Detective Work Enables Perseverance Team to Revive SHERLOC Instrument - UNIVERSE

Imagery captured by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Jan. 23 shows the position of a cover on the SHERLOC instrument. The cover had become stuck several weeks earlier but the rover team has since found a way to address the issue so the instrument can continue to operate.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

After six months of effort, an instrument that helps the Mars rover look for potential signs of ancient microbial life has come back online.

The SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has analyzed a rock target with its spectrometer and camera for the first time since encountering an issue this past January. The instrument plays a key role in the mission’s search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California confirmed on June 17 that the instrument succeeded in collecting data.

“Six months of running diagnostics, testing, imagery and data analysis, troubleshooting, and retesting couldn’t come with a better conclusion,” said SHERLOC principal investigator Kevin Hand of JPL.

Imagery captured by a navigation camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover on Jan. 23 shows the position of a cover on the SHERLOC instrument. The cover had become stuck several weeks earlier but the rover team has since found a way to address the issue so the instrument can continue to operate.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm, SHERLOC uses two cameras and a laser spectrometer to search for organic compounds and minerals in rocks that have been altered in watery environments and may reveal signs of past microbial life. On Jan. 6, a movable lens cover designed to protect the instrument’s spectrometer and one of its cameras from dust became frozen in a position that prevented SHERLOC from collecting data.

Analysis by the SHERLOC team pointed to the malfunction of a small motor responsible for moving the protective lens cover as well as adjusting focus for the spectrometer and the Autofocus and Context Imager (ACI) camera. By testing potential solutions on a duplicate SHERLOC instrument at JPL, the team began a long, meticulous evaluation process to see if, and how, the lens cover could be moved into the open position.

Perseverance’s team used the SHERLOC instrument’s Autofocus and Context Imager to capture this image of its calibration target on May 11 to confirm an issue with a stuck lens cover had been resolved. A silhouette of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is at the center of the target.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

SHERLOC Sleuthing

Among many other steps taken, the team tried heating the lens cover’s small motor, commanding the rover’s robotic arm to rotate the SHERLOC instrument under different orientations with supporting Mastcam-Z imagery, rocking the mechanism back and forth to loosen any debris potentially jamming the lens cover, and even engaging the rover’s percussive drill to try jostling it loose. On March 3, imagery returned from Perseverance showed that the ACI cover had opened more than 180 degrees, clearing the imager’s field of view and enabling the ACI to be placed near its target.

“With the cover out of the way, a line of sight for the spectrometer and camera was established. We were halfway there,” said Kyle Uckert, SHERLOC deputy principal investigator at JPL. “We still needed a way to focus the instrument on a target. Without focus, SHERLOC images would be blurry and the spectral signal would be weak.”

Like any good ophthalmologist, the team set about figuring out SHERLOC’s prescription. Since they couldn’t adjust the focus of the instrument’s optics, they relied on the rover’s robotic arm to make minute adjustments in the distance between SHERLOC and its target in order to get the best image resolution. SHERLOC was commanded to take pictures of its calibration target so that the team could check the effectiveness of this approach.

This image of NASA’s Perseverance rover gathering data on the “Walhalla Glades” abrasion was taken in the “Bright Angel” region of Jezero Crater by one of the rover’s front hazard avoidance cameras on June 14. The WATSON camera on the SHERLOC instrument is closest to the Martian surface.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

“The rover’s robotic arm is amazing. It can be commanded in small, quarter-millimeter steps to help us evaluate SHERLOC’s new focus position, and it can place SHERLOC with high accuracy on a target,” said Uckert. “After testing first on Earth and then on Mars, we figured out the best distance for the robotic arm to place SHERLOC is about 40 millimeters,” or 1.58 inches. “At that distance, the data we collect should be as good as ever.”

Confirmation of that fine positioning of the ACI on a Martian rock target came down on May 20. The verification on June 17 that the spectrometer is also functional checked the team’s last box, confirming that SHERLOC is operational.

“Mars is hard, and bringing instruments back from the brink is even harder,” said Perseverance project manager Art Thompson of JPL. “But the team never gave up. With SHERLOC back online, we’re continuing our explorations and sample collection with a full complement of science instruments.”

Perseverance is in the later stages of its fourth science campaign, looking for evidence of carbonate and olivine deposits in the “Margin Unit,” an area along the inside of Jezero Crater’s rim. On Earth, carbonates typically form in the shallows of freshwater or alkaline lakes. It’s hypothesized that this also might be the case for the Margin Unit, which formed over 3 billion years ago. 

More About the Mission

A key objective of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including caching samples that may contain signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.

Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech, built and manages operations of the Perseverance rover.

For more about Perseverance: science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-2020-perseverance  

Source: Detective Work Enables Perseverance Team to Revive SHERLOC Instrument - NASA

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Surprising Phosphate Finding in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample - UNIVERSE

A microscope image of a dark Bennu particle, about a millimeter long, with a crust of bright phosphate. To the right is a smaller fragment that broke off. Credits: From Lauretta & Connolly et al. (2024) Meteoritics & Planetary Science, doi:10.1111/maps.14227.

