Scientists Practice Mars Drilling Near Acidic Spanish River

John Bluck
Sept. 22, 2003
NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Phone: 650/604-5026 or 650/604-9000
E-mail:

Juan Bautista Rodriguez
Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial (INTA), Spain
Phone: 34 91 520 1938

RELEASE: 03-74AR

NOTE TO EDITORS AND NEWS DIRECTORS: You are invited to a 'media day'
on Friday, Sept. 26, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local Spanish time, to
examine a Mars analog drilling site along the Rio Tinto River, near
Nerva, Spain. Reporters will learn how NASA and Spanish scientists
are developing drilling equipment and procedures that someday may be
used to search for life beneath the surface of Mars. During the
three-year Mars Analog Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE)
efforts, experts also will look for exotic life forms that may live
underground near the Rio Tinto. Reporters may interview NASA and
Spanish scientists, as well as see drilling operations involved in
searching for underground life near the Rio Tinto. Nerva is located
equidistant from Seville and Huelva, Spain. Please telephone Juan
Bautista Rodriguez of INTA at: 34 91 520 1938 to R.S.V.P. To reach
Nerva from Seville by car, take highway E-803 north about 30 km. Then
take highway N433 west for about 17 km. Turn onto A-476, and go about
25 km to the town of Minas de Rio Tinto. Please check in at the
Ernest Lluch Museum (Museo Minero Ernest Lluch) at the town plaza to
receive further instructions.

SCIENTISTS PRACTICE MARS DRILLING NEAR ACIDIC SPANISH RIVER

To develop techniques to drill into the surface of Mars to look for
signs of life, NASA and Spanish scientists recently began drilling
150 meters (495 feet) into the ground near the source of the waters
of the Rio Tinto, a river in southwestern Spain, part of a three-year
effort that will include the search for underground life forms.

During the Mars Analog Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE),
scientists and engineers from NASA, U.S. universities and the Spanish
Centro De Astrobiología (Center for Astrobiology) hope to show how
robot systems could look for life below Mars' surface. Scientists
believe that liquid water may exist deep underground on Mars.

"The Rio Tinto area is an important analog to searching for life in
liquid water, deep beneath the subsurface of Mars," said Carol
Stoker, principal investigator of the three-year project and a
scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.

Scientists say bacteria that are present in the very acidic Rio Tinto
play a role in producing acid in the river, a byproduct of the
metabolism of iron and sulfur minerals in the region. The Rio Tinto
looks like deep red wine, because iron is dissolved in the highly
acidic river water. Scientists hope to find similar bacteria deep
underground at the Rio Tinto, where groundwater interacts with iron
and sulfur minerals. These underground bacteria may subsist on
chemicals and minerals under the surface, according to scientists.

The drilling is expected to yield samples that experts will analyze
to gain knowledge about subsurface life forms at the site.
Eventually, scientists will use this 'ground truth' information to
check the accuracy of later robotic efforts to identify life forms,
organic compounds and minerals.

In later phases of the experiment, scientists at NASA facilities in
the United States and at the Centro de Astrobiología in Madrid will
remotely operate a robotic drill and life-detection instruments, and
will interpret the results, all via satellite, to simulate a mission
to search for life on Mars.

The subsurface is the key environment for searching for life on other
planets, according to MARTE scientists. "Life needs liquid water and
a source of energy," Stoker said. "On Earth, most common life forms
are at the surface where sunlight provides the energy, but liquid
water occurs rarely at the martian surface, if at all. Liquid water
is expected in the subsurface of Mars. So NASA plans to use robotic
drilling to search for subsurface life. That is why we are testing
the life-search strategy in the Rio Tinto, where subsurface water and
chemical energy are expected to support life." Stoker added.

Scientists say evidence suggests the chemistry of the Rio Tinto and
its biology may be the result of an underground biologically based
chemical reactor fueled by organisms that do not need oxygen gas to
survive. MARTE scientists believe such a system may exist in the
subsurface of the Rio Tinto area, according to Ricardo Amils
Pibernat, a biologist at the Centro de Astrobiología and a specialist
on the biology of the Rio Tinto. If found, this type of life would
represent an entirely new subsurface life system, he said.

"In addition to looking for evidence of subsurface life, we hope
MARTE inspires students to pursue careers in science and
engineering," Stoker said. A series of eight one-hour educational
webcasts about MARTE will take place beginning on Sept. 29 and
continue through October 15. The webcasts and their schedule are
accessible at this Internet URL:

http://robotics.nasa.gov/courses/fall2003 and http://www.cab.inta.es

The Astrobiology Science and Technology for Exploring Planets program
at NASA Headquarters, Washington, is funding the project. The Spanish
contribution to the project is supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia
y Tecnologia, Comunidad de Madrid and the Instituto Nacional de
Tecnica Aeroespacial (Ministerio de Defensa).

http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/audio/t...intoaudio.html

-end-