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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2010

Resilience of Alaska's Boreal Forest to Climatic Change

This paper assesses the resilience of Alaska s boreal forest system to rapid climatic change. Recent warming is associated with reduced growth of dominant tree species, plant disease and insect outbreaks, warming and thawing of permafrost, drying of lakes, increased wildfire extent, increased postfire recruitment of deciduous trees, and reduced safety of hunters traveling on river ice. These changes have modified key structural features, feedbacks, and interactions in the boreal forest, including reduced effects of upland permafrost on regional hydrology, expansion of boreal forest into tundra, and amplification of climate warming because of reduced albedo (shorter winter season) and carbon release from wildfires. Other temperature-sensitive processes for which no trends have been detected include composition of plant and microbial communities, long-term landscape-scale change in carbon stocks, stream discharge, mammalian population dynamics, and river access and subsistence opportunities for rural indigenous communities. Projections of continued warming suggest that Alaska s boreal forest will undergo significant functional and structural changes within the next few decades that are unprecedented in the last 6000 years. The impact of these social ecological changes will depend in part on the extent of landscape reorganization between uplands and lowlands and on policies regulating subsistence opportunities for rural communities.

Chapin, F. S., III↗
NASA NTRS2024

Merged and Gridded GPM and Atmospheric River Data Product

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission Core Observatory satellite launched in 2014 as a joint mission between National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and JAXA. Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) has, since that time, provided continuous, valuable dual-frequency radar and passive microwave radiometer observations. Here, we introduce a gridded data set of collocated GPM Core Observatory observational products merged with a reanalysis-derived Atmospheric river (AR) data set in the North Atlantic and North Pacific sectors. The three data sets that are merged and gridded are: (a) the NASA Goddard Profiling (GPROF) precipitation product, which uses GPM passive microwave radiometer observations to derive surface precipitation rates, (b) a water vapor data product derived from the GPM Core Observatory radiometer, provided by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), and (c) the Mattingly et al. (2018, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018jd028714) AR data set that is specifically tuned to the high-latitude regions. This novel merged data set spans from May 2014 to December 2022 with plans to update annually through 2026 at minimum. This gridded product combines RSS passive water vapor and precipitation estimates with coincident AR detection. This data product benefits the scientific community by providing (a) user-friendly gridded satellite data compared to standard satellite data sets, while maintaining high temporal resolution, and (b) coincident satellite observations to assess the link between ARs and precipitation.

Marian E Mateling↗
DOE OSTI2025

Detector Materials Scoping Study: Research and Development Recommendations

Radiation detection materials have a unique role in many nuclear security missions. The variety of different applications requires the use of different materials whose characteristics are determined by the specific application requirements. While baseline capabilities have been established to use radiation detection in these applications, the potential to greatly advance those capabilities still exists through the development of superior radiation detection materials and/or the development of new materials that enable new technologies to be implemented more effectively. In 2024 the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (DNN R&D) Near Field Detection Portfolio charged a detector materials scoping study, composed of a group of radiation-detection materials subject matter experts, to produce a community-wide consensus view of the current state of radiation materials research and to set recommendations for expanded investment over a ten-year time frame. This scoping study sought to understand and document the landscape of how radiation detection materials are used, what characteristics drive the selection of various materials, and what developments are needed to drive the state of the art. To respond to this charge, the scoping study created three working groups, each focusing on a different topical area in radiation detection materials research - Semiconductor Materials, Inorganic Scintillators and Organic Scintillators - with the task to identify the current state of the art in materials research and to provide mission-relevant research and development recommendations. Each working group was chaired by two members of the project team with widely recognized expertise in the field. Solicitations were sent out to experts at the DOE national laboratories, industry, academia and federal government agencies to participate in these working groups. The working groups met at regular intervals throughout 2024 and early 2025, each delivering a technical roadmap designed to enable the pursuit of R&D more intensely on high-impact materials challenges and detector solutions that are deemed as the greatest strategic value to DNN R&D and its stakeholders. The roadmap is also intended to help communicate recommended programmatic priorities within DNN R&D and across the nonproliferation and research communities.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS1995

