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Rosalind Franklin’s Overlooked Role in the Discovery of DNA’s Structure

By: Sarah Pruitt

Published: March 25, 2024

It’s one of the most famous moments in the history of science: On February 28, 1953, Cambridge University molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick determined that the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA—the molecule carrying the genetic code unique to any individual—was a double helix polymer, a spiral consisting of two strands of DNA wound around one another.

Nearly 10 years later, Watson and Crick, along with biophysicist Maurice Wilkins, received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for uncovering what they called the “secret of life.” Yet another person was missing from the award ceremony, whose work was vital to the discovery of DNA’s structure. Rosalind Franklin was a chemist and X-ray crystallographer who studied DNA at King’s College London from 1951 to 1953, and her unpublished data paved the way for Watson and Crick’s breakthrough.

An Unflattering Portrayal in Watson's Account

Franklin, who died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at the age of 37, was ineligible to receive the Nobel, which is not given posthumously. Yet debate over her role in the discovery of DNA’s structure and her failure to be recognized for it began simmering after the publication of Watson’s bestselling book The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA in 1968 and its highly unflattering portrait of Franklin.

“Watson portrayed Franklin as this kind of evil figure—a schoolmarmish, shrewish person,” says Nathaniel Comfort, a historian of medicine at Johns Hopkins University who is working on a biography of the famed molecular biologist. Watson also related in his book that he and Crick had gained access to Franklin’s data without her knowledge, including the now-famous Photograph 51, an X-ray image of DNA that immediately convinced Watson that the molecule’s structure must be a helix.

Watson’s treatment of Franklin in The Double Helix provoked a robust backlash among those who viewed her as a victim of betrayal, sexism and misogyny, including Franklin’s friend Anne Sayre, who published a biography of Franklin in 1975 . Comfort argues that this view also obscures the more complicated truth of Franklin’s contributions. As he and Matthew Cobb argued in a 2023 article in Nature , a reconsideration of the available evidence suggests that Franklin should be recognized not as a martyr, but as an equal contributor to solving the double helix structure of DNA.

Rosalind Franklin: Expert Crystallographer

In 1951, Franklin joined a team of biophysicists led by John Randall at King’s College who were using X-ray crystallography to study DNA. The molecule had been discovered in 1869, but its structure and function weren’t yet understood. After learning X-ray crystallography at a government-run lab in France, she was already an expert in the scientific technique, which involves beaming X-rays at crystalline structures and taking photographs of the patterns created by atoms in the structures diffracting the X-rays. By measuring the sizes, angles and intensities of the patterns, researchers can create a 3-D picture of the crystalline structure.

From the beginning, Franklin famously clashed with Wilkins, who was Randall's deputy, and the two began working largely separately from one another. Wilkins had previously identified two forms of DNA appearing in the X-ray images; Franklin discovered that by adjusting the level of humidity in the specimen chamber, she could convert the crystalline, relatively dry “A” form of DNA into the wetter, paracrystalline “B” form. She shared these key insights into DNA at a seminar in November 1951, which Watson attended.

“Her notes for that lecture are very detailed,” Comfort says, adding that Franklin initially assumed both the A and B forms had a helical structure. “She describes DNA as a big helix, describes the two forms and lays out their differences…and [explains] how the structure switches from A to B depending on the relative humidity in the sample chamber.”

Franklin’s ‘Photograph 51’

Despite capturing clear evidence of the B form’s double helical structure—most notably in what became known as Photograph 51, taken in May 1952—Franklin chose to focus on the drier A form of DNA, which produced a much sharper, more detailed image than the B form. This focus pointed her away from the idea of a helix, because the A form did not appear to be helical.

“For a chemist and an X-ray crystallographer, she was doing the [form] that made the most sense,” Comfort says. “She wasn't a biologist, and so she didn't appreciate that in a living cell, the more hydrated B form was going to be much more present, because a cell is a very wet place.”  

In February 1953, Wilkins showed Photograph 51 of the B form of DNA to his friend Watson at Cambridge, who along with Crick was attempting to determine the molecule’s structure mainly through building and analyzing physical models. Wilkins received the image from Raymond Gosling, who worked for both Wilkins and Franklin and had taken the photo with Franklin.

Watson later claimed that seeing Photograph 51 immediately convinced him that a DNA helix must exist. “The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race,” he wrote in The Double Helix . Soon after that, Crick’s supervisor passed along a report on Franklin’s unpublished results, which he had received during a visit to the King’s College lab in December 1952. By late February 1953, Watson and Crick had constructed their model of the DNA double helix, which they formally announced in a landmark paper in Nature that April.

To Comfort, Watson’s version of events doesn’t ring entirely true when it comes to Photograph 51 and its importance. “Watson talks [in The Double Helix ] about realizing only then that there was an A and a B form…but Franklin talked about that at the end of 1951, and she and Wilkins talked about it openly,” Comfort says. “I think he was writing it as though the photograph was the magic key because it made a good discovery narrative that allowed him to boil down and communicate an enormously complex, highly technical kind of science.”

Franklin’s Understanding of DNA’s Structure

Comfort also discounts the idea that Franklin, an expert crystallographer, did not understand the significance of the X-ray diffraction image she and Gosling had taken of DNA’s B form 10 months earlier. “She was way too good for that,” he says.

In fact, Franklin was simply more focused on the A form of DNA at the time, and was also in the process of leaving King’s College behind for a new job at Birkbeck College, also in London. Before she left, however, Franklin started a new laboratory notebook, with notes on the B form of DNA.

By late February 1953, Franklin’s notes reveal that she had not only accepted that DNA had a helical structure, probably with two strands; she had also recognized that the component nucleotides, or bases, on each strand were related in a way that made the strands complementary, allowing the molecule to easily replicate. “Franklin’s colleague Aaron Klug analyzed her research notes and said that Franklin was ‘two steps away’ from the double helix,” Comfort says. “Given a couple more months, she surely would have had it.”

Both Wilkins and Franklin (with Gosling) published separate papers in the same April 1953 issue of Nature , largely supporting Watson and Crick’s model of DNA’s structure. The earliest presentation of the double helix that June was signed by authors of all three papers, suggesting—as Comfort and Cobb point out in their article—that the discovery of DNA was seen at the time as a joint effort, not just the triumph of Watson and Crick.

