[Sunday, September 2, 2007] The Mars Program Plan includes an integrated and coordinated set of future candidate missions and investigations that meet fundamental science objectives of NASA and the Mars Exploration Program (MEP).

[Sunday, September 2, 2007] ExoMars will seek evidence of organic compounds of biological and non-biological origin at the martian surface. One of the instruments in the Pasteur payload may be a Life Marker Chip.

[Monday, September 3, 2007] As noted in the Spring 2007 newsletter, nominations for the following ASGSB awards are due no later than 5 PM PST, October 1, 2007. Please note that the individual selected must be at the meeting to receive the award.

[Monday, September 3, 2007] Christner's discoveries of viable microbes in ancient ice cores and subglacial environments coupled with the realization that large quantities of liquid water exist beneath the Antarctic ice sheet have changed the way biologists view life in Antarctica.

[Monday, September 3, 2007] A switch from predominantly undersea volcanoes to a mix of undersea and terrestrial ones shifted the Earth's atmosphere from devoid of oxygen to one with free oxygen, according to geologists.

[Tuesday, September 4, 2007] NASA clean rooms, where scientists and engineers assemble spacecraft, have joined hot springs, ice caves, and deep mines as unlikely places where scientists have discovered ultra-hardy organisms collectively known as 'extremophiles'.

[Thursday, September 6, 2007] The impactor believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs and other life forms on Earth some 65 million years ago has been traced back to a breakup event in the main asteroid belt.

[Tuesday, September 11, 2007] Samples of micro organisms, antibodies, fluorescent dyes and rock are amongst a European payload which will be sent into near Earth orbit this week onboard an unmanned Russian spacecraft - exposing them to the extreme conditions found in space.

[Wednesday, September 12, 2007] The two agencies entered into an agreement that helps American scientists use the ISS to answer questions about human health and diseases. The pact signals to researchers the availability of a remarkable platform on which to conduct experiments.

[Wednesday, September 12, 2007] In 2008, NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is scheduled to land in the northern plains of Mars to determine if that environment could support life in the past or in geologically recent times.

[Wednesday, September 12, 2007] Wobbles on Mars cause ice ages that are much more dramatic than those on Earth, says astronomer Norbert Schorghofer of the University of Hawaii.

[Thursday, September 13, 2007] " ... you are invited to participate in a workshop to begin the process of identifying and crafting pioneering research to be conducted on board the ISS National Laboratory."

[Sunday, September 16, 2007] "... a combination of low-impact mission scope reductions and some new funding from the Mars Program's reserves pool, has been agreed upon. Together these measures effectively resolve the MSL cost increase issues identified at its CDR."

[Monday, September 17, 2007] An unmanned Foton spacecraft, carrying a payload of more than 40 ESA experiments, was successfully launched on Friday. The Soyuz-U launcher lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 13:00 CEST (11:00 GMT).

[Monday, September 17, 2007] Key components of a new approach to discover life on Mars were successfully launched into space Friday as part of a low-Earth orbit experiment to assess their survivability in the space radiation environment - a prelude future journeys to Mars.

[Thursday, September 20, 2007] Geochemists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are challenging commonly held ideas about how gases are expelled from the Earth.

[Thursday, September 20, 2007] False-color image of gully channels in a crater in the southern highlands of Mars, taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

[Thursday, September 20, 2007] This false-color image of the north polar layered deposits has been processed to emphasize color variations. It shows that the color as well as texture or morphology varies from layer to layer

[Thursday, September 20, 2007] NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is examining several features on Mars that address the role of water at different times in Martian history.

[Monday, September 24, 2007] New models from a team of MIT, NASA, and Carnegie scientists begin to describe an even wider range of Earth-size planets that astronomers might actually be able to find in the near future.

[Tuesday, September 25, 2007] A new study led by researchers from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University has shown that the tiniest passengers flown in space--microbes--can be affected by space flight, making them more infectious pathogens.

[Tuesday, September 25, 2007] NASA and the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, known as NSBRI, Houston, will fund 17 new research projects that will enable NASA to better understand and reduce radiation risks for the crews of future missions to the moon and Mars

[Tuesday, September 25, 2007] A team of scientists provides evidence that an asteroid impact likely caused the sudden climate changes that killed off the mammoths and other majestic beasts of prehistory.

[Wednesday, September 26, 2007] The reentry capsule for the Foton-M3 spacecraft, which has been in low-Earth orbit for the last 12 days, successfully landed this morning in an uninhabited area 150 km south of the town of Kustanay in Kazakhstan, close to the Russian border.

[Thursday, September 27, 2007] Two teams of scientists, including three researchers from UC Riverside, report that traces of oxygen appeared in Earth's atmosphere roughly 100 million years before the "Great Oxidation Event" 2.4 billion years ago.