New research afoot in 1999

Beginning in January, University of Arizona scientists will prepare for missions to study other planets in the solar system. Projects include the launch of analytical instruments bound for Mars, studying the first photos from a spacecraft headed for Saturn and examining images of Jupiter's chilly moon Europa.

New Europa pictures

The photos of Europa focus on a fault line first photographed by the Voyager on a mission almost 20 years ago.

Randy Tufts, a UA scientist who discovered the fault in 1996, and his fellow researchers yesterday released new images of the rift.

The pictures captured by the Galileo satellite depict a crack in the moon 180 miles long - as big as the San Andreas fault in California. The split is caused by Jupiter's gravitational tidal forces that pull on the moon's surface.

"They're really understanding the motion of it (Europa)," said Michael Drake, head of UA planetary sciences.

UA planetary scientist Richard Greenberg led the team that discovered the crack, which resembles fault lines on Earth. Like the notorious San Andreas fault, the European rift formed as plates of land slid by each other "like cars passing on a highway," Greenberg said.

Studying the exposed "chaotic terrain" of Europa may teach planetary scientists about land movement this planet. It's difficult to study such geology on Earth because rock is covered with vegetation and human structures.

"On Europa, we kind of have a laboratory for tectonics going on Earth," Greenberg said.

Gadgets going to Mars

UA researchers have just completed two instruments bound for Mars.

A specialized camera and a "series of small ovens" will be launched Jan. 3 and land on the red planet about a year later, Drake said yesterday.

The camera is similar to the one that took award-winning photographs on the Voyager mission two summers ago. This time, the instruments will aim to land near the southern polar cap of Mars, hopefully revealing information about the composition of Martian soil.

UA lunar and planetary scientist Bill Boynton hopes to quantify the possibility that life could or did exist on Mars.

The Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer will tell Boynton and his team, which designed the instrument, how much water is frozen in Mars' soil.

The instrument will gather and heat Martian dirt, recording how much ice is melted in the process.

Boynton hopes to determine if there was enough water on the planet at one point to support life.

"We know that Mars had a large amount of water at one point," he said, "But what happened to it?"

If the water is accessible in ice form, such data will be significant if people colonize the planet in the future, Boynton said.

Cassini star images

The $3 billion Cassini mission to Saturn will return its first photographs in January.

The premier images received by UA scientists will be simple test shots of a star. Cassini will follow with images of the moon and Venus early next summer.

The portraits of the moon could reveal new data about the satellite, said Carolyn Porco, UA lunar and planetary scientist.

Porco, leader of the Cassini imaging team, said she is eager for the spacecraft to reach Saturn in 2004.

"We're waiting with baited breath to get there," Porco said.

The Cassini mission has myriad aims.

Spacecraft will examine the surface details of Saturn's moon Titan. The moon has an atmosphere denser than Earth's, and no human instrument has ever penetrated its occluding cloud system.

Scientists know organic material exists on Titan that is very similar to the gases that once swirled on Earth's young surface, Drake said.

Porco anticipates theorizing the process of life's origin on Earth from studying Titan's data.

"It's like looking backward in time," she said. "Life is not about to burst forth on Titan - there is no liquid water - but we will see chemical processes like those at the beginning of Earth."

Porco's team will also make movies of Saturn's surface - a uniquely active planet with 200 mile per hour winds whipping around the globe.

Porco said she looks forward to studying Saturn in depth.

"We're waiting with baited breath to get there," she said. "This is going to be very dramatic."

In other space news:

UA lunar and planetary scientists Bob Strom and Boynton will collaborate with researchers at Johns Hopkins University in designing a mission to visit Mercury.

If NASA selects it for engagement, the scientists will examine the surface structure of the planet and gather "some insight as to how the solar system formed," Boynton said.

In the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, a probe will be propelled to Eros, a small asteroid that orbits on a path near Earth's route around the sun.

The asteroid is composed of minerals that have hardly been disturbed since the solar system formed. Examination of the chunk of rock could tell humans about their planet's prehistorical composition.

The UA Center for Creative Photography will show Mars photographs composed by lunar and planetary researcher Peter Smith after the Voyager mission.

The pictures will be on display from Dec. 11 through Jan. 24.

Sarah Spivack can be reached via e-mail at Sarah.Spivack@wildcat.arizona.edu.