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TBS&E Number 53 – Dec 2012 to March 2013 1 Produced by Garry Dalrymple as a contribution to thhe June 2013 mailing of the Australian and NZ Amateur Press Association. Postal Address: Garry Dalrymple, Local Post Office Box 4152, Bexleey North NSW 2207 Home ph. (best after 7 pm) 02 9718- 5827 Email; [email protected] The March 4, 2013, Sydney City Skywatchers meeting, Topic; Mars on Earth – right here in Sydney. Speaker: Dr. Carol Oliver, Aust. Pages 1 to 4 - Astronomy and Science Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Meeting Notess of March 2013 – Mars on Earth – Right here in Sydney – Carol Oliver Aust Centre for Astrobiology, UNSW Pages 5 to 17 – Notes from Sydney’s SF&F Meetings, Dec 2012 to Mar 2013; Friday Night Sydney Futurian meetings Pages 5 & 6 – Books deserving Sequels, or Sequels we’d like to see – 14 Dec. 2012 Pages 7 & 8 – Your Best and Worst SF&F of Who was there? – Twenty Eight members and 2012 – 18 Jan. 2013 guests were presentt at the meeting tonight, Pages 8 to 11 – Robots A.I.s and other roughly equal M and F. Thinking Machines – 15 Feb. 2013 Pages 11 to 14 – Supernatural Creatures in On this occasion our usual meeting format, SF stories - 15 Mar. 2013 Member’s observations then Guest speaker Pages 14 & 15 – Parramatta’s Underground was inverted, the Guest speaker speaking SF&F Book Review Discussion Meeting – 21 before the Member’s observations. Mar 2013 Dr Oliver presented and discussed the Pages 15 & 16 - The SF&F Discussion significance of a number of recent discoveries meeting at Sappho’s Second Hand on Mars, pointers to Life on Mars, or at least Bookshop – 27 Mar 2013 evidence of past conditions on Mars that were Pages 15 to 20 – Notes from the Feb 26, and more likely to allow life as we know it, based on 26 Mar. 2013 meetings of the Canterbury and terrestrial examples, water deposited District Historical Society – AGM Meeting ‘Blueberries’ and beffore and after scenes of and School Day’s Memories, School Photos liquid / moisture aided landslides on numerous and Postcards 1873 to the 1950s – Robert crater rims hint at Mars not being as ‘Dry and Hutchinson, Marrickville Historical Society Dead’ as previously thought. Some deep, shadowed or near pollar Craters show traces of Pages 19 & 20 - Book Reviews water ice at their bottoms. Much of the Pages 21 to 24 – Traveller’s Tales evidence uncovered in the search for life on Page 24 - Basenjis Tail Piece Mars centres around evidence of past hot 1 TBS&E Number 53 – Dec 2012 to March 2013 2 water springs, such as Silica surface deposits and carbonate rock deposits, as phylogenic Phylogenic Evidence and the Tree of Life. (Tree of Life) evidence suggests that Life on Genetic decoding has allowed for greater Earth emerged out of ‘Archaea’ like life forms precision in identifying relationships between similar to those currently found around ‘Black existing and ancestral life forms on Earth. Smoker’ undersea thermal vents, or geyser field The true picture is slightly different from that hot springs on land. depicted in most textbooks (Known since the 1990s). The most recent ‘Universal Ancestor’ Liquid Water on Mars today? seems to be an Archaea, similar to the types of We were shown water droplets which had microbial life found in communities around ‘Hot formed on the (shaded) legs of a recent Mars Smoker’ volcanic vents of the ocean vents. lander. Atmospheric conditions on Mars, This fact does tend to shape the search for life typically 1% or less than that at Earth’s surface on Mars (fossil of living). The evidence and much colder usually mean that water suggests that all life on earth ‘evolved up’ from ‘sublimes’, i.e. it goes straight from ice to vapour this source in a brief span of 500 million years, without any visible liquid phase, however or perhaps life on earth has an older pedigree perchlorate is known to be present in the and a longer period to pile up genetic diversity Martian soil can and does lead moisture to form and life’s range of adaptions, starting much as droplets of hyper-saline solution, which is earlier and merely finding refuge down among able to stay liquid at above sublimation the black smokers deep under water while temperatures. Earth was still being bombarded during the late (asteroid) bombardment era. Clearly ahead Meteorite ALH84001 – Fossil evidence of of a search for life beyond Earth, there is great Martian life? value in understanding all the possible factors ‘Worm like’ features detected on this Meteorite influencing the start of life on Earth. from Mars, had been identified as magnetite deposits left by long departed micro-organisms. Australians in Space Industry? The Jury is still out on this interpretation of the Clearly there will be a future with Space evidence and the conclusion of