Quality Audit in the Fastener Industry

Both the financial and quality communities rely on audits to verify customers records. The financial community is highly structured around three categories of risk, INHERENT RISK, CONTROL RISK, and DETECTION RISK. Combined, the product of these three categories constitute the AUDIT RISK. The financial community establishes CONTROL RISK based in large part on a systems level understanding of the process flow. This system level understanding is best expressed in a flowchart. The quality community may be able to adopt this structure and thereby reduce cost while maintaining and enhancing quality. The quality community should attempt to flowchart the systems level quality process before beginning substantive testing. This theory needs to be applied in several trial cases to prove or disprove this hypothesis

Reagan, John R.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Phenomena Portal: Large- Scale Visual Exploration of Atmospheric Phenomena

The Earth science community is experiencing a high influx of remote sensing data due to recent advancements in sensor technology. This enables the community to extend their research on a larger scale than ever before. Unfortunately, traditional data processing techniques do not scale well to these new, high volume data sources. State-of-the-art machine learning (ML) pipelines have been proven to overcome these burdens in various other fields but are underexploited within the physical sciences community. Moreover, ML is reliant on labeled data, which is currently sparsely available, owing to the fact that ML adoption is still in the early stages within the Earth and atmospheric science communities. To address these issues, we developed the Phenomena Portal, a visual exploration tool that uses ML to detect various atmospheric phenomena on a global scale. This allows the Earth and atmospheric science communities to view trends of occurrences of phenomena, identify potential relationships between them, and analyze spatiotemporal patterns over time. These detections can also serve as initial labeled data for ML research pertaining to the respective phenomena. The tool also incorporates feedback from subject matter experts to further improve the model detection accuracy, thereby facilitating human-in-the-loop. This presentation will provide an overview of the ML model development and cloud deployment. We also discuss the capabilities of the user interface for displaying the detections.

Muthukumaran Ramasubramanian↗
NASA NTRS1997

Biodiversity within hot spring microbial mat communities: molecular monitoring of enrichment cultures

We have begun to examine the basis for incongruence between hot spring microbial mat populations detected by cultivation or by 16S rRNA methods. We used denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to monitor enrichments and isolates plated therefrom. At near extincting inoculum dilutions we observed Chloroflexus-like and cyanobacterial populations whose 16S rRNA sequences have been detected in the 'New Pit' Spring Chloroflexus mat and the Octopus Spring cyanobacterial mat. Cyanobacterial populations enriched from 44 to 54 degrees C and 56 to 63 degrees C samples at near habitat temperatures were similar to those previously detected in mat samples of comparable temperatures. However, a lower temperature enrichment from the higher temperature sample selected for the populations found in the lower temperature sample. Three Thermus populations detected by both DGGE and isolation exemplify even more how enrichment may bias our view of community structure. The most abundant population was adapted to the habitat temperature (50 degrees C), while populations adapted to 65 degrees C and 70 degrees C were 10(2)- and 10(4)-fold less abundant, respectively. However, enrichment at 70 degrees C favored the least abundant strain. Inoculum dilution and incubation at the habitat temperature favored the more numerically relevant populations. We enriched many other aerobic chemoorganotrophic populations at various inoculum dilutions and substrate concentrations, most of whose 16S rRNA sequences have not been detected in mats. A common feature of numerically relevant cyanobacterial, Chloroflexus-like and aerobic chemorganotrophic populations, is that they grow poorly and resist cultivation on solidified medium, suggesting plating bias, and that the medium composition and incubation conditions may not reflect the natural microenvironments these populations inhabit.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS2001

