A Turkish mother and her five-year-old son died after a fire broke out at a three-story house in a town near Berlin The fire broke out in the early morning hours of Sunday at a shop on the ground floor and quickly went out of control At least six other people were injured in the fire Police spokesman Roland Kamenz told public broadcaster RBB that authorities were investigating in all directions The police department appealed for witnesses and requested anyone with information to come forward and assist in the investigation This image offers a higher-resolution view of a portion of the fossil delta than any seen earlier the image includes the north end of a looping The image covers an area of about 3 by 3 kilometers (1.9 x 1.9 miles) It was produced using a technique called "compensated pitch and roll targeted observation," in which the rotation rate of the spacecraft is adjusted to match the ground speed under the camera this map-projected image is at 50 centimeters (20 inches) per pixel The first Mars Orbiter Camera narrow angle images of some of the landforms in the delta were acquired in 2000 during the Mars Global Surveyor primary mission but those pictures did not show very well the unambiguous inverted channel forms Not until the second Earth year of the orbiter's extended mission were the deltaic features recognized in Mars Orbiter Camera images obtained in March and June of 2002 Following the initial observations in 2002 the Mars Orbiter Camera team began a systematic effort to map the entire Eberswalde Crater delta Most of this imaging required slewing the whole spacecraft in a technique called "roll only targeted observation" so that it pointed the camera toward the feature the camera team was able to build up a mosaic of the delta much more quickly than would have been the case if the team had simply relied upon chance crossing of the delta by the orbiter's usual ground track This technique was not employed during Mars Global Surveyor's primary mission except in the search for Mars Polar Lander but became a routine part of the tool kit during the extended mission Even with the "roll only targeted observation" technique it took more than one Earth year to build up a complete mosaic of images of the delta the first data showing the deltaic landforms were archived and released to the public and scientific community long before the Mars Orbiter Camera team's analysis and mosaic were complete Some scientists began independent analyses of the landform at that time The initial analysis and announcement of the feature was finally published in November 2003 The Eberswalde delta provides the first clear "smoking gun" evidence that some valleys on Mars experienced persistent flow of a liquid with the physical properties of water over an extended period of time because the delta today is lithified -- that is hardened to form rock -- it provided the first unambiguous evidence that some martian sedimentary rocks were deposited in a liquid (presumably and crisscrossing channels at different elevations (one above the other) provided the clear geologic evidence for these interpretations After the sediments were deposited to form the delta the material was further buried by other materials -- probably sediments -- that are no longer present The entire package of buried material became cemented and hardened to form rock erosive processes such as wind stripped away the overlying rock the former floors of channels in the delta became inverted Channels can be inverted by erosion on both Earth and Mars Usually this happens when the channel floor is harder to erode than the surrounding material into which the channel was cut the channels on Earth and Mars have been filled by lava to make them more resistant to erosion the channel floors may have been rendered resistant to erosion either by being better-cemented than the surrounding material or composed of coarser-grained sediment (such as sand and gravel as opposed to silt) The Mars Orbiter Camera was built and is operated by Malin Space Science Systems a division of the California Institute of Technology manages Mars Global Surveyor for NASA's Science Mission Directorate Growth and Retreat of the CO2 Ice at the Martian Poles Landscape of Former Lakes and Streams on Northern Mars Hydrologic Modeling of Relatively Recent Martian Streams and Lake Newly Detailed Map of Mars' Crustal Thickness Using Gravity and Topography to Map Mars' Crustal Thickness Maps of Recurrent Slope Linea Markings on Mars Locations of Ice-Exposing Fresh Craters on Mars Related TopicsNews. NASA Orbiter Spots Curiosity Rover Making Tracks to Next Science Stop News. NASA’s Curiosity Rover May Have Solved Mars’ Missing Carbonate Mystery News. NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover Studies Trove of Rocks on Crater Rim Video. Meet the Mars Samples: Sapphire Canyon (Sample 25) News. Perseverance Rover Witnesses One Martian Dust Devil Eating Another Video. Perseverance Rover Captures Dust Devils Whirling Across Mars (Mars Report) News. How NASA’s Perseverance Is Helping Prepare Astronauts for Mars News. NASA’s Curiosity Rover Detects Largest Organic Molecules Found on Mars News. NASA: New Study on Why Mars Is Red Supports Potentially Habitable Past News. NASA’s Curiosity Rover Captures Colorful Clouds Drifting Over Mars Learn how our members and community are changing the worlds Our citizen-funded spacecraft successfully demonstrated solar sailing for CubeSats How artificial intelligence will shape the future of exploration Membership programs for explorers of all ages Accelerate progress in our three core enterprises — Explore Worlds or designate a core enterprise of your choice Empowering the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration The Eberswalde site is interesting because it is unarguably the best example of a delta on Mars It is in a small crater that was partially obscured by the Holden impact and forms an enclosed basin with clear inflowing channels (we know the source and the sink!) The hypothesis is that it was a long-lived