Publication Date:
2013-12-11
Description:
The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) on the Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity rover began making detailed measurements of the cosmic ray and energetic particle radiation environment on the surface of Mars on 7 August 2012. We report and discuss measurements of the absorbed dose and dose equivalent from galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles on the martian surface for ~300 days of observations during the current solar maximum. These measurements provide insight into the radiation hazards associated with a human mission to the surface of Mars and provide an anchor point with which to model the subsurface radiation environment, with implications for microbial survival times of any possible extant or past life, as well as for the preservation of potential organic biosignatures of the ancient martian environment.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Hassler, Donald M -- Zeitlin, Cary -- Wimmer-Schweingruber, Robert F -- Ehresmann, Bent -- Rafkin, Scot -- Eigenbrode, Jennifer L -- Brinza, David E -- Weigle, Gerald -- Bottcher, Stephan -- Bohm, Eckart -- Burmeister, Soenke -- Guo, Jingnan -- Kohler, Jan -- Martin, Cesar -- Reitz, Guenther -- Cucinotta, Francis A -- Kim, Myung-Hee -- Grinspoon, David -- Bullock, Mark A -- Posner, Arik -- Gomez-Elvira, Javier -- Vasavada, Ashwin -- Grotzinger, John P -- MSL Science Team -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jan 24;343(6169):1244797. doi: 10.1126/science.1244797. Epub 2013 Dec 9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24324275" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
*Cosmic Radiation
;
Deinococcus/physiology/radiation effects
;
*Exobiology
;
*Extraterrestrial Environment
;
Humans
;
*Mars
;
Organic Chemicals/analysis
;
Radiation Dosage
;
Space Flight
;
Surface Properties/radiation effects
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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