Culturability as an indicator of succession in microbial communities

Successional theory predicts that opportunistic species with high investment of energy in reproduction and wide niche width will be replaced by equilibrium species with relatively higher investment of energy in maintenance and narrower niche width as communities develop. Since the ability to rapidly grow into a detectable colony on nonselective agar medium could be considered as characteristic of opportunistic types of bacteria, the percentage of culturable cells may be an indicator of successional state in microbial communities. The ratios of culturable cells (colony forming units on R2A agar) to total cells (acridine orange direct microscopic counts) and culturable cells to active cells (reduction of 5-cyano-2,3-ditolyl tetrazolium chloride) were measured over time in two types of laboratory microcosms (the rhizosphere of hydroponically grown wheat and aerobic, continuously stirred tank reactors containing plant biomass) to determine the effectiveness of culturabilty as an index of successional state. The culturable cell:total cell ratio in the rhizosphere decreased from approximately 0.25 to less than 0.05 during the first 30-50 days of plant growth, and from 0.65 to 0.14 during the first 7 days of operation of the bioreactor. The culturable cell:active cell ratio followed similar trends, but the values were consistently greater than the culturable cell:total cell ratio, and even exceeded I in early samples. Follow-up studies used a cultivation-independent method, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphisms (TRFLP) from whole community DNA, to assess community structure. The number of TRFLP peaks increased with time, while the number of culturable types did not, indicating that the general decrease in culturability is associated with a shift in community structure. The ratio of respired to assimilated C-14-labeled amino acids increased with the age of rhizosphere communities, supporting the hypothesis that a shift in resource allocation from growth to maintenance occurs with time. Results from this work indicate that the percentage of culturable cells may be a useful method for assessing the successional state of microbial communities.

NASA Center KSC↗
DOE OSTI2025

Vortical interactions in turbulent thermoacoustic systems

This study examines the dynamics of vortical interactions and their implications for mitigating thermoacoustic instability in a turbulent combustor. The regions of intense vortical interactions are identified as vortical communities in the network space of weighted directed vortical networks constructed from two-dimensional experimental velocity data. One can expect vortical interactions in the combustor to be strongest near the moment of vortex shedding, as the shed vortices gradually weaken due to dissipation while convecting downstream. However, we show that, during the state of thermoacoustic instability, there is a non-trivial consistent phase lag of approximately 52° between the shedding of the coherent structures from the backward-facing step and the time instant when the vortical interactions attain their local maximum value. We explain this phase lag by investigating the correlation between acoustic pressure fluctuations, spatio-temporal dynamics of coherent structures and vortical interactions in the reaction field of the combustor. We also show the aperiodic variation of vortical interactions during the states of combustion noise and aperiodic epochs of intermittency. Furthermore, the spatio-temporal evolution of pairs of vortical communities with the maximum inter-community interactions provides insight into explaining the critical regions detected in the reaction field during the states of intermittency and thermoacoustic instability, also identified in previous studies. As a result, we further show that the most efficient suppression of thermoacoustic instability via air microjet injection is achieved when steady air jets are introduced to disrupt the maximum inter-community interactions present during the state of thermoacoustic instability.

Sahay, Ankit [Indian Institute of Technology Madra↗
DOE OSTI2024

Deep learning models map rapid plant species changes from citizen science and remote sensing data

Anthropogenic habitat destruction and climate change are reshaping the geographic distribution of plants worldwide. However, we are still unable to map species shifts at high spatial, temporal, and taxonomic resolution. Here, we develop a deep learning model trained using remote sensing images from California paired with half a million citizen science observations that can map the distribution of over 2,000 plant species. Our model— Deepbiosphere— not only outperforms many common species distribution modeling approaches (AUC 0.95 vs. 0.88) but can map species at up to a few meters resolution and finely delineate plant communities with high accuracy, including the pristine and clear-cut forests of Redwood National Park. These fine-scale predictions can further be used to map the intensity of habitat fragmentation and sharp ecosystem transitions across human-altered landscapes. In addition, from frequent collections of remote sensing data, Deepbiosphere can detect the rapid effects of severe wildfire on plant community composition across a 2-y time period. These findings demonstrate that integrating public earth observations and citizen science with deep learning can pave the way toward automated systems for monitoring biodiversity change in real-time worldwide.