lake with a large delta A delta environment is great because it is a location where you have a river bringing lots of sediment to a standing body of water the more likely they are to bury and preserve life (most of Earth's oil and natural gas are found in delta deposits for this reason) The landing site in Eberswalde crater is east of the delta itself on an area that includes small outcrops of what are thought to be sediments from the ancient lake Within the ellipse there are also inverted river channels as well as some examples of "megabreccia": giant jumbles of rocks from large craters The nice thing about deltas is that the coarser particles tend to be deposited first while the smaller grains (like clays) tend to stay in suspension and are deposited farther from the source This means that the landing site would encounter the stuff rich in clays first and also that we could use what we know about how deltas work to plan how to approach out study of Eberswalde Eberswalde satisfies all of the criteria that Roger Buick proposed on the first day of the workshop (I have heard that he was horrified to hear that people were actually taking his criteria seriously enough to decide where to land on Mars) It has a diverse set of sedimentary rocks formed in what was likely a location with long-lived water It may have been "recently" exhumed by erosion but the megabreccia units also seemed to have clays of a specific type that indicates moderate to high-pH conditions which are more favorable to life It was suggested that maybe the megabreccia could be ejecta from holden crater that ended up at the bottom of the Eberswalde lake and was altered there to form clays In the discussion of this site there were some concerns raised if this basin was once full of water but now isn't The answer given was that the water could have seeped or flowed away rather than evaporate there are lots of evaporites (sulfates) at the Opportunity landing site Someone else asked why the delta would be preserved but the lake floor deposits would be eroded The answer given was that coarser grains in the delta "armored" it from erosion but that made some people in the audience shake their heads Some of the comments were relevant to all of the sites such as the question of whether clays are really a requirement for habitability the case was made that regardless of the mineralogy there was fast sedimentation of fine grained stuff so it would be good for preservation anyway One of the biggest problems with this site is that it could be considered a "one trick pony" if we go there and confirm (or disprove?) that it is a delta and if there is no evidence of life preserved in the delta there's not really anything else to look at that might give you a different answer but the one trick pony argument is a good point You want to be able to test multiple different environments if possible but I have also heard others say that Holden has some of the same stuff that Eberswalde does Give today to have your gift matched up to $75,000 you join our mission to increase discoveries in our Solar System and beyond elevate the search for life outside our planet and decrease the risk of Earth being hit by an asteroid and exclusive opportunities to support space exploration The Planetary Society is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page ESA’s Mars Express has spotted a rare case of a crater once filled by a lake The delta is an ancient fan-shaped deposit of dark sediments The 65 km-diameter crater is visible as a semi-circle on the right of the image and was formed more than 3.7 billion years ago when an asteroid hit the planet The rim of the crater is intact only on its right-hand side The rest appears only faintly or is not visible at all A later impact created the 140 km diameter Holden crater that dominates the centre and left side of the image The expulsion of large amounts of material from that impact buried parts of Eberswalde the delta and its feeder channels are well preserved The delta covers an area of 115 square kilometres meandering feeder channels are visible towards the top of the crater After the deposition of the delta sediments in the crater’s ancient lake fresher sediments accumulated to cover up a major part of both the channels and the delta exposing an inverted relief of the delta structure first identified with NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is characteristic of the presence of a lake in the crater at that time Such features provide a clear indication that liquid water flowed across the surface of Mars in the planet’s early history Both Eberswalde crater and Holden crater were on the shortlist of four possible destinations for the next NASA Mars rover The main objective of the Mars Science Laboratory mission is the search for present or previously habitable environments on Mars ESA’s Mars Express mission has been helping in the search for the best landing site Eberswalde was proposed because its delta indicates the long-lasting presence of liquid water in the past and Holden Crater was a candidate because of its mineral diversity and many structures that again suggest past liquid water exposes some of the oldest clay-rich layers on Mars was selected as the mission’s landing site given its high mineral and structural diversity related to water Holden and Mawrth Vallis will get to hold on to their secrets for a while longer Metrics details Planetary scientists shortlist top landing sites on Mars Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Reprints and permissions Download citation Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science WASHINGTON — It's official: NASA's next Mars rover has a landing site NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is slated to launch in late November and will drop a car-size rover named Curiosity at the Gale crater "We are going to the mountain at Gale crater," Michael Watkins project engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena revealed in a press conference today (July 22) "It exhibits three different kinds