Taking Full Measure of Franklin’s Contributions

Over the next five years, Franklin led a team of researchers studying ribonucleic acid, or RNA, in viruses such as polio and the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV). Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1956, Franklin continued her work until days before her death in April 1958. Franklin also remained in regular contact with Watson and Crick after she left King’s College, even becoming good friends with Crick and his wife, Odile.

Franklin’s unjust exclusion from the Nobel Prize, combined with Watson’s decidedly sexist portrayal in The Double Helix led many to see her as a victim of chauvinism and betrayal. A more complicated view of events reveals a scientist who was an equal contributor to the discovery of DNA’s structure, as well as a trailblazer in the all-important field of virology.

“Franklin had an incredible series of insights into how the RNA is packed within the protein shell of TMV,” Comfort says. “She was widely recognized and seen as being at the top of her field.”

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• 25 April 2023

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure

• Matthew Cobb 0 &
• Nathaniel Comfort 1

Matthew Cobb is professor of zoology at the University of Manchester, UK.

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Nathaniel Comfort is professor of history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

Chemist Rosalind Franklin independently grasped how DNA’s structure could specify proteins. Credit: Photo Researchers/Science History Images/Alamy

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James Watson and Francis Crick are two of the twentieth century’s most renowned scientists. The seminal paper from the pair at the University of Cambridge, UK, detailing the discovery of the DNA double helix, was published as part of a trio in Nature 70 years ago this week 1 – 3 . They are also widely believed to have hit on the structure only after stealing data from Rosalind Franklin, a physical chemist working at King’s College London.

Lore has it that the decisive insight for the double helix came when Watson was shown an X-ray image of DNA taken by Franklin — without her permission or knowledge. Known as Photograph 51, this image is treated as the philosopher’s stone of molecular biology, the key to the ‘secret of life’ (not to mention a Nobel prize). In this telling, Franklin, who died of ovarian cancer in 1958 at just 37, is portrayed as a brilliant scientist, but one who was ultimately unable to decipher what her own data were telling her about DNA. She supposedly sat on the image for months without realizing its significance, only for Watson to understand it at a glance.

This version of events has entered into popular culture. It is the subject of Photograph 51 , a play by Anna Ziegler that starred Nicole Kidman on the London stage in 2015 . The image graces a British 50 pence coin that marked the centenary of Franklin’s birth, in 2020. The whole affair has provided fodder for scornful Twitter jokes (“What did Watson and Crick discover in 1953? Franklin’s data.”) and even a marvellous rap battle by seventh-grade students in Oakland, California .

But this is not what happened.

How Rosalind Franklin was let down by DNA’s dysfunctional team

One of us (N.C.) is writing a biography of Watson, the other (M.C.) is writing one of Crick. In 2022, we visited Franklin’s archive at Churchill College in Cambridge, UK, and went through her notes together, reconstructing the development of her ideas. We also found a hitherto unstudied draft news article from 1953, written in consultation with Franklin and meant for Time , a US magazine with international reach — as well as an overlooked letter from one of Franklin’s colleagues to Crick. Together, these documents suggest a different account of the discovery of the double helix. Franklin did not fail to grasp the structure of DNA. She was an equal contributor to solving it.

Getting Franklin’s story right is crucial, because she has become a role model for women going into science. She was up against not just the routine sexism of the day, but also more subtle forms embedded in science — some of which are still present today.

Franklin and DNA

In the early 1950s, the structure and function of DNA remained unclear. It had been found in every cell type investigated, and was known to consist of a phosphate backbone to which were attached four kinds of base — adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine (A, T, C and G).

In 1944, the microbiologist Oswald Avery and his colleagues had shown that DNA (not protein) could transform benign Streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria into a virulent form 4 . But it remained far from clear that it was the genetic material in all organisms.

At King’s College London, biophysicists funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC), and led by John Randall, with Maurice Wilkins as his deputy (who would later share the Nobel prize with Watson and Crick in 1962), were using X-ray diffraction to study the structure of the molecule. In 1951, they were joined by Franklin, who had been using this technique to investigate the structure of coal at the Central State Laboratory of Chemical Services in Paris.

Maurice Wilkins (left), James Watson and Francis Crick at the ceremony for the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Credit: King’s College London Archives: K/PP178/15/3/1

As is well known, Franklin and Wilkins clashed, in both personality and scientific approach. Although Franklin relished a good argument and was determined to make progress, Wilkins abhorred confrontation and was slower to act. To ease tensions, Randall divvied up the DNA work. In what Wilkins later called a bad bargain for himself, he agreed to turn over to Franklin the small supply of very pure DNA that he had obtained from the Swiss chemist Rudolf Signer. Wilkins was stuck with poorer quality stuff from the Austrian biochemist Erwin Chargaff, at Columbia University in New York City.

With the Signer DNA, Franklin was able to exploit a discovery that Wilkins had made earlier — DNA in solution could take two forms, what she called the crystalline or A form, and the paracrystalline or B form. Franklin found that she could convert A into B simply by raising the relative humidity in the specimen chamber; lowering it again restored the crystalline A form.

Franklin focused on the A form, Wilkins on the B form. To a physical chemist, the crystalline form seemed the obvious choice. When bombarded with X-rays in front of a photographic plate, it yielded sharp, detailed diffraction patterns. More detail meant more data, which meant a more accurate, albeit more difficult analysis. The B form, by contrast, yielded patterns that were blurrier and less detailed, but simpler to analyse. Initially, Franklin understood both A and B as helical. In notes for a seminar she gave in November 1951, she described them collectively: “big helix with several chains, phosphates on outside, phosphate–phosphate interhelical bonds, disrupted by water” 5 .

Unable to resolve the A-form structure, Franklin had decided by the middle of 1952 that it was not actually helical — she even teased Wilkins with a mock funeral notice for the crystalline DNA helix 6 . She was not alone in being thrown off by the A-form data: after the double-helix paper 1 had been published, Crick wrote of Franklin’s precise but complex, data-rich A-form image, “I am glad I didn’t see it earlier, as it would have worried me considerably” 7 .