Gillespie, Lauren E.↗
NASA NTRS2017

ExEP Yield Modeling Tool and Validation Test Results

EXOSIMS is an open-source simulation tool for parametric modeling of the detection yield and characterization of exoplanets. EXOSIMS has been adopted by the Exoplanet Exploration Programs Standards De nition and Evaluation Team (ExSDET) as a common mechanism for comparison of exoplanet mission concept studies. To ensure trustworthiness of the tool, we developed a validation test plan that leverages the Python-language unit-test framework, utilizes integration tests for selected module interactions, and performs end-to-end cross- validation with other yield tools. This paper presents the test methods and results, with the physics-based tests such as photometry and integration time calculation treated in detail and the functional tests treated summarily. The test case utilized a 4m unobscured telescope with an idealized coronagraph and an exoplanet population from the IPAC radial velocity (RV) exoplanet catalog. The known RV planets were set at quadrature to allow deterministic validation of the calculation of physical parameters, such as working angle, photon counts and integration time. The observing keepout region was tested by generating plots and movies of the targets and the keepout zone over a year. Although the keepout integration test required the interpretation of a user, the test revealed problems in the L2 halo orbit and the parameterization of keepout applied to some solar system bodies, which the development team was able to address. The validation testing of EXOSIMS was performed iteratively with the developers of EXOSIMS and resulted in a more robust, stable, and trustworthy tool that the exoplanet community can use to simulate exoplanet direct-detection missions from probe class, to WFIRST, up to large mission concepts such as HabEx and LUVOIR.

Nunez, Paul↗
DOE OSTI2026

Vera C. Rubin Observatory Prompt Products: alert packets data

Data products produced by prompt and daily processing of images obtained in the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. These include realtime alerts sent to community alert brokers, newly-discovered Solar System Objects reported to the Minor Planet Center, processed visit and difference images, and source catalogs. Prompt Products are not a static single data release but continually grow throughout the ten-year LSST survey. This dataset is a subset of the full data release consisting of a dataset named alert packets. This dataset contains measurements for 5-sigma sources detected in difference images that were issued to the community brokers.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1998

Tropospheric Wind Profile Measurements with a Direct Detection Doppler Lidar

Research has established the importance of global tropospheric wind measurements for large scale improvements in numerical weather prediction. In addition, global wind measurements provide data that are fundamental to the understanding and prediction of global climate change. These tasks are closely linked with the goals of the NASA Earth Science Enterprise and Global Climate Change programs. NASA Goddard has been actively involved in the development of direct detection Doppler lidar methods and technologies to meet the wind observing needs of the atmospheric science community. In this paper we describe a recently developed prototype wind lidar system using a direct detection Doppler technique for measuring wind profiles from the surface through the troposphere. This system uses a pulsed ND:YAG laser operating at 1064 nm as the transmitter. The laser pulse is directed to the atmosphere using a 40 cm diameter scan mirror. The portion of the laser energy backscattered from aerosols and molecules is collected by a 40 cm diameter telescope and coupled via fiber optics into the Doppler receiver. Single photon counting APD's are used to detect the atmospheric backscattered signal. The principle element of the receiver is a dual bandpass tunable Fabry Perot etalon which analyzes the Doppler shift of the incoming laser signal using the double edge technique. The double edge technique uses two high resolution optical filters having bandpasses offset relative to one another such that the 'edge' of the first filter's transmission function crosses that of the second at the half power point. The outgoing laser frequency is located approximately at the crossover point. Due to the opposite going slopes of the edges, a Doppler shift in the atmospheric backscattered laser frequency produces a positive change in signal for one filter and a negative change in the second filter. Taking the ratio of the two edge channel signals yields a result which is directly proportional to the component of the wind along the line-of-sight of the laser. Measuring the radial wind in several directions provides sufficient information to determine the true wind speed and direction. The lidar has operated from our laboratory at Goddard since June, 1997. Wind profiles have been obtained to altitudes of 12 km with a vertical resolution of 330 in. Vector wind data are obtained by rotating the scan mirror to measure line-of-sight wind profiles for at least two azimuth angles at an elevation angle of 45 degrees. The precision of the data as determined from the standard deviation of multiple independent lidar profiles is in the range of 1 to 3 m/sec up to 10 km. Good agreement is obtained when the lidar data are compared with the upper air rawinsonde soundings taken at Dulles airport. Examples of the wind lidar data will be presented along with a description of the instrument and future developments.