of environmental settings a worthy challenge for such a capable rover." "Mars is firmly in our sights," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement "Curiosity not only will return a wealth of important science data but it will serve as a precursor mission for human exploration to the Red Planet." "Scientists identified Gale as their top choice to pursue the ambitious goals of this new rover mission," said Jim Green director for the planetary science division at NASA Headquarters in Washington "The site offers a visually dramatic landscape and also great potential for significant science findings." The agency revealed the landing site today (July 22) in a briefing hosted by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington The announcement coincides with the museum's celebration of Mars Day which commemorates the 35th anniversary of NASA's Viking 1 Mars landing on July 20 and eventually two finalists were identified: Eberswalde crater and Gale crater Eberswalde is largely considered one of the best deltas on Mars Each of the candidate sites "represent an incredible opportunity for MSL It was a very difficult decision to arrive at a final one," he said Targeted images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter which has been circling the Red Planet since 2006 provided detailed imagery of the potential landing sites that enabled scientists and engineers to evaluate safety concerns and the scientific benefits of each candidate location principal investigators and co-investigators then conducted a thorough review and unanimously selected Gale crater as the official landing site "All four of the final sites were really great candidates," Grant told SPACE.com there're still questions about how this mountain of material is in place All of them have very attractive attributes and some unknowns 'Which one offers us the broadest benefits to the objectives of MSL?'" the program scientists found the broadest benefits in Gale crater's diverse environmental settings "The Gale site represents an incredibly rich suite of scientific investigations that we can do," said Dawn Sumner a geologist at the University of California there are signatures of clays and sulfate salts and are both key classes of minerals that will reveal clues about the environment on Mars The Curiosity rover will expand on previous Mars exploration with its sophisticated onboard instruments The rover's science payload has the potential to identify organic carbon and other ingredients and compounds that make up the building blocks of biology Scientists are hoping that Curiosity will find minerals in the clay and sulfate-rich layers near the base of Gale crater's mountain "Gale gives us attractive possibilities for finding organics but that is still a long shot," said Michael Meyer lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters the site holds a diversity of features and layers for investigating changing environmental conditions some of which could inform a broader understanding of habitability on ancient Mars." And while Curiosity's mission does not include life detection the rover is expected to unearth clues about the habitability of the environments on the Red Planet very difficult challenge that we have for us," Grotzinger said "We hope to be able to be able to look for organic carbon What we can promise and deliver with MSL is an understanding of the environmental history of Mars." NASA revealed the landing site today (July 22) in a briefing hosted by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington The announcement coincides with the museum's celebration of Mars Day honoring the 35th anniversary of NASA's Viking 1 Mars landing on July 20 NASA's Curiosity rover will be the largest rover ever sent to Mars After launching from Florida later this year the rover will spend several months cruising toward Mars for a planned August 2012 landing The spacecraft weighs a ton and is roughly comparable in size to a Mini Cooper car The sophisticated rover is designed to study aspects of the Martian surface in greater detail than ever before boasting a suite of 10 different science instruments Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com. where she focuses on general science and climate change writing about rocket launches and covering NASA's final three space shuttle missions before joining the Live Science team in 2013 Denise has a bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and a master's degree in journalism from New York University Denise covers general science and climate change James Webb Space Telescope captures thousands of galaxies in a cosmic 'feast' (image) Astronomers gaze into 'dark nebula' 60 times the size of the solar system (video) 10 must-have 'Star Wars' books and novels coming soon to your galaxy after three days of fascinating science and heated discussion the fifth and final MSL landing site workshop has come to a close and the consensus is -- that all of the sites are pretty darn interesting and removed some points that I thought were false irrelevant or so obvious that they didn't merit their own bullet that some people brought up which weren't captured in draft available online but all of this tweaking and filtering on my part probably introduces my own bias my mental ranking of the sites was much less clear than it was going in the science at all of the sites is good enough based on what I saw at the meeting that it's hard for me to say which one would be best Hypothesis: The remnant of a delta at Eberswalde crater and other layered rocks in the crater record the evolution of a habitable lake The fine-grained minerals deposited by the delta concentrated and preserved organic molecules Hypothesis: The layers in the central mound preserve a record of habitable environments over a long period of Martian history Hypothesis: Holden crater preserves evidence of an evolving system of flowing water and a crater lake Hypothesis: Mawrth Vallis records the geologic processes during early Martian history when water was abundant and altered the