Week 5 - Mars Rover

Mars 'mystery solved': has Nasa found water flowing on the Red Planet?

The water appears to exist in the form of “thin layers of wet soil", rather than pools of standing water, Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, one of the scientists who made the finding using new imaging techniques said.

The discovery of liquid water means Mars is “not the dry, arid planet that we thought of in the past”, Jim Green, Nasa’s director of planetary science said.

Crucially, it “suggests that it would be possible for there to be life today on Mars”, John Grunsfeld, Nasa's science mission chief, said.

Water is essential to life as we know it on Earth – and on Earth, wherever there is water there is also life, the scientists said.

However, it is not yet known whether the briny water discovered on Mars may be too salty to support terrestrial life forms.

Although microbes do exist in salty habitats on the Atacama Desert in South America, the most likely location for microbes on Mars would be in fresh water that scientists believe might exist deeper beneath the surface of the planet, scientists suggested.

Dr McEwen said he believed that “the possibility of life in the interior of Mars has always been very high” and it was “very likely” that there was life in the form of microbes “somewhere in the crust of Mars”.

Dr Grunsfeld said the briny water discovered on Mars could also be “useful to future travellers”, not only for hydration but potentially even for growing crops in “inflatable greenhouses”.

Nasa has already said it wants to put men on Mars and Dr Grunsfeld said he hoped Nasa would be able to do so “in the near future”. Any Mars mission by Nasa would cost tens of billions of dollars.

Michael Meyer, lead scientist for Nasa’s Mars Exploration Program said: “Now we know there is liquid water on the surface of this cold, desert planet. It seems that the more we study Mars, the more we learn how life could be supported and where there are resources to support life in the future.”

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-  Michael Meyer, scientists,John Grunsfeld,Dr Grunsfeld

      WHEN- not given 

      WHAT- found water flowing on the red planet

      WHY- water is essential to our life 

      WHERE- on the Mars

      HOW - the more we learn how life could be on the Mars, the more resources to support life in the future

keywords

1.planetary 行星的;漂泊的

2.briny 鹽水的;海水的

3.terrestrial 地球上的人;地球上;陸地上

4.microbe 微生物:細菌來源

5.crust 外殼

5.hydration 水合

6.inflatable 膨脹的

Week 4 - New Horizons

Kepler 452b: Hot and heavy - but could humans live on distant planet dubbed 'Earth 2'?

DESPITE taking millions of years to reach exoplanet Kepler 452-b, do scientists believe humans could survive of Earth's distant "bigger, older cousin"?.

By JON AUSTIN

PUBLISHED: 14:16, Wed, Jul 29, 2015 | UPDATED: 15:23, Wed, Jul 29, 2015

Kepler project scientists, who use the telescope of the same name to track down Earth-like planets - estimate 452-b is 60 per cent bigger and probably weighs five times as much as our own planet.

The five times bigger mass would make Kepler 452-b's gravitational pull at least twice as strong as on Earth - something humans would find very difficult to deal with, as possible space explorers would feel twice as heavy.

According to NASA scientists who unveiled the discovery of the planet last week, if humans ever reached Kepler 452-b we would eventually evolve into much stockier beings because of this force.

Jon Jenkins, of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, said: "It might be quite challenging at first.”

But the NASA experts also pointed out there were people on Earth who still functioned, albeit sluggishly, despite being twice or more their required body mass.

John Grunsfield, a former astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said humans could cope as firefighters, soldiers and backpackers often carry heavy loads, which mimick the effect of stronger gravity.

He said: "If we were there, we’d get stronger. 

“Our bones would actually get stronger. It would be like a workout every day.

“I suspect that, over time, we would adapt to the conditions, and perhaps become stockier over a long period of many generations.”

However, different gravity aside, Kepler-452b should look quite familiar as it orbits a star at about the same distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun.

Mr Jenkins added: "It would feel a lot like home, from the standpoint of the sunshine that you would experience. 

Structure of the Lead

      WHO-  Kepler project scientists, Jon Jenkins, NASA scientists ,Mr Jenkins

      WHEN-  Not given

      WHAT-  452-b is 60 per cent bigger and probably weighs five times as much as our own planet.

      WHY-  Because the force human beings will become stockier

      WHERE-  Kepler 452-b

      HOW - Not given 

keywords

1.  unveil  公開

2. stockier 結實的

3. albeit    雖然;僅管

4.sluggishly 緩慢地

5.administrator 管理者

6.mimick 模仿

7.functioned 起作用的 

8.orbit 軌道

9.standpoint 立場;觀點