The double helix and the ‘wronged heroine’

As for the B form, she and everyone else at King’s recognized that it was some kind of helix. But to Franklin it was a distraction. At high humidity, water molecules crowded the atoms in DNA, producing a structure she described as “swollen”, “distended”, disordered. “Anyway,” she wrote in the notes for her 1951 seminar, under increased humidity, “the stuff ultimately dissolves, i.e. chains are separated from one another by water” 5 . She saw the B form as an artefact of being water-logged, a symptom of the loss of crystalline order — hence “paracrystalline”. This explains why, in late 1952 and early 1953, she rejected the argument that DNA was intrinsically helical.

From a chemist’s perspective, Franklin’s decision to focus on the crystalline A form was perfectly logical, as were the conclusions she drew from analysing it. But her focus on the drier A form ignored the very wet reality of the inside of a cell — which would mean that DNA took the more humid B form. Together with her insistence that the diffraction data be fully analysed before any modelling was attempted, it would hamper Franklin’s efforts for more than a year.

The meaning of Photograph 51

Even Franklin’s advocates often unwittingly perpetuate a caricatured view of her science — one that can be traced back to Watson’s reality-distorting 1968 bestseller, The Double Helix 8 . Watson’s version of the next, crucial stage in the story is often repeated to highlight how Franklin was deprived of due credit. Inadvertently, this undermines her.

According to Watson, in early 1953, he visited King’s and got into a row with Franklin. Wilkins, he wrote, rescued him from the confrontation and then showed him Photograph 51, a particularly clear image of the B form, taken 8 months earlier by Franklin and her graduate student Raymond Gosling. Franklin had put the photograph aside to concentrate on the A form. She was preparing to transfer to Birkbeck College, also in London, and had been instructed to leave her DNA work behind. Gosling was now being supervised by Wilkins, and he had given Wilkins the photograph. (He says he did so with Franklin’s knowledge 9 .) The image, Watson claimed in The Double Helix , showed that a DNA helix “must exist” — only a helical structure could produce those marks 8 .

Because of Watson’s narrative, people have made a fetish of Photograph 51. It has become the emblem of both Franklin’s achievement and her mistreatment.

Franklin and Gosling’s X-ray diffraction image of B DNA, known as Photograph 51. Credit: King's College London Archives/Science Photo Library

But Watson’s narrative contains an absurd presumption. It implies that Franklin, the skilled chemist, could not understand her own data, whereas he, a crystallographic novice, apprehended it immediately. Moreover, everyone, even Watson, knew it was impossible to deduce any precise structure from a single photograph — other structures could have produced the same diffraction pattern. Without careful measurements — which Watson has insisted he did not make — all the image revealed was that the B form was probably some kind of helix, which no one doubted. Furthermore, various lines of evidence — including The Double Helix itself, read carefully — show that it played little, if any, part in Watson and Crick’s inching towards the correct structure between January and March 1953. In fact, it was other data from Franklin and Wilkins that proved crucial, and even then, what really happened was less malicious than is widely assumed.

Watson did get a jolt from seeing the photograph — because of when he saw it. Just days before, the Cambridge group had received a manuscript from the US chemist Linus Pauling, in which he’d claimed to have solved the DNA structure. Although Pauling had made some elementary errors, Lawrence Bragg, head of the Cavendish Laboratory, who had a long-standing rivalry with Pauling, had encouraged Watson and Crick to resume their model building. Watson had dropped in at King’s to show off Pauling’s blunder, and Wilkins had shown him the photograph. Fashioning that moment into the climax of The Double Helix was a literary device: a classic eureka moment, easy for lay readers to understand.

From 1951, Wilkins had kept Watson and Crick abreast of his work on the B form, in particular his belief that the structure contained one or more helices, repeated every 34 angstroms, and he might have said that within each repeat there were probably 10 elements. Shortly after Watson saw Photograph 51, Crick’s supervisor, Max Perutz, handed them an informal report of the activity of the King’s MRC unit, which he had been given as part of an official visit to the unit in December 1952. This included a page from Franklin, describing her work. In a 1969 letter to Science , although Perutz said that he regretted sharing the report without first consulting the King’s group, it was not confidential 10 . Indeed, a letter we have discovered from a King’s researcher, Pauline Cowan, written to Crick in January 1953, invites Crick to a talk by Franklin and Gosling, who, Cowan continues, “say that it is mostly for a non-crystallographic audience + that Perutz already knows more about it than they are likely to get across so you may not think it worthwhile coming”. Thus, Franklin seems to have assumed that Perutz would share his knowledge with Crick as part of the usual informal scientific exchange 11 .

In her contribution to the MRC report, Franklin had confirmed the 34 Å result for the B form. She also reported that the unit cell (the repeating unit of the crystal) of DNA was huge; it contained a larger number of atoms than any other unit cell in any other known molecular structure. Franklin also added some key crystallographic data for the A form, indicating that it had a ‘C2’ symmetry, which in turn implied that the molecule had an even number of sugar-phosphate strands running in opposite directions.

Notes by Crick for a lecture on the history of the double helix, given to historians of science at the University of Oxford in May 1961, together with formal and informal remarks made throughout his life, reveal that, unlike Photograph 51, this report was truly significant for confirming the structure that Watson and Crick eventually obtained.

In the end, however, neither Photograph 51 nor the MRC report ‘gave’ Watson and Crick the double helix. What did was six weeks of what they later described as “trial and error” — making chemical calculations and fiddling about with cardboard models. (Watson made this plain in The Double Helix ; Crick did so in a series of interviews with the historian Robert Olby in the late 1960s and early 1970s.)

Franklin’s data and Watson and Crick’s many conversations with Wilkins had provided what seem like key pieces of information — the phosphate groups were on the outside of the molecule; there was a repeat every 34 Å; perhaps there were ten bases per repeat and an even number of strands running in opposite directions (the implication of the C2 symmetry). Yet, according to their own accounts, the pair ignored every one of these facts at one point or another during those six weeks. Once they had hit on a conceptual model of the structure, the MRC report provided a valuable check on their assumptions.

