The Global Search for Liquid Water on Mars from Orbit: Current and Future Perspectives.

Due to its significance in astrobiology, assessing the amount and state of liquid water present on Mars today has become one of the drivers of its exploration. Subglacial water was identified by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) aboard the European Space Agency spacecraft Mars Express through the analysis of echoes, coming from a depth of about 1.5 km, which were stronger than surface echoes. The cause of this anomalous characteristic is the high relative permittivity of water-bearing materials, resulting in a high reflection coefficient. A determining factor in the occurrence of such strong echoes is the low attenuation of the MARSIS radar pulse in cold water ice, the main constituent of the Martian polar caps. The present analysis clarifies that the conditions causing exceptionally strong subsurface echoes occur solely in the Martian polar caps, and that the detection of subsurface water under a predominantly rocky surface layer using radar sounding will require thorough electromagnetic modeling, complicated by the lack of knowledge of many subsurface physical parameters. Higher-frequency radar sounders such as SHARAD cannot penetrate deep enough to detect basal echoes over the thickest part of the polar caps. Alternative methods such as rover-borne Ground Penetrating Radar and time-domain electromagnetic sounding are not capable of providing global coverage. MARSIS observations over the Martian polar caps have been limited by the need to downlink data before on-board processing, but their number will increase in coming years. The Chinese mission to Mars that is to be launched in 2020, Tianwen-1, will carry a subsurface sounding radar operating at frequencies that are close to those of MARSIS, and the expected signal-to-noise ratio of subsurface detection will likely be sufficient for identifying anomalously bright subsurface reflectors. The search for subsurface water through radar sounding is thus far from being concluded.

The Moon's farside shallow subsurface structure unveiled by Chang'E-4 Lunar Penetrating Radar.

On 3 January 2019, China's Chang'E-4 (CE-4) successfully landed on the eastern floor of Von Kármán crater within the South Pole-Aitken Basin, becoming the first spacecraft in history to land on the Moon's farside. Here, we report the observations made by the Lunar Penetrating Radar (LPR) onboard the Yutu-2 rover during the first two lunar days. We found a signal penetration at the CE-4 landing site that is much greater than that at the CE-3 site. The CE-4 LPR images provide clear information about the structure of the subsurface, which is primarily made of low-loss, highly porous, granular materials with embedded boulders of different sizes; the images also indicate that the top of the mare basal layer should be deeper than 40 m. These results represent the first high-resolution image of a lunar ejecta sequence ever produced and the first direct measurement of its thickness and internal architecture.

[Molecular cloning and analysis of the 3' terminal sequence of duck hepatitis virus genome].

The authentic 3' terminal sequences of genomes of duck hepatitis virus (DHV) serotype I strain C80 and serotype I variant strain E63 were obtained by using 3' RACE and RT-PCR techniques. The analysis showed that 3' terminal sequences in the genomes of the two DHV strains include the 3D region of 1359 nucleotides (nt), the terminator codon TGA, and 3'untranslated region (UTR) of 314 nt. The poly (A) tails of C80 and E63 are 18 nt and 19 nt in length respectively. The deduced 3D proteins of 453 amino acids of both DHV strains contain the motifs KDELR, DxxxxD, GxxCSGxxxTxxxNS, YGDD, and FLKR characteristic for RNA polymerase of picornaviruses, which confirms DHV serotype I to be a member of Picornaviridae . The amino acid sequence identities among 3D protein of the two DHV strains with representatives of nine other picornavirus genera range from 16% to 37%, which are within the value ranges (18%-60%) of 3D amino acid sequence identities obtained from inter-genera comparisons. In addition, DHV serotype I possesses the longest 3'UTR in the family Picornaviridae. Phylogenetic analysis of 3D proteins indicated that DHV serotype I may belong to a separated genus of the family Picornaviridae.

Molecular analysis of duck hepatitis virus type 1.

The genome sequence of a duck hepatitis virus type 1 (DHV-1) strain was determined. Comparative sequence analysis showed that the genome possesses a typical picornarivus organization and also exhibits several unique features, such as the similarity of internal ribosome entry site to that of Porcine teschovirus 1 and Hepatitis C virus, the presence of a longest 3' untranslated region and a shorter leader protein in the Picornaviridae, the absence of a predicted maturation cleavage of VP0, the association of an aphthovirus-like 2A1 and parechovirus-like 2A2, and the unprecedented presence of an AIG1 domain in the N-terminus of 2A2. It is concluded that DHV-1 belongs to a new group of the family Picornaviridae that may form a separate genus most closely related to the genus Parechovirus.