• Early analysis of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has revealed dust rich in carbon, nitrogen, and organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it. Dominated by clay minerals, particularly serpentine, the sample mirrors the type of rock found at mid-ocean ridges on Earth.
• The magnesium-sodium phosphate found in the sample hints that the asteroid could have splintered off from an ancient, small, primitive ocean world. The phosphate was a surprise to the team because the mineral had not been detected by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft while at Bennu.
• While a similar phosphate was found in the asteroid Ryugu sample delivered by JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission in 2020, the magnesium-sodium phosphate detected in the Bennu sample stands out for its purity (that is, the lack of other materials included in the mineral) and the size of its grains, unprecedented in any meteorite sample.

Scientists have eagerly awaited the opportunity to dig into the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) pristine asteroid Bennu sample collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission since it was delivered to Earth last fall. They hoped the material would hold secrets of the solar system’s past and the prebiotic chemistry that might have led to the origin of life on Earth. An early analysis of the Bennu sample, published June 26 in Meteoritics & Planetary Science, demonstrates this excitement was warranted.

The OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team found that Bennu contains the original ingredients that formed our solar system. The asteroid’s dust is rich in carbon and nitrogen, as well as organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it. The sample also contains magnesium-sodium phosphate, which was a surprise to the research team, because it wasn’t seen in the remote sensing data collected by the spacecraft at Bennu. Its presence in the sample hints that the asteroid could have splintered off from a long-gone, tiny, primitive ocean world.

A Phosphate Surprise

Analysis of the Bennu sample unveiled intriguing insights into the asteroid’s composition. Dominated by clay minerals, particularly serpentine, the sample mirrors the type of rock found at mid-ocean ridges on Earth, where material from the mantle, the layer beneath Earth’s crust, encounters water.

This interaction doesn’t just result in clay formation; it also gives rise to a variety of minerals like carbonates, iron oxides, and iron sulfides. But the most unexpected discovery is the presence of water-soluble phosphates. These compounds are components of biochemistry for all known life on Earth today. 

A tiny fraction of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, shown in microscope images. The top-left pane shows a dark Bennu particle, about a millimeter long, with an outer crust of bright phosphate. The other three panels show progressively zoomed-in views of a fragment of the particle that split off along a bright vein containing phosphate, captured by a scanning electron microscope.

From Lauretta & Connolly et al. (2024) Meteoritics & Planetary Science, doi:10.1111/maps.14227.

While a similar phosphate was found in the asteroid Ryugu sample delivered by JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Hayabusa2 mission in 2020, the magnesium-sodium phosphate detected in the Bennu sample stands out for its purity — that is, the lack of other materials in the mineral — and the size of its grains, unprecedented in any meteorite sample.

The finding of magnesium-sodium phosphates in the Bennu sample raises questions about the geochemical processes that concentrated these elements and provides valuable clues about Bennu’s historic conditions.

“The presence and state of phosphates, along with other elements and compounds on Bennu, suggest a watery past for the asteroid,” said Dante Lauretta, co-lead author of the paper and principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “Bennu potentially could have once been part of a wetter world. Although, this hypothesis requires further investigation.”

“OSIRIS-REx gave us exactly what we hoped: a large pristine asteroid sample rich in nitrogen and carbon from a formerly wet world,” said Jason Dworkin, a co-author on the paper and the OSIRIS-REx project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

From a Young Solar System

Despite its possible history of interaction with water, Bennu remains a chemically primitive asteroid, with elemental proportions closely resembling those of the Sun.

“The sample we returned is the largest reservoir of unaltered asteroid material on Earth right now,” said Lauretta.

This composition offers a glimpse into the early days of our solar system, over 4.5 billion years ago. These rocks have retained their original state, having neither melted nor resolidified since their inception, affirming their ancient origins.

Hints at Life’s Building Blocks

The team has confirmed the asteroid is rich in carbon and nitrogen. These elements are crucial in understanding the environments where Bennu’s materials originated and the chemical processes that transformed simple elements into complex molecules, potentially laying the groundwork for life on Earth.

“These findings underscore the importance of collecting and studying material from asteroids like Bennu — especially low-density material that would typically burn up upon entering Earth’s atmosphere,” said Lauretta. “This material holds the key to unraveling the intricate processes of solar system formation and the prebiotic chemistry that could have contributed to life emerging on Earth.”

What’s Next

Dozens more labs in the United States and around the world will receive portions of the Bennu sample from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in the coming months, and many more scientific papers describing analyses of the Bennu sample are expected in the next few years from the OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team.

