden that stems from opportunistic commmensals driven by the stress of lives lived.’
Evolutionary geneticist Prof Poinar, of Canada’s McMaster University which led the research, said: ‘Modern E. coli is commonly found in the intestines of healthy people and animals.
‘While most forms are harmless, some strains are responsible for serious, sometimes fatal food poisoning outbreaks and bloodstream infections. The hardy and adaptable bacterium is recognised as especially resistant to treatment.’
He explained that having the genome of a 400-year-old ancestor to the modern bacterium provides researchers a ‘point of comparison’ for studying how it has evolved and adapted since that time.
He explained that the technological feat is particularly remarkable because E. coli is both ‘complex and ubiquitous’ – living not only in the soil but also in our own microbiomes.
Professor Erick Denamur, from the Paris Diderot University, said: ‘It was so stirring to be able to type this ancient E. coli and find that while unique it fell within a phylogenetic lineage characteristic of human commensals that is today still causing gallstones.’
Long added: ‘We were able to identify what was an opportunistic pathogen, dig down to the functions of the genome, and provide guidelines to aid researchers who may be exploring other, hidden pathogens.’
WHAT IS A GENOME?
An organism’s genome is written in a chemical code called DNA.
DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is a complex chemical in almost all organisms that carries genetic information.
It is located in chromosomes the cell nucleus and almost every cell in a person’s body has the same DNA.
The human genome is composed of more than three billion pairs of these building-block molecules and grouped into some 25,000 genes.
It contains the codes and instructions that tell the body how to grow and develop, but flaws in the instructions can lead to disease.
Currently, less than 0.2 per cent of the Earth’s species have been sequenced.
The first decoding of a human genome – completed in 2003 as part of the Human Genome Project – took 15 years and cost £2.15 billion ($3bn).
A group of 24 international scientists want to collect and store the genetic codes of all 1.5 million known plants, animals and fungi over the next decade.
The resulting library of life could be used by scientists to find out more about the evolution of species and how to improve our environment.
The £3.4 billion ($4.7bn) project is being described as the ‘most ambitious project in the history of modern biology’.
The Curiosity rover has found an outstanding rock formation piercing the alien landscape of Mars. Amongst the shallow sands and boulders of the Gale Crater rise several twisting towers of rock – the spikes of sediment look almost like frozen streams of water poured from an invisible jug in the sky.
In reality, experts say the columns were probably created from cement-like substances that once filled ancient cracks of bedrock. As the softer rock gradually eroded away, the snaking streams of compact material remained standing.
Rock formations found on Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS)
The rock formations were snapped by a camera on board the Curiosity rover on May 17, but the image was only shared last week by NASA and experts at the SETI institute (which stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), as part of SETI’s planetary picture of the day initiative.
#PPOD: Here is another cool rock at Gale crater on Mars! The spikes are most likely the cemented fillings of ancient fractures in a sedimentary rock. The rest of the rock was made of softer material and was eroded away. 📷: @NASA @NASAJPL @Caltech #MSSS fredk, acquired on May 17. pic.twitter.com/RGfjmRBfI7
— The SETI Institute (@SETIInstitute) May 26, 2022
As alien as the structures might look, they aren’t without precedent.
In Earthly geology, a ‘hoodoo’ is a tall and thin spire of rock formed by erosion. It can also be called a tent rock, fairy chimney, or earth pyramid.
Hoodoos are usually found in dry environments, like the canyons of Utah or southern Serbia, and the columns can sometimes tower as high as ten-story buildings.
A hoodoo in Bryce Canyon, Utah. (Don Graham/Flickr/CC BY SA 2.0)
The natural structures are formed by hard rock layers that build up within softer sedimentary rock. As the rest of the rock erodes away from rain, wind or frost, you’re left with a magnificent mould of an ancient fracture in the bedrock.
Hoodoos East Coulee, Alberta, Canada. (Darren Kirby/CC BY SA 2.0)
The two towers of rock on Mars look like they are about to topple over compared to the ones we see on Earth, but clearly they are solid enough to withstand the lighter surface gravity experienced on the red planet.
Another strange rock formation found by Curiosity earlier this year might have been created in a similar way, albeit with very different results.
This other, smaller rock looks sort of like a piece of coral or a flower with numerous little petals stretching up towards the sun.
“One theory that has emerged is that the rock is a type of concretion created by minerals deposited by water in cracks or divisions in existing rock,” a press release from NASA explained at the time.
“These concretions can be compacted together, can be harder and denser than surrounding rock, and can remain even after the surrounding rock erodes away.”
A flower-shaped rock found on Mars. (NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS)
The Gale crater isn’t wholly flat, but the alien spires discovered by Curiosity stand out from the rest of their environment, although no height measurements accompany the image.
The towering tombstones of rock might look lifeless now, but their formation speaks volumes about ancient conditions on Mars and whether life could have once thrived there billions of years ago.
The Gale crater itself is thought to be a dried-up lake bed, though possibly shallower and more transitory than experts once assumed.
Rock formations in and around the ancient lake are helping to reveal the region’s true history.