Gentry, Bruce M.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Utilizing the MODIS 1.38 micrometer Channel for Cirrus Cloud Optical Thickness Retrievals: Algorithm and Retrieval Uncertainties

The cloud products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on Terra and Aqua have been widely used within the atmospheric research community. The retrieval algorithms, however, oftentimes have difficulty detecting and retrieving thin cirrus, due to sensitivities to surface reflectance. Conversely, the 1.38 micron channel, located within a strong water vapor absorption band, is quite useful for detecting thin cirrus clouds since the signal from the surface can be blocked or substantially attenuated by the absorption of atmospheric water vapor below cirrus. This channel, however, suffers from nonnegligible attenuation due to the water vapor located above and within the cloud layer. Here we provide details of a new technique pairing the 1.38 micron and 1.24 micron channels to estimate the above/in-cloud water vapor attenuation and to subsequently retrieve thin cirrus optical thickness (tau) from attenuation-corrected 1.38 p.m reflectance measurements. In selected oceanic cases, this approach is found to increase cirrus retrievals by up to 38% over MOD06. For these cases, baseline 1.38 micron retrieval uncertainties are estimated to be between 15 and 20% for moderately thick cirrus (tau > 1), with the largest error source being the unknown cloud effective particle radius, which is not retrieved with the described technique. Uncertainties increase to around 90% for the thinnest clouds (tau < 0.5) where instrument and surface uncertainties dominate.

Meyer, Kerry↗
NASA NTRS2013

Discriminating Phytoplankton Functional Types (PFTs) in the Coastal Ocean Using the Inversion Algorithm Phydotax and Airborne Imaging Spectrometer Data

There is a need in the Biological Oceanography community to discriminate among phytoplankton groups within the bulk chlorophyll pool to understand energy flow through ecosystems, to track the fate of carbon in the ocean, and to detect and monitor-for harmful algal blooms (HABs). The ocean color community has responded to this demand with the development of phytoplankton functional type (PFT) discrimination algorithms. These PFT algorithms fall into one of three categories depending on the science application: size-based, biogeochemical function, and taxonomy. The new PFT algorithm Phytoplankton Detection with Optics (PHYDOTax) is an inversion algorithm that discriminates taxon-specific biomass to differentiate among six taxa found in the California Current System: diatoms, dinoflagellates, haptophytes, chlorophytes, cryptophytes, and cyanophytes. PHYDOTax was developed and validated in Monterey Bay, CA for the high resolution imaging spectrometer, Spectroscopic Aerial Mapping System with On-board Navigation (SAMSON - 3.5 nm resolution). PHYDOTax exploits the high spectral resolution of an imaging spectrometer and the improved spatial resolution that airborne data provides for coastal areas. The objective of this study was to apply PHYDOTax to a relatively lower resolution imaging spectrometer to test the algorithm's sensitivity to atmospheric correction, to evaluate capability with other sensors, and to determine if down-sampling spectral resolution would degrade its ability to discriminate among phytoplankton taxa. This study is a part of the larger Hyperspectral Infrared Imager (HyspIRI) airborne simulation campaign which is collecting Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) imagery aboard NASA's ER-2 aircraft during three seasons in each of two years over terrestrial and marine targets in California. Our aquatic component seeks to develop and test algorithms to retrieve water quality properties (e.g. HABs and river plumes) in both marine and in-land water bodies. Results presented are from the 10 April 2013 overflight of the Monterey Bay region and focus primarily on the first objective - sensitivity to atmospheric correction. On-going and future work will continue to evaluate if PHYDOTax can be applied to historical (SeaWiFS and MERIS), existing (MODIS, VIIRS, and HICO), and future (PACE, GEO-CAPE, and HyspIRI) satellite sensors. Demonstration of cross-platform continuity may aid in calibration and validation efforts of these sensors.