“The Bennu samples are tantalizingly beautiful extraterrestrial rocks,” said Harold Connolly, co-lead author on the paper and OSIRIS-REx mission sample scientist at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. “Each week, analysis by the OSIRIS-REx Sample Analysis Team provides new and sometimes surprising findings that are helping place important constraints on the origin and evolution of Earth-like planets.”

Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft traveled to near-Earth asteroid Bennu and collected a sample of rocks and dust from the surface. OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid, delivered the sample to Earth on Sept. 24, 2023.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, provided overall mission management, systems engineering, and the safety and mission assurance for OSIRIS-REx. Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona, Tucson, is the principal investigator. The university leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft and provided flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace were responsible for navigating the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Curation for OSIRIS-REx takes place at NASA Johnson. International partnerships on this mission include the OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter instrument from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and asteroid sample science collaboration with JAXA’s Hayabusa2 mission. OSIRIS-REx is the third mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Find more information about NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission at:

https://www.nasa.gov/osiris-rex 

Goddard Digital Team

By Mikayla Mace Kelley
University of Arizona, Tucson 

Source: Surprising Phosphate Finding in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample - NASA

Charting super-colorful brain wiring using an AI's super-human eye

 

7-color fluorescence imaging with linear unmixing. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49455-y

The brain is the most complex organ ever created. Its functions are supported by a network of tens of billions of densely packed neurons, with trillions of connections exchanging information and performing calculations. Trying to understand the complexity of the brain can be dizzying. Nevertheless, if we hope to understand how the brain works, we need to be able to map neurons and study how they are wired.

Now, publishing in Nature Communications, researchers from Kyushu University have developed a new AI tool, which they call QDyeFinder, that can automatically identify and reconstruct individual neurons from images of the mouse brain. The process involves tagging neurons with a super-multicolor labeling protocol, and then letting the AI automatically identify the neuron's structure by matching similar color combinations.

"One of the biggest challenges in neuroscience is trying to map the brain and its connections. However, because neurons are so densely packed, it's very difficult and time-consuming to distinguish neurons with their axons and dendrites—the extensions that send and receive information from other neurons—from each other," explains Professor Takeshi Imai of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences, who led the study.

"To put it into perspective axons and dendrites are only about a micrometer thick, that's 100 times thinner than a standard strand of human hair, and the space between them is smaller."

Mouse cortical layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons were labeled with 7-color Tetbow. A combination of 7 fluorescent proteins (mTagBFP2, mTurquoise2, mAmetrine1.1, mNeonGreen, Ypet, mRuby3, tdKatushka2) was used to visualize the dense wiring of neurons. The 7-channel images were then analyzed by the QDyeFinder program to reveal the wiring patterns of individual neurons. Credit: Kyushu University/Takeshi Imai

One strategy for identifying neurons is to tag the cell with a fluorescent protein of a specific color. Researchers could then trace that color and reconstruct the neuron and its axons. By expanding the range of colors, more neurons could be traced at once. In 2018, Imai and his team developed Tetbow, a system that could brightly color neurons with the three primary colors of light.

"An example I like to use is the map of the Tokyo subway lines. The system spans 13 lines, 286 stations, and across over 300 km. On the subway map each line is color-coded, so you can easily identify which stations are connected," explains Marcus N. Leiwe one of the first authors of the paper and Assistant Professor at the time. "Tetbow made tracing neurons and finding their connections much easier."

However, two major issues remained. Neurons still had to be meticulously traced by hand, and using only three colors was not enough to discern a larger population of neurons.

The team worked to scale up the number of colors from three to seven, but the bigger problem then was the limits of human color perception. Look closely at any TV screen and you will see that the pixels are made up of three colors: blue, green, and red. Any color we can perceive is a combination of those three colors, as we have blue, green, and red sensors in our eyes.

"Machines on the other hand don't have such limitations. Therefore, we worked on developing a tool that could automatically distinguish these vast color combinations," continues Leiwe. "We also made it so that this tool will automatically stitch together neurons and axons of the same color and reconstruct their structure. We called this system QDyeFinder."

QDyeFinder works by first automatically identifying fragments of axons and dendrites in a given sample. It then identifies the color information of each fragment. Then, utilizing a machine-learning-algorithm the team developed called dCrawler, the color information was grouped together, wherein it would identify axons and dendrites of the same neuron.

"When we compared QDyeFinder's results to data from manually traced neurons they had about the same accuracy," Leiwe explains. "Even compared to existing tracing software that makes full use of machine learning, QDyeFinder was able to identify axons with a much higher accuracy."

The team hopes that their new tool can advance the ongoing quest to map the connections of the brain. They would also like to see if their new method can be applied to the labeling and tracking of other complicated cell types such as cancer cells and immune cells.

"There may come a day when we can read the connections in the brain and understand what they mean or represent for that person. I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, but our work represents a tangible step forward in understanding perhaps the most complicated and mysterious dimension of our existence," concludes Imai. 

by Kyushu University

Source: Charting super-colorful brain wiring using an AI's super-human eye (medicalxpress.com)  

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