Hi Everyone,
Lots more to report today to you from McMurdo Station. Today, the McMurdo Fire Department held an open house. It's something you don't think about much - but fire is just a real danger here as it is anywhere. In fact, it's more of a challenge, as it is very dry here and the climate is a harsh one to have to fight fires, or handle any emergency. It was interesting to visit the Firehouse and see the equipment demonstrated that these folks use. Of course, they have fire trucks - just like back in the States. (In face, same trucks!). I got to try on the gear they wear here - right down to the gas mask, oxygen tanks and classic hat! Heavy gear to lug around. It would not be a complete afternoon, without a bowl of chili made by the Fire Chief himself!
Next, the set of science talks this past week have focused on the Antarctic Meteorite Search program that is a joint venture between the National Science Foundation, who oversees the US Antarctic program and NASA. Just think - about 8 times as many meteorites have been found in Antarctica as the rest of the world. Since it is easy to find them, against the background of ice and snow, the US and Japan have found about 8,000 each since looking for them in Antarctica in the last 20 years. Many are found in places where the ice is sublimating away, exposing years and years of accumulated meteorites. They aren't big - about the size of your pinkie finger, but they are a very cheap way to study other planets, and composition of the universe.
Most meteorites are from the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. But a very, very small few are from the moon, and from the planet Mars. By a few, we are talking about 5 or 6! Not many. How are they able to say they are from Mars or the Moon? Well, the Apollo missions to the Moon, brought back rocks form the Moon in the late 1960s. Some of the meteorites had the exact same chemistry and composition. As for the few meteorites from Mars, they found some that had glass in them - and the glass was molten/liquid when the meteorite was formed. Liquids trap gasses, and sure enough the gasses trapped in these few meteorites had the exact same composition as the planet Mars.
Now, the big story has been life on Mars...found from one of the Antarctic meteorites...namely ALH84001. By the way for those wondering what the heck ALH84001 stands for - ALH is the 3-letter identifier for the place it was found in Antarctica - the Allan Hills. The Allan Hills are about 150 miles to the North and East of McMurdo Station. 84 stands for the year, 1984, when the meteorite was found. And I think the 001 is the number of the meteorite. As it turns out, the big headlines on the "life" on Mars are a bit premature. In fact, very, very premature. They've based their conclusions on about 5% of the data analysis that could be done on this meteorite. A paper was published in Nature in July of this year that described the features that have been more recently published as being "biogenic" as being non-organic features, due to the chemistry of the meteorite. More will be published in a few months as well, refuting the claim that there is for sure life on Mars. Basically, as with all science, more study is needed, and it's really hard trying to figure out a lot of information about a planet from just one rock! Image trying to do that with one rock from Earth - could you figure out all that Earth has from that? Not a simple task.
That's the scoop form McMurdo.
Talk to you all later,
Matthew