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The Cassini-Huygens Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) is intended to provide direct observations of dust grains with masses between 10(-19) and 10(-9) kg in interplanetary space and in the jovian and saturnian systems, to investigate their physical, chemical and dynamical properties as functions of the distances to the Sun, to Jupiter and to Saturn and its satellites and rings, to study their interaction with the saturnian rings, satellites and magnetosphere. Chemical composition of interplanetary meteoroids will be compared with asteroidal and cometary dust, as well as with Saturn dust, ejecta from rings and satellites. Ring and satellites phenomena which might be effects of meteoroid impacts will be compared with the interplanetary dust environment. Electrical charges of particulate matter in the magnetosphere and its consequences will be studied, e.g. the effects of the ambient plasma and the magnetic held on the trajectories of dust particles as well as fragmentation of particles due to electrostatic disruption. The investigation will be performed with an instrument that measures the mass, composition, electric charge, speed, and flight direction of individual dust particles. It is a highly reliable and versatile instrument with a mass sensitivity 106 times higher than that of the Pioneer 10 and I I dust detectors which measured dust in the saturnian system. The Cosmic Dust Analyzer has significant inheritance from former space instrumentation developed for the VEGA, Giotto, Galileo, and Ulysses missions. It will reliably measure impacts from as low as I impact per month up to 104 impacts per second. The instrument weighs 17 kg and consumes 12 W, the integrated time-of-flight mass spectrometer has a mass resolution of up to 50. The nominal data transmission rate is 524 bits/s and varies between 50 and 4192 bps
On Earth, chemolithoautothrophic and anaerobic microorganisms such as methanogenic archaea are regarded as model organisms for possible subsurface life on Mars. For this reason, the methanogenic strain Methanosarcina soligelidi (formerly called Methanosarcina spec. SMA-21), isolated from permafrost-affected soil in northeast Siberia, has been tested under Martian thermo-physical conditions. In previous studies under simulated Martian conditions, high survival rates of these microorganisms were observed. In our study we present a method to measure methane production as a first attempt to study metabolic activity of methanogenic archaea during simulated conditions approaching conditions of Mars-like environments. To determine methanogenic activity, a measurement technique which is capable to measure the produced methane concentration with high precision and with high temporal resolution is needed. Although there are several methods to detect methane, only a few fulfill all the needed requirements to work within simulated extraterrestrial environments. We have chosen laser spectroscopy, which is a non-destructive technique that measures the methane concentration without sample taking and also can be run continuously. In our simulation, we detected methane production at temperatures down to -5 degrees C, which would be found on Mars either temporarily in the shallow subsurface or continually in the deep subsurface. The pressure of 50 kPa which we used in our experiments, corresponds to the expected pressure in the Martian near subsurface. Our new device proved to be fully functional and the results indicate that the possible existence of methanogenic archaea in Martian subsurface habitats cannot be ruled out. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.