So it was not a case of them stealing the King’s group’s data and then, voila, those data gave them the structure of DNA. Instead, they solved the structure through their own iterative approach and then used the King’s data — without permission — to confirm it.

What Franklin really did

Franklin contributed several key insights to the discovery of the double helix. She clearly differentiated the A and B forms, solving a problem that had confused previous researchers. (X-ray diffraction experiments in the 1930s had inadvertently used a mixture of the A and B forms of DNA, yielding muddy patterns that were impossible to fully resolve.) Her measurements told her that the DNA unit cell was enormous; she also determined the C2 symmetry exhibited by that unit cell 12 .

The C2 symmetry was one of 230 types of crystallographic 3D ‘space groups’ that had been established by the end of the nineteenth century. Franklin failed to appreciate its significance not because she was obtuse, but because she was unfamiliar with it. According to her colleague Aaron Klug, Franklin later said that she “could have kicked herself” for not realizing the structural implications 13 . Crick did realize the implications because he happened to have studied C2 symmetry intensely. But even he did not use Franklin’s determination of this symmetry when building the model; rather, it provided a powerful corroboration when their model was complete.

James Watson (left) and Francis Crick modelled the structure of the DNA double helix. Credit: A. Barrington Brown, Gonville & Caius College/Science Photo Library

Franklin also grasped, independently, one of the fundamental insights of the structure: how, in principle, DNA could specify proteins. In February 1953, she was working hard to finish her analyses of DNA before leaving King’s. The A form had continued to resist her attempts to interpret it, so she had turned to the much simpler, clearly helical B form. Her notes reveal that by late February, she had accepted that the A form was also probably helical, with two strands, and she had realized that the order of the bases on a given strand had no effect on the overall structure. This meant that any sequence of bases was possible. As she noted, “an infinite variety of nucleotide sequences would be possible to explain the biological specificity of DNA” 14 . This idea, which Watson and Crick grasped at around the same time, had first been proposed in 1947 by chemist John Masson Gulland at University College Nottingham, UK (now the University of Nottingham) 15 .

Franklin did not apprehend complementary base-pairing — that A could bond only with T and C only with G, with each pair of bases forming an identical structure in the molecule. In fact, she was not working with the correct forms of the bases, so she could not have made a satisfactory model had she tried (the same was true of Watson and Crick until the very last phase of their work). Neither did she realize that her data implied that the two strands were oriented in different directions — or that the B form, found at high levels of humidity, must be the biologically functional form. (The A form is found only under laboratory conditions.) She did not have time to make these final leaps, because Watson and Crick beat her to the answer.

Franklin did not succeed, partly because she was working on her own without a peer with whom to swap ideas. She was also excluded from the world of informal exchanges in which Watson and Crick were immersed. Even though some at the time — notably the researchers at King’s and a small flock of what Watson called “minor Cambridge biochemists” 16 — were not happy about Watson and Crick’s use of the King’s group’s data, the lead scientists at the Cavendish — Perutz, Bragg, John Kendrew — thought it was quite normal. And there is no evidence that Franklin thought otherwise.

Acknowledging the truth

After Watson and Crick had read the MRC report, they could not unsee it. But they could have — and should have — requested permission to use the data and made clear exactly what they had done, first to Franklin and Wilkins, and then to the rest of the world, in their publications.

In April 1953, Nature published three back-to-back papers on DNA structure, from Watson and Crick, from Wilkins and his co-workers, and from Franklin and Gosling 1 – 3 . Watson and Crick declared that they had been “stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas” of Wilkins and Franklin. They insisted, though, that they were “not aware of the details”, claiming that the structure “rests mainly though not entirely on published experimental data and stereochemical arguments” 1 . The truth of those statements depends on highly charitable interpretations of “details” and “mainly though not entirely”.

Rosalind Franklin was so much more than the ‘wronged heroine’ of DNA

In a full description of the structure in a paper submitted in August 1953 and published in 1954, Crick and Watson did attempt to set the record straight 17 . They acknowledged that, without Franklin’s data, “the formulation of our structure would have been most unlikely, if not impossible”, and implicitly referred to the MRC report as a “preliminary report” in which Franklin and Wilkins had “independently suggested that the basic structure of the paracrystalline [B] form is helical and contains two intertwined chains”. They also noted that the King’s researchers “suggest that the sugar-phosphate backbone forms the outside of the helix and that each chain repeats itself after one revolution in 34 Å”.

This clear acknowledgement of both the nature and the source of the information Watson and Crick had used has been overlooked in previous accounts of the discovery of the structure of DNA. As well as showing the Cambridge duo finally trying to do the right thing, it strengthens our case that Franklin was an equal member in a group of four scientists working on the structure of DNA. She was recognized by her colleagues as such, although that acknowledgement was both belated and understated. All this helps to explain one of the lasting enigmas of the affair — why neither Franklin nor Wilkins ever questioned how the structure had been discovered. They knew the answer, because they expected that Perutz would share his knowledge and because they had read Watson and Crick’s 1954 article 17 .

Three weeks after the three DNA papers were published in Nature , Bragg gave a lecture on the discovery at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London, which was reported on the front page of the British News Chronicle daily newspaper. This drew the attention of Joan Bruce, a London journalist working for Time . Although Bruce’s article has never been published — or described by historians, until now — it is notable for its novel take on the discovery of the double helix.

Bruce portrayed the work as being done by “two teams”: one, consisting of Wilkins and Franklin, gathering experimental evidence using X-ray analysis; “the other” comprising Watson and Crick, working on theory. To a certain extent, wrote Bruce, the teams worked independently, although “they linked up, confirming each other’s work from time to time, or wrestling over a common problem”. For example, Watson and Crick had “started to work on the double helix theory as a result of Wilkins’ X-rays”. Conversely, she wrote, Franklin was “checking the Cavendish model against her own X-rays, not always confirming the Cavendish structural theory” 18 . It has not escaped our notice that both examples render Franklin in a position of strength, every bit a peer of Wilkins, Crick and Watson.