rocks to form a wide variety of clay minerals Because it is such an old portion of the crust that has been subjected to so much water Mawrth would help us understand habitability on early Mars but this should at least give some idea of what the result of the public workshop was On Thursday the MSL science team met and talked about this some more but I wasn't there and they are sworn to secrecy so we will have to wait until the final decision is made by NASA HQ before finding out what happened during the Thursday meeting — NASA has whittled the possible landing sites for its next Mars rover down to two The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission will drop a car-size rover named Curiosity down to the Red Planet's surface at one of two craters: Gale or Eberswalde "We are thrilled to go to either one of these landing sites," John Grotzinger MSL project scientist at Caltech in Pasadena said after a press conference here at NASA's Kennedy Space Center "It's like two different flavors of ice cream — do you like chocolate or vanilla on Mars A final decision on Curiosity's destination will likely be made by the end of the month, Grotzinger added. [Vote Now! Where Should the Next Mars Rover Land?] NASA announced that it had chosen four possible landing sites for Curiosity the options included another crater named Holden and an apparent flood channel known as Mawrth Vallis so it needs to look in spots where liquid water once flowed (Mars' surface appears to be bone-dry today) Scientists think Eberswalde is an ancient river delta containing gullies and other features carved by running water long ago "Eberswalde has one or two extra attributes that set it apart," Grotzinger said Mawrth Vallis was ultimately axed in part because researchers don't think they understand its geologic history as well as they know Gale's "It's really hard to understand the context of what's going on there," Grotzinger said of Mawrth Vallis "There were just a lot more question marks." Gale Crater is a standout choice on its own merits A mountain nearly 3 miles (5 kilometers) high rises from its center the rover will chug partway up this mountain analyzing the many different rock layers it encounters along the way "Those are chapters in the history of the environmental evolution of Mars," Grotzinger said Curiosity is much larger than any previous Mars rover; it's the size of a Mini Cooper and weighs about a ton The rover's heft necessitated the development of an entirely new system to deliver it to the Martian surface their landing ellipses were about 93 by 50 miles (150 by 80 km) The sky crane's increased precision is a big asset It allows MSL mission planners to choose a landing site based entirely on the science they want to perform rather than go for a spot that is safe and flat (and thus probably relatively boring geologically) The $2.5 billion MSL mission is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral toward the end of November and arrive at the Red Planet in August 2012 Curiosity will investigate the Martian landscape in detail with a suite of 10 different instruments but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California James Webb Space Telescope finds coldest exoplanet ever seen A satellite orbiting Mars has discovered evidence that a giant crater was once a water-filled lake The rare find was revealed by the presence of a delta where flowing water has deposited sediment in a characteristic fan shape The 40-mile wide (65-kilometer) crater is bone dry today, but is another sign of Mars' wetter ancient past, scientists said. [See photos of Mars crater delta] The discovery was made by the European Space Agency's Mars Express satellite, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since 2003 The crater looks like a semi-circle indentation on the right side of the image Scientists think it was formed more than 3.7 billion years ago by an asteroid that slammed into the planet Only the right side of the crater is intact The rest has been covered over by the larger Holden crater which was formed by a space rock that impacted later kicking up debris that buried parts of Eberswalde Holden crater can be seen toward the left of the photo that the telltale forms of the 44 square-mile (115 square km) delta can be seen squiggly lines represent feeder channels that would have carried water and sediment Overall, the delta features paint a picture of a once-full lake filling the crater, providing clear signs that the surface of Mars once flowed with liquid water which boasts high amounts of minerals and possible signs of past water She covers everything from astronomy to human spaceflight and once aced a NASTAR suborbital spaceflight training program for space missions Clara is currently Associate Editor of Scientific American NASA's next Mars rover will be the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) NASA has scientists scouting for landing sites that might extend the Martian water story beyond Opportunity's glimpse at Meridiani Roughly 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles) southwest of Meridiani lies Holden Crater Holden and surroundings contain two potential sites where MSL could study ancient water-flow deposits and large piles of debris at canyon mouths These suggest a long history of deposits by water scientists have spotted what is surely the remnant of a river delta combining images taken by day and night at infrared wavelengths uses false colors to show the nature of the surface materials It was taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) a multi-color camera on NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter areas with high abundances of rocks and hardened deposits show up in reddish tints Areas with a mixture of these extremes display yellows and greens Holden shows an interesting variety of surface materials Yet it would be just another large crater if it had not formed (by asteroid impact) on what may be the longest watercourse on Mars the Uzboi-Ladon-Margaritifer channel system This is a series of