Biological Oceanography↗
NASA NTRS2005

Vacuum Attachment for XRF Scanner

Vacuum apparatuses have been developed for increasing the range of elements that can be identified by use of x-ray fluorescent (XRF) scanners of the type mentioned in the two immediately preceding articles. As a consequence of the underlying physical principles, in the presence of air, such an XRF scanner is limited to analysis of chlorine and elements of greater atomic number. When the XRF scanner is operated in a vacuum, it extends the range of analysis to lower atomic numbers - even as far as aluminum and sodium. Hence, more elements will be available for use in XRF labeling of objects as discussed in the two preceding articles. The added benefits of the extended capabilities also have other uses for NASA. Detection of elements of low atomic number is of high interest to the aerospace community. High-strength aluminum alloys will be easily analyzed for composition. Silicon, a major contaminant in certain processes, will be detectable before the process is begun, possibly eliminating weld or adhesion problems. Exotic alloys will be evaluated for composition prior to being placed in service where lives depend on them. And in the less glamorous applications, such as bolts and fasteners, substandard products and counterfeit items will be evaluated at the receiving function and never allowed to enter the operation

Schramm, Harry F.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wastewater Surveillance for Poliovirus in Selected Jurisdictions, United States, 2022–2023

Wastewater testing can inform public health action as a component of polio outbreak response. During 2022-2023, a total of 7 US jurisdictions (5 states and 2 cities) participated in prospective or retrospective testing of wastewater for poliovirus after a paralytic polio case was identified in New York state. Two distinct vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 viruses were detected in wastewater from New York state and New York City during 2022, representing 2 separate importation events. Of those viruses, 1 resulted in persistent community transmission in multiple New York counties and 1 paralytic case. No poliovirus was detected in the other participating jurisdictions (Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, and Illinois and Chicago, IL). The value of routine wastewater surveillance for poliovirus apart from an outbreak is unclear. However, these results highlight the ongoing risk for poliovirus importations into the United States and the need to identify undervaccinated communities and increase vaccination coverage to prevent paralytic polio.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2001

Introduction to Mars Sampling Handling Workshop Series. Workshop on Life Detection: Issues and Topics

Before martian soil and rock samples can be distributed to the research community, the returned materials will initially be quarantined and examined in a proposed BSL-4 containment facility to assure that no putative martian microorganisms or attendant potential biohazards exist. During the initial quarantine, state-of-the-art life detection and biohazard testing of the returned martian samples will be conducted. Life detection, as defined here in regard to Mars sample return missions, is the detection of living organisms and/or materials that have been derived from living organisms that may be present in the sample.

Rummel, John D.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Application of Computer Tomography for Life Detection

Perhaps one of the most fundamentally difficult challenges facing those who would search for life is that of scale determination. Spatial scales of life on Earth range over more than 15 orders of magnitude in mass and volume, and more than 8 orders of magnitude in 2 dimensional space. If the distribution of life is sparse in comparison to the background on which it is found, then the choice of the right scale is critical to finding that life. But how does one identify the proper scale? To put this in other words, how does one recognize the "haystacks" in which the needles (biosignatures and evidence of life) might be most profitably searched for? The problem is further exacerbated when conditions get extreme because much of the life moves from the clement surface environment into the pores and more clement environments inside of rocks, minerals and soils. Once encased in their lithic homes, these microbes become nearly impossible to study by standard techniques because of the opacity of the rocks. It is this problem that we propose to address in the work proposed here. Computer Tomography (CT) has been a very valuable tool in medicine, where the best resolution available has typically been of the order of about 0.5 mm. However, to adapt the approach for life detection of microbial endoliths, the resolution needs to be moved to the micrometer and even submicrometer levels. Thus for the studies proposed here, we begin with a commercially available instrument that can yield resolution of approximately 10 micrometers. The rational for this is twofold: first, this is the "state of the art" in laboratory instruments; and second, that while the usual size of a microbial cell is about 1 micron, microorganisms tend to live in communities that usually exceed the 10 micrometer size range. The resolution also depends on the sample size itself, so having a small lab instrument into which small samples can be placed will be beneficial to the resolution. We have now used several different CT systems, beginning with the medical scanners (Arcadia CT group) for the detection of layered communities in sandstone rocks from Antarctica. Even this crude instrument was able to point to the areas of the rock that were dominated by microbial populations - this provides the critical first information that says, "Go back and look at these sites with other methods." We showed that without sample preparation or destruction it was possible to gain knowledge as to the presence of density differences suggestive of life.

Tsapin, A.↗