Unfortunately, Bruce was not so strong on the science. Her article got far enough for Time to send a Cambridge photographer, Anthony Barrington Brown, to shoot portraits of Watson and Crick, and for Watson to tell his friends to watch for it 19 . But it never appeared, perhaps because Franklin told Bruce that it needed an awful lot of work to get the science straight. Bruce’s take on the discovery was buried, and Barrington Brown’s compelling images disappeared until Watson resurrected the best of them 15 years later, for The Double Helix 20 .

It is tantalizing to think how people might remember the double-helix story had Bruce’s article been published, suitably scientifically corrected. From the outset, Franklin would have been represented as an equal member of a quartet who solved the double helix, one half of the team that articulated the scientific question, took important early steps towards a solution, provided crucial data and verified the result. Indeed, one of the first public displays of the double helix, at the Royal Society Conversazione in June 1953, was signed by the authors of all three Nature papers 1 – 3 , 21 . In this early incarnation, the discovery of the structure of DNA was not seen as a race won by Watson and Crick, but as the outcome of a joint effort.

According to journalist Horace Freeland Judson and Franklin’s biographer, Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin has been reduced to the “wronged heroine” of the double helix 22 , 23 . She deserves to be remembered not as the victim of the double helix, but as an equal contributor to the solution of the structure.

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Are you applying to rfums explore the campus using the virtual tour below..

Virtual tours are a great way to refresh your memory or to preview an on-site tour of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

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At the beginning of your college search, a virtual tour can be a beneficial tool to explore the campus before your visit. When you do visit the campus, be sure to talk to current students about their experiences. A student perspective is a helpful way to gauge your future experience when attending RFUMS. Already took an on-campus tour? It's inevitable. All of your college tours will blend, and you might forget the appearance of Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science's library, dorms, or cafeteria. Use the virtual tour to jog your memory! With the interactive mapping tool below you can even explore the area surrounding the campus.

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Rosalind Franklin

(1920-1958)

Who Was Rosalind Franklin?

Rosalind Franklin earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Cambridge University. She learned crystallography and X-ray diffraction, techniques that she applied to DNA fibers. One of her photographs provided key insights into DNA structure. Other scientists used it as evidence to support their DNA model and took credit for the discovery. Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958, at age 37.

Early Years

Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born into an affluent and influential Jewish family on July 25, 1920, in Notting Hill, London, England. She displayed exceptional intelligence from early childhood, knowing from the age of 15 that she wanted to be a scientist. She received her education at several schools, including North London Collegiate School, where she excelled in science, among other things.

Franklin enrolled at Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1938 and studied chemistry. In 1941, she was awarded Second Class Honors in her finals, which, at that time, was accepted as a bachelor's degree in the qualifications for employment. She went on to work as an assistant research officer at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association, where she studied the porosity of coal—work that was the basis of her 1945 Ph.D. thesis "The physical chemistry of solid organic colloids with special reference to coal."

In the fall of 1946, Franklin was appointed at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l'Etat in Paris, where she worked with crystallographer Jacques Mering. He taught her X-ray diffraction, which would play an important role in her research that led to the discovery of "the secret of life"—the structure of DNA. In addition, Franklin pioneered the use of X-rays to create images of crystallized solids in analyzing complex, unorganized matter, not just single crystals.

DNA, Scientific Discoveries and Credit Controversy

In January 1951, Franklin began working as a research associate at the King's College London in the biophysics unit, where director John Randall used her expertise and X-ray diffraction techniques (mostly of proteins and lipids in solution) on DNA fibers. Studying DNA structure with X-ray diffraction, Franklin and her student Raymond Gosling made an amazing discovery: They took pictures of DNA and discovered that there were two forms of it, a dry "A" form and a wet "B" form. One of their X-ray diffraction pictures of the "B" form of DNA, known as Photograph 51, became famous as critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA. The photo was acquired through 100 hours of X-ray exposure from a machine Franklin herself had refined.

John Desmond Bernal, one of the United Kingdom’s most well-known and controversial scientists and a pioneer in X-ray crystallography, spoke highly of Franklin around the time of her death in 1958. "As a scientist Miss Franklin was distinguished by extreme clarity and perfection in everything she undertook," he said. "Her photographs were among the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken. Their excellence was the fruit of extreme care in preparation and mounting of the specimens as well as in the taking of the photographs."

Despite her cautious and diligent work ethic, Franklin had a personality conflict with colleague Maurice Wilkins, one that would end up costing her greatly. In January 1953, Wilkins changed the course of DNA history by disclosing without Franklin's permission or knowledge her Photo 51 to competing scientist James Watson, who was working on his own DNA model with Francis Crick at Cambridge.

Upon seeing the photograph, Watson said, "My jaw fell open and my pulse began to race," according to author Brenda Maddox, who in 2002 wrote a book about Franklin titled Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA.

The two scientists did, in fact, use what they saw in Photo 51 as the basis for their famous model of DNA, which they published on March 7, 1953, and for which they received a Nobel Prize in 1962. Crick and Watson were also able to take most of the credit for the finding: When publishing their model in Nature magazine in April 1953, they included a footnote acknowledging that they were "stimulated by a general knowledge" of Franklin's and Wilkins' unpublished contribution, when in fact, much of their work was rooted in Franklin's photo and findings. Randall and the Cambridge laboratory director came to an agreement, and both Wilkins' and Franklin's articles were published second and third in the same issue of Nature . Still, it appeared that their articles were merely supporting Crick and Watson's.

According to Maddox, Franklin didn't know that these men based their Nature article on her research, and she didn't complain either, likely as a result of her upbringing. Franklin "didn't do anything that would invite criticism … [that was] bred into her," Maddox was quoted as saying in an October 2002 NPR interview.

Franklin left King's College in March 1953 and relocated to Birkbeck College, where she studied the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus and the structure of RNA. Because Randall let Franklin leave on the condition that she would not work on DNA, she turned her attention back to studies of coal. In five years, Franklin published 17 papers on viruses, and her group laid the foundations for structural virology.

