MARS NEWS:



NASA Mars Rover Finds Mineral Vein Deposited by Water
[link to www.jpl.nasa.gov]

SNIP:
The Homestake deposit, whether gypsum or another form of calcium sulfate, likely formed from water dissolving calcium out of volcanic rocks. The calcium combined with sulfur that was either leached from the rocks or introduced as volcanic gas, and it was deposited as calcium sulfate into an underground fracture that later became exposed at the surface.





Gypsum Soil Fertilizer (!!!!) :
the early nineteenth century it was regarded as an almost miraculous fertilizer.
[link to en.wikipedia.org]

Gypsum forms some of the largest crystals found in nature, up to 11 metres long, in the form of selenite


- GYPSUM, SALT and Volcano's :
Gypsum is deposited from lake and sea water, as well as in hot springs, from volcanic vapors, and sulfate solutions in veins. Hydrothermal anhydrite in veins is commonly hydrated to gypsum by groundwater in near surface exposures. It is often associated with the minerals halite and sulfur.



- Gypsum & bacteria , [think the LIFE-experiment *** ]
Gypsum is also formed as a by-product of sulfide oxidation, amongst others by pyrite oxidation, when the sulfuric acid generated reacts with calcium carbonate. Its presence indicates oxidizing conditions. Under reducing conditions, the sulfates it contains can be reduced back to sulfide by sulfate reducing bacteria.


!!!! sulfate reducing bacteria -->
[link to en.wikipedia.org]
Sulfate-reducing bacteria are those bacteria and archaea that can obtain energy by oxidizing organic compounds or molecular hydrogen (H2) while reducing sulfate (SO2−4) to hydrogen sulfide (H2S). In a sense, these organisms "breathe" sulfate rather than oxygen, in a form of anaerobic respiration.
Sulfate-reducing bacteria can be traced back to 3.5 billion years ago and are considered to be among the oldest forms of microorganisms, having contributed to the sulfur cycle soon after life emerged on Earth.

Some sulfate-reducing bacteria can reduce hydrocarbons such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene and have been used to clean up contaminated soils. Their use has also been proposed for other kinds of contaminations.

There are also three genera of Archaea known to be capable of sulfate reduction: Archaeoglobus, Thermocladium and Caldivirga. They are found in hydrothermal vents, oil deposits, and hot springs.





ARCHAEA !!!


*** Phobos-Grunt LIFE [link to www.spaceflight101.com]

This experiment is part of the Phobos-Grunt Mission that is scheduled to be in progress from 2011 to 2014. LIFE has been developed by The Planetary Society and consists of a Biomodule that contains selected microorganisms that will be exposed to the environment of interplanetary space for the duration of the Phobos-Grunt Mission.
The Project includes organisms from all three domains of life: archaea, eukaryota and bacteria.

Archaea:
-Haloarcula
-Methanothermobacter wolfeii (Methane Producing Organism)
-Pyrococcus furiosus (Maximum Temperature Indicator)



*Haloarcula & Mars [link to www.google.nl]

Haloarcula are extreme halophilic archaeons.
Haloarcula are found in neutral saline environments like salt lakes, marine salterns, and saline soils.
[link to microbewiki.kenyon.edu]




*Methane producing & Mars :
[link to 2the4.net]

The type of bacteria that are indicated to have existed on Mars appear to be similar to those on Earth termed archaebacteria. These are bacteria with an ancient history, first appearing on Earth 3.5 billion years ago under the atmospheric conditions described above. Recent advances in genetic analysis indicate that these bacteria are a third form of life different from regular bacteria (Eubacteria) and all multi-cellular life (Eukaryotes). These archaebacteria survive through exotic metabolic processes that rely of a wide variety of chemical reactionsto provide energy.

The archaebacteria fall into four major classes:
-Acidophiles which are able to grow in the pH range of 0.0 to 5.0.
-Thermophiles that can grow in a temperature range of +30 to +250oC.
-Halophiles that survive in 10 to 27% sodium chloride solutions.
-Methanogens which are the best known archaebacteria and -form methane in sediments and the intestinal tracts of animals.




*Pyrococcus furiosus & Mars [link to www.nasa.gov]

Stress management is key: Oddly, there are already Earth creatures that thrive in Mars-like conditions. They're not plants, though. They're some of Earth's earliest life forms--ancient microbes that live at the bottom of the ocean, or deep within Arctic ice. Boss and Grunden hope to produce Mars-friendly plants by borrowing genes from these extreme-loving microbes. And the first genes they're taking are those that will strengthen the plants' ability to deal with stress.

Ordinary plants already possess a way to detoxify superoxide, but the researchers believe that a microbe known as Pyrococcus furiosus uses one that may work better. P. furiosus lives in a superheated vent at the bottom of the ocean, but periodically it gets spewed out into cold sea water. So, unlike the detoxification pathways in plants, the ones in P. furiosus function over an astonishing 100+ degree Celsius range in temperature. That's a swing that could match what plants experience in a greenhouse on Mars.





THE ARCHAEA & SALT CONNECTION !!!
(Remember that SALT was very inmportant to this BEZERK-thread and AUgie !!)




Mars, sulfate, archaea : [link to www.google.nl]


Microbial Life in Hypersaline Environments [link to serc.carleton.edu]

We now know that hypersaline bodies of water that exceed the modest 3.5 % salt of earth's oceans are populated with rich communities of "halophiles," or salt-lovers. These microbes are in all three of the Domains of life, Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya (Baxter et al., 2005, Felix and Rushforth, 1979), .... The halophilic microbes are colored with carotenoid compounds in their cell membrane, painting the waters with a pink-orange hue.

... Various species of halophilic Archaea (halophiles) have been revived (!!!!) from fluid inclusions in ancient salt crystals (Norton et al., 1993; Denner et al., 1994; Grant et al., 1998; Vreeland et al., 2000).

The quantity of ancient crystals that harbor viable halophiles, however, is low. ... two of the 52 crystals studied contained Archaea that survived dormancy.


Halophiles on Mars?
Great Salt Lake has high sodium chloride concentrations as well as a significant amount of sulfate. The same could be said for the evaporates discovered on the Meridiani Planum plains of Mars, a hypothesized salt lake. Since we know that halophiles can remain dormant for long periods of time, what would we find if we searched in salt crystals from the red planet?





--> Why wanting to bring all those bacteria to Mars/Phobos, which are already THERE ...
The answer again, lies in the re-animation/re-activation of Mars and its moons ...