a ‘discovery’ of Industries and Australia cannot help but be life on Mars. affected by this reality. Better to have Australians involved in this than to have to pay Methane on Mars? ‘import’ prices for goods, services and people Recent observations have discovered that Mars with space skills. The question is, ‘How to is venting Methane, a gas associated with life on create ‘Space Ready’ people in advance of Earth. This small fraction of Mars’ atmosphere Australian participation in Space Industries’. is replenished every 18 months and its point One Method that has recently been tried is to origin seems to be localized, centred on some enrol 13 year ten students in a Space Project areas presumed to be volcanic vent fields. Program delivered online. These Students Stomatalites in Western Australia signed up for a program which committed them Both live and fossil evidence of Stromatalites to 3 hours each Saturday for Eight Months! can be found in Western Australia, in the form of The four Schools with students involved in this massive Ancient (3 and a half Billion years old) program were a mixture, two schools from fossilized reefs in the Pilbara and live examples Armidale (NSW) one a ‘posh’ Private school, near shark bay. The ‘life’ in these is a thin film the other a Public school, an ‘Alternative’ High of microorganism, very slow growing, accreting School (Tasmania) and a school from a wine layers of rock over time. The significance of growing area, i.e. not the usual schools of the these is that they like shallow waters and can advantaged ‘Inner city Urban elite’, all were tolerate heat and highly salty water, the sort of instead arguably, ‘Regional and Remote’. environment which might have been available Charles Darwin High School (Northern on Mars before it became as it appears today. Territory) was nearly involved in this project. The Astrobiology centre may be planning future Their research project was to ‘Search for Life field trips / pilgrimages to these ancestral life on Mars’, which resolved after some research sites to acquaint searchers for exo-life with resolved itself to be a search for evidence of ‘alien’ life on Earth. Hot springs on Mars. This lead to an amount 2 TBS&E Number 53 – Dec 2012 to March 2013 3 of research including reading scientific papers methods of estimating Solar Flare height and and interviews with scientific researchers, which Filament length ensued. lead them to a deeper understanding of how Science progresses, uncertainty in a scientific Harry Roberts – Visible White Dwarves! context and the necessity of scientific teamwork Harry introduced some ‘Summer Stars’ worth to gather all relevant details necessary for their observing, being the two visible White Dwarf project. Amongst other resources they used stars, Sirius and 40 Eridani. White Dwarves JMARS, MSIP, THEMIS & CRISM and contact are low mass stars and consequently only with Cottonwood Middle school. visible when they are close at hand. Their The determined that the most likely places to lack of mass and lack of unburnt Hydrogen fuel detect signs of life / volcanic spring fields would means that they will fadeout and die as neutron be around the central peak and edges of dust stars rather than progressing via Nova and free craters. On their sixth Saturday of collapse into black holes etc. monitoring ‘live’ streamed Mars footage (direct Magnetic Fields in Space and their from a Mars orbiter via NASA) they scored a Evolution to Sunspots ‘hit’, an area which matched their parameters. Space within Galaxies is filled with dust, and Further research unearthed a relevant scientific where there are charged particles capable of paper and earlier satellite footage from another motion there will be a magnetic field. Harry camera angle which confirmed their supposition showed a few diagrams which outlined the that this was a life potential area. usual process of star genesis, gravitational or They produced an abstract of their findings for a light shock compression of a dust cloud, with conference held at the UNSW, which resulted in the addition of Magnetic field details, i.e. a pre- an invitation to have a full paper published. proto-star dust cloud typically has a magnetic This paper was produced and peer reviewed, field strength (over vast amounts of space) of 1 resulting in a verdict that their work was of a gauss, equivalent to Earth’s magnetic field ‘Post-Doctoral’ level! strength. As the matter of a proto-star Nationwide Teacher’s Mars Rover hook up compresses, so does it’s magnetic field until it Other successful initiatives include an online reaches ~ 1 million Gauss at the centre of an connection for school teachers to drive the ignited star. Our own sun is estimated to Sydney Mars model over its simulated Mars have a magnetic field strength of 100,000 environment.