Illness and Death

In the fall of 1956, Franklin discovered that she had ovarian cancer. She continued working throughout the following two years, despite having three operations and experimental chemotherapy. She experienced a 10-month remission and worked up until several weeks before her death on April 16, 1958, at the age of 37.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Rosalind Elsie
• Birth Year: 1920
• Birth date: July 25, 1920
• Birth City: Notting Hill, London, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: British chemist Rosalind Franklin is best known for her role in the discovery of the structure of DNA, and for her pioneering use of X-ray diffraction.
• World War II
• Education and Academia
• Science and Medicine
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• Newnham College
• Cambridge University
• Death Year: 1958
• Death date: April 16, 1958
• Death City: London, England
• Death Country: United Kingdom

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Rosalind Franklin Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/scientists/rosalind-franklin
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: June 15, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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7,902 RSF of office/lab space.  Each space includes access to conference rooms, autoclaves, dark labs, open lab spaces, common areas, and more.

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5,940 RSF of office/lab space.  Each space includes access to conference rooms, autoclaves, dark labs, open lab spaces, common areas, and more.

THIRD FLOOR

6,913 RSF of office/lab space.  Each space includes access to conference rooms, autoclaves, dark labs, open lab spaces, common areas, and more.

FOURTH FLOOR

3,157 RSF of office/lab space.  Each space includes access to conference rooms, autoclaves, dark labs, open lab spaces, common areas, and more.

For additional park information, visit:  https://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/research/innovation-and-research-park/ .

Jonathan Metzl

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A Moscow Free Walking Tour of the Iconic Red Square

Updated March 10th, 2020

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No visit to Moscow, Russia is complete unless you take a walk around the famous Red Square and see the iconic sights of the city. One of the best ways to see all the famous landmarks in Moscow and learn a little something about them too is on a free Moscow walking tour through the Red Square.

Continue reading for a sneak peek at what you will see on your free tour in Moscow and for tips on both the tour and visiting the sights. Make sure to save some time during your trip to go inside of the magnificent buildings because you will not be going in the buildings during the tour.

The State Historical Museum

The Moscow free walking tour begins at the Marshal Zhukov monument in front of the State Historical Museum . You can’t miss this massive red building. The museum’s interior is almost as spectacular as the artifacts you can see within. Read my post dedicated to the museum here to find out more on what you can see and tips for visiting. Admission is free with the Moscow City Pass .

The Kremlin

Behind the walls of the Kremlin lie the working offices of Russian’s government and president. When visiting the Kremlin you can see the Armory Chamber, Cathedral Square, the Patriach’s Palace and many more cathedrals. You definitely want to buy tickets ahead of time so you avoid the long-lines. You can get free admission with the Moscow City Pass . It’s also worth it to take a guided tour if you don’t speak Russian so you have more of an understanding of what you are seeing.

St. Basil’s Cathedral

If asked to conquer up an image of Moscow, St. Basil’s Cathedral might just be the most likely image you picture. The cathedral has a museum that you can visit at a later time. You can buy tickets at the ticket kiosk outside the cathedral or receive free admission with the Moscow City Pass .

Moskva River

Next up on the tour is the Moskva River which runs through the center of Moscow. A cruise on the Moskva River is a great way to see the city from a different perspective.

GUM Shopping Mall

Who would think a mall would be one of Moscow’s most well-known attractions? GUM shopping mall across from the Kremlin makes up one of the four sides of the Red Square. The stores might be a bit too pricey for shopping, but the gorgeous interior is worth a visit. If that doesn’t convince you, the mall has some of the best ice cream! GUM is the only building you go inside during the free walking tour. There are pay bathrooms you can use while you have a few minutes of free time.

Kazan Cathedral

Located on the northeast corner of the Red Square, the Kazan Cathedral is another impressive dome-shaped building in Moscow that is also an active place of worship. Entering the cathedral is allowed, but remember to be respectful if people are worshipping.

Bolshoi Theater

Contrary to the previous buildings, the Bolshoi Theater isn’t along one of the four sides of the Red Square. Located a few minutes away, the theater is one of the best theaters in the world. Make sure to come back for a guided tour of the inside or make reservations far ahead of time to attend a ballet or opera.

Alexander Gardens

The tour ends near the Alexander Gardens , a free public park located along the western Kremlin walls. The garden’s green lawns, sculptures and water fountains offer a nice place to take a stroll or relax a bit after some busy sightseeing.

You can visit all these sites on your own, but the best part of doing the Moscow free tour is that you learn more information and have the potential to meet new people!

During my tour I started to talk to a woman from Malaysia and she invited me to join her and her friends for a Russian meal afterwards. It’s these little impromptu meetings and opportunities that I love most about traveling and add more to the sightseeing experience. While I was a little hesitant about going to the tour myself I told myself it would be a great opportunity to possibly meet new people. I love when things work out like that!

If you have already seen the iconic sights of the Red Square and are looking for other things to do in Moscow check out my What to Do in Moscow post that gives more off-the beaten track things to do in Moscow!

Moscow Free Walking Tour Visiting Information

Moscow Free Walking Tours

How to Get There

The Moscow Free Walking Tour begins at the Marshal Zhukov monument in front of the State Historical Museum (a large red building). The website shows a map with the exact meeting point.

To get to the red square area you can take the blue 3 metro line to the Ploshchad Revolyutsii stop, or the green 2 line to the Teatralnaya station or the red 1 line to the Okhotny Ryad station. For more on how to use the metro read my Moscow Metro Guide .

Tours every day at 10:30am – 1pm in English

If you need a toilet before the start of the tour the Okhotny Ryad and GUM shopping malls are both close to the start of the tour. You will need to pay to use the toilets. There is a quick break mid-way through the tour at the GUM shopping mall where you can use the toilet if needed.

During the mid-way break in the tour you can buy some ice cream at the GUM shopping mall. There aren’t many other options or time for anything else. After the tour there are a lot of restaurants in the area. There are a couple of Varenichnaya №1 locations nearby if you would like some authentic Russian food. Their speciality is Russian dumplings. Another classic choice nearby is Grand Cafe Dr. Jhivago. While you can try traditional Russian foods like borscht and Olivier Salad, you may need a reservation. GUM has several restaurants, including a couple of buffets upstairs.

