RANDY L. PHELPS
This is the Life in the
Solar System Module
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Procedure
1. For this module, please look through the
"lecture" notes for "Life
in the Solar System". These notes contain the material, in condensed form, that I
will expect you to become familiar with. I am sure you will have questions about the
material, especially since it is presented in the form of lecture notes. To help you
fill in the blanks, I have added web links to gain further insight into select portions of
the material.
2. Be sure to read Chapter 27 in "The New
Solar System"
3. In addition, you should investigate the
following Web-links.
Goals
After you have
completed this assignment, you should be able to critically interpret the following
statements:
There are two ways to approach the search for life: 1.
Studying the evolution of life on Earth and 2. Studying extreme forms of life on Earth
Studying the evolution of life on Earth leads to
speculation that Saturn's moon, Titan, may be a place to search for life in the Solar
System
Studying extreme forms of life on Earth lead to speculation
that Jupiter's moon, Europa, may be a place to search for life in the Solar System
Historical studies of Mars led to speculation that advanced
life existed on Mars
The Viking mission to Mars had inconclusive results
regarding the search for low-level life on Mars
A Martian meteorite, while probably not (conclusively)
revealing fossilized life, has led to a major push to explore Mars
Now that planets around other stars are being detected, the
search for life will be extended to other solar systems
After you have
completed this assignment, you should be able to answer these, and similar questions:
What approaches can be used to establish the existence
of life in the Solar System?
- What were the basic steps involved with the Miller-Urey
experiment?
- What were the significant results of the Miller-Urey
experiment?
- How do the Miller-Urey experiment, Earth's early
atmosphere, and Titan relate?
- What are the characteristics of Titan's atmosphere that are
of interest?
- What spacecraft mission is headed toward Titan, and what
will it do?
- What are extremophiles?
- In what types of environments are extremophiles found?
- Why are extremophiles of consequence when referring to
Europa?
- What spacecraft mission is planned to explore Europa, and
what will it do?
- How did the idea of "canals" on Mars come into
being?
- What was "War of the World's", and why is it of
interest?
- Is the "Face on Mars" evidence of
extraterrestrial life?
- What evidence exists for past/present water on the surface
of Mars?
- What experiments were conducted by Viking to test for life,
and what were the results?
- What is the ALH 84001 meteorite? How is its origin
determined, and where did it originate?
- What is the significance of the ALH 84001 meteorite?
Why might it have prompted NASA to push Mars exploration?
- What techniques may someday be used to infer the presence
of life on planets around other stars?
The
above questions, and variants of them, will form the exam questions for this portion of
the course. It is, therefore, to your advantage to do this web-based assignment!
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