connected valleys that stretches from the rim of the Argyre impact basin in the southern highlands thousands of kilometers north to Chryse Planitia on the northern plains Uzboi Vallis breaks Holden's rim in its southwest quadrant where water flowing through the valley dumped layered sediments on the floor water flowing down Uzboi cut through the rim and spilled into the crater some scientists are studying a site where Uzboi broke through the crater's rim and left layered deposits that have partly eroded in geo-jargon) that lies just northwest of the layered sediments MSL would drive over to the layered deposits and explore them and it's within driving distance of the layered sediments The fan itself might have some geological interest because it undoubtedly contains rocks that eroded from the rim which is far too rough and steep for any rover to tackle studies of the rocks may tell about how much water carried them down from the rim Running on electricity from a powerful nuclear-isotope generator (and not dust-vulnerable solar panels) MSL will have a minimum driving range of 20 km (12 miles) and likely can travel much farther Opportunity and Spirit have so far driven about 8 km (5 mi) each but were designed to cover just 600 meters (2,000 feet) But despite being more powerful and capable MSL will follow the pattern established by previous Mars rovers as it seeks a balance between scientific goals and engineering risk Safety constraints will probably always force flight controllers to set Mars landers down at "airports" - smooth areas relatively free of deep dust and large rocks is the ability to drive away from the airport - in other words smooth areas with sites of geological interest nearby scientists have spotted a geologically fascinating site - but whether it's trafficable by MSL remains to be decided Eberswalde is about 65 km (40 mi) wide and is much older than Holden Scientists think it's likely that pieces of debris from the Holden impact lie everywhere in Eberswalde thus going there with MSL might give scientists two craters in one But it's not Holden's ejecta that draws scientific interest to Eberswalde - it's the curious feature on the crater's western floor this is almost certainly the remains of a river delta The Eberswalde delta displays layered sediments and crosscutting channels - closely resembling what happens on Earth when a river with a winding channel empties into a body of standing water It's a smaller version of what rivers like the Mississippi (in its natural state) build at their mouths the delta (which actually looks like one delta partly covering another) grew from streams flowing into Eberswalde through its western rim The delta deposits thus likely contain rock samples and sediments from a large drainage area to the west of Eberswalde There's no "local airport" here - no 20-kilometer-wide circle smooth enough to land on - nor are there any within reasonable driving range although scientists are studying the area for a safe landing site In the center of Holden stands a small range of hills Central peaks like these are a common feature of craters larger than a dozen kilometers across The peaks are made of rocks from deep below the crater site that were dragged up by the impact force They offer scientists a look at rocks that would otherwise be hidden - which might make them a good target for MSL The central peaks are surrounded by merging alluvial fans so the slopes are probably not too steep for the new rover But the reddish color suggests the slopes have a lot of bare rock exposed which would probably take the form of boulders MSL can straddle rocks half a meter high (20 inches) But if it encounters ones bigger than that it has to drive around them - provided they are not so numerous that it can't Yet MSL might not even get close to the central peaks which indicates the ground around them is largely covered in fine sand or dust MSL could find itself literally spinning its wheels in a field of dunes The Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) is launching a new unique English-language Master’s study programme in winter semester 2018/2019: The new Forestry System Transformation (FST) study programme raises the number of courses in the Forest and Environment faculty to a total of five global forest management will have to deal with a growing number of interests and conflicts of objectives in the field of forest cultivation which will have a decisive effect on benefits and quality of life The aim is to deploy innovative political and economical instruments strategies and evaluation methods to extend and support the range of forest ecosystem goods and services on a sustainable basis such as biodiversity protection and climate protection keeping air and water clean as well as the aesthetic and health-promoting benefits of the forest are recorded and analysed from a pronounced socio-economic and innovative perspective to promote their integration into political and economic decision-making processes In the course of the 4-semester study programme students will develop an understanding of the impact of changing conditions and changing use of forest resources on forest ecosystems ecosystem goods and services and the connected value-added chains graduates are given the skills to recognise social trends initiate processes of change and critically examine and actively participate in such processes from new wood products to political transformation processes accompany students throughout the programme and prepare them for their own practical transformation project The degree programme is geared towards graduates of forestry applied forestry or environmental sciences degrees Areas of employment include national and international companies in the fields of bioeconomy politics and business consulting as well as accreditation companies and planning offices which project a substantial demand for specialists dateFormat['de_DE'])+ ' - '+item['institution']+' Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde Weitere Pressemitteilungen dieser Einrichtung