Recommendations

While I would start off your visit to Moscow with a tour of the Red Square, make sure to come back to each place to tour the inside. If you are visiting several sights consider buying the Moscow City Pass  to save money on admissions.

Other Tour Options

Another company  Moscow Free Tour  does a similar free walking tour in the Red Square. Check the site for the details on the starting point and times. If you prefer a private paid tour with a hotel pick-up and a visit to St. Basil’s Cathedral included check out this tour . For a private paid tour with a hotel pick-up and a visit to the Kremlin included you may want to take this tour or this one . Even if you don’t typically take tours, I would recommend taking tours as much as possible in Moscow. Many people do not speak English and most information is not in English either.

Where to Stay in Moscow

Find somewhere to stay in Moscow near the Red Square so you are convenient to all the sights!

More About Russia

• Moscow Things to Do:  Unique Things to Do ,   Spartak Stadium
• Moscow Markets:  Izmailovsky Market ,   Danilovsky Market
• Moscow Museums:  Moscow City Museum ,  Victory Museum ,  Museum of the Patriotic War in 1812 ,  State Historical Museum ,
• Moscow Life:  Malls ,  Christmas in Moscow ,  Metro ,  Learning Spanish ,  My Russian Apartment ,   What is Life Really Like in Russia ,  FiFa World Cup ,  Russian Winters , and more posts about  life abroad in Russia .
• St Petersburg:  City Guide ,  The Hermitage Museum ,  Kayaking the Rivers & Canals ,   Peterhof Palace

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Grocery Shopping In Moscow

I Made It to Moscow!

22 comments.

The Kremlin looks rather imposing. It would be great to explore the history in Moscow.

There is a lot of history in Moscow to explore!

What a handy guide to get the most of Moscow’s red square! I’ve always wanted to try a walking tour and this looks like the perfect place to start!

I really enjoy walking tours, I think they are a great way to get to know a new place!

You have highlighted all the main sights around and in the Red Square indeed! I have visited Moscow in winter and the atmosphere was magical…even though it was cold 🙂 I’m looking forward to visiting in summer too!

Yes, there is a magical feel during the winter. I have to say I prefer the warmer, brighter summers though 🙂

Follow My Anchor

I am planning to go to Moscow and St. Petersburg this year so reading this was very helpful. I would love to do the walking tour! What time of year did you do it? I am planning to go in August as I really can’t stand the cold 😀 Do you think August might be a good time to visit Moscow? Thank you so much for your information!

I did the walking tour in September. July and August are the best times to visit Moscow in my opinion, so you are going at a great time! I lived in Moscow for a year so I have a lot of posts about Moscow and a couple for St. Petersburg too. Please check out my other posts as you are planning your trip and feel free to send any questions my way!

I’m a huge fan of taking free walking tours whenever my husband and I travel. We learn more about the history from the local’s perspective. Your walking tour in Moscow looks fun. The St. Basil’s Cathedral is beautiful and would love to see it. Thanks for sharing the must-see places in Moscow!

I’m a big fan of free walking tours too! I completely agree that you get a good perspective and introduction to the history of the city.

I would love to take the walking tour to get a good coverage of the area! The tip about paying for the bathrooms is great. That’s something I didn’t realize when I went to Europe for the first time from the US.

I always find it annoying paying for bathrooms in Europe!

I visited Moscow in June this year for the World Cup and I loved it. St. Basil’s Cathedral was the highlight for me, it’s such an impressive piece of architecture. I would’ve liked to visit more of Russia but maybe next time!

I really enjoyed Moscow during the World Cup too. The city was much livelier than usual!

I have been to St. Petersburg but never to Moscow. I think that these kind of tours are very useful to gather many information but I second your suggestion to visit the palaces inside as they have stunning interior decor and art treasures.

Yes, I think both going on tours and getting an overview and touring the inside of places are good to do.

Shreya Saha

St. Basil’s cathedral is definitely a beautiful place to visit. I would also love to stroll by the Alexander gardens and maybe spend some time in the shopping mall call mom maybe visit the theater, also I would love to visit Kremlin and the State Historical Museum. That’s a great list you have managed to provide here.

Never been to Russia, but the country’s history and culture has always fascinated me. Great list of things to do in Moscow’s Red Square. Kremlin is definitely on top of my list!

Russia does have a fascinating history and culture!

The architecture here always looks so beautiful. I would love to go to Russia. Some helpful tips here that would really help me navigate a future trip. I love the Russian ballet so a trip to the theater would be a must for me.

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• Moscow Travel and City Excursions

Our 20 Best Moscow Day Tours of 2022

See all that Moscow has to offer by choosing one or more of our incredible Moscow day tours. Visit Red Square , St. Basil’s , the Kremlin or perhaps a vodka museum and the fantastic Moscow metro system , we have it all. Our expert, informative and fun guides will help you get to know Europe’s largest city. Please click on the day tour details to learn more or contact us for more information about our Moscow tours using the form at the side of the page.  You can also schedule a call with one of our Russian travel specialists to learn more.

Head to the heart of Moscow with a professional guide on a 4-hour private walk through the city center. See Tverskaya and Old Arbat streets, Theatre Square with the world-famous Bolshoi Theatre, and the former KGB headquarters...

• Schedule Daily 09:00 - 20:00
• Languages English-speaking guide is guaranteed. Other languages are on request.
• Walking tours Transportation is not included
• PRIVATE TOUR This is a private tour, there won't be other people in your group

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• Schedule Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday 11:00 - 20:00 Friday 10:00 - 14:00 Saturday not available

The tour begins with a drive or walk down Tverskaya Street – a Soviet masterpiece. In the years of Soviet power, Tverskaya began to undergo a transformation: it was widened to two and a half times its original size,...

This is a very interesting and insightful tour. You will visit places connected with Stalin’s terror - a time of great repression and fear. You will be shown monuments to the victims of the repression. You will then...

You will be told of the street’s interesting history and view the street’s artisan culture. You will also have the opportunity to view and purchase souvenirs from the street’s many craftsmen....

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This world-famous gallery contains masterpieces of Russian art beginning in the 10th century up until today. You will view exquisite Russian icons and paintings from the 18th and 19th century including works by Rublyov, Karavak,...

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Tour of the Novodevichy Monastery. Founded in 1524 by Grand Prince VasiliIoanovich, the original convent was enclosed by fortified walls and contained 12 towers. The structure served as a convent for women of noble birth...

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Take this opportunity to learn more about the Russian writer Lev Tolstoy. During the visit to the museum you will see part of a vast collection of exhibits connected to Tolstoy and his family including books and personal...

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Express to Russia specializes in Moscow city excursions, an essential part of your Moscow travel itinerary. We offer a large variety of day excursions throughout Moscow and its suburbs. From  Red Square  and the  Kremlin  to a city tour of Moscow’s  Old Arbat Street  or the  Moscow metro , an excursion specializing in Stalin and the KGB and much more. No travel to Moscow is complete without taking a few of our day tours that most meet your interest in Russia.

Moscow City Tours

Our Moscow day excursions can be organized on foot or with transport. All of our excursions are led by an experienced guide, specializing in the subject matter of the tour. Excursions are privately run and can be booked for 1 traveler all the way up to large groups of travelers. We run our Moscow city tours in every season. This is because travel to Moscow is excellent in any season. In the summer take a stroll through  Gorky Park  or take a riverboat tour along the Moskva River. In the winter, see Moscow’s winter wonderland of ice and snow and then settle in for a cozy lunch or dinner with a hot bowl of borsht. In winter, spring and fall, you can beat the crowds at all of Moscow’s main attractions and museums. Regardless of when you come, Express to Russia will make sure that your trip is one of your best vacations ever.

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Universe Today

Space and astronomy news

The ESA’s Mars Rover Gets a New Map

Rosalind Franklin, the ESA’s Mars rover, is scheduled to launch no sooner than 2028. Its destination is Oxia Planum, a wide clay-bearing plain to the east of Chryse Planitia. Oxia Planum contains terrains that date back to Mars’ Noachian Period, when there may have been abundant surface water, a key factor in the rover’s mission.

Rosalind Franklin’s primary mission mirrors that of NASA’s Perseverance rover: to search for fossil evidence of life. To do that, both rovers are equipped with a suite of powerful instruments. They both have sampling drills, but Franklin’s drill wins the tale of the tape. It can penetrate to a depth of two meters, compared to Perseverance’s which can only drill a few inches deep.

In order for the Franklin to be successful, it needs to land in a place where its drilling capability can be put to good use. That’s why the ESA chose Oxia Planum. Not only is it flat, which makes for a safer landing, but it contains hydrated minerals. In fact, it’s one of the largest exposed sections of clay-bearing minerals on Mars, and that’s where the fossilized evidence of life it seeks may be found.

A team of European scientists has created the most detailed geological map of Oxia Planum ever. It took four years to complete and leans heavily on data from orbiters. The detailed map shows 15 units with characteristic geological features that can help decide how the rover explores the area. The map will also help the rover interpret its surroundings and collect evidence of primitive life.

“This map is exciting because it is a guide that shows us where to find the answers.” Peter Fawdon, co-lead author, Open University

Oxia Planum preserves a record of the forces that shaped the region and that shaped Mars. It’s a transitional region between Chryse Planitia , which contains lower elevation plains from the Amazonian/Hesperian, and Arabia Terra , the heavily cratered Noachian-aged region.

The sediments at Oxia Planum are nearly four billion years old. This will be the oldest site ever visited by a rover.

The new map has its roots in the COVID lockdowns. During that time, the Rosalind Franklin science team trained 80 volunteers to help them map Oxia Planum. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter supplied the data.

The result is a map that shows Oxia Planum’s geology in high detail. It shows types of bedrock and features like ridges and craters. It also shows crater ejecta and windborne dust. The map will not only help the rover navigate through difficult terrain; it’ll inform the choices of where to drill for samples.

“The map represents our current understanding of bedrock units and their relationships prior to Rosalind Franklin’s exploration of this location,” the map creators write in the paper presenting the map .

“The objectives of this map are (i) to identify where the most astrobiologically relevant rocks are likely to be found, (ii) to show where hypotheses about their geological context (within Oxia Planum and in the wider geological history of Mars) can be tested, (iii) to inform both the long-term (hundreds of metres to ~1 km) and the short-term (tens of metres) activity planning for rover exploration, and (iv) to allow the samples analyzed by the rover to be interpreted within their regional geological context,” the authors explain.

You can download the map and explore it here .

“The wider region was extensively modified during the late Noachian and Hesperian periods, as shown by evidence of fluvial and paleo-lake activity, possible shoreline formation, volcanism, and aqueous alteration,” the authors write. The Hesperian is when Mars lost its water and transitioned from a warm, wet environment to a dry, cold environment. Understanding how that happened is a primary goal in Mars science.

The map shows mound materials, different types of bedrock, features like Mensas and crater materials of different ages.

This is the highest-resolution map of the region ever made. With a scale of 1:25,000, each centimetre on the map equals 250 meters on Mars. Since Rosalind Franklin will travel an average of 25 to 50 meters each day, a day’s journey is one or two millimetres on the map.

The making of the map has already provided some benefits to the Rosalind Franklin mission. “The mapping exercise has provided the wider <ExoMars> rover team with a sound knowledge of the landing site and has also helped us to develop new geological hypotheses for the region,” the authors write.

The map is more than just a driving guide. It’s essentially a summary of our hypotheses about Mars. When the rover begins its mission, its initial exploration and drilling will test some of these existing hypotheses for Martian geology and history. Those results will inform the rover team, leading to better decisions about where to drill and explore. That will “… improve the chances of the mission meeting its search for life goals,” the authors explain.

“This map is exciting because it is a guide that shows us where to find the answers. It serves as a visual hypothesis of what we currently know about the different rocks in the landing site. The instruments on Rosalind Franklin will allow us to test our knowledge on the spot when the time comes,” explained Peter Fawdon, one of the lead authors from the Open University.

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Europe's upcoming Mars rover now has a detailed map to aid its search for ancient Red Planet life (video)

The next Mars rover now has a detailed map with which to help find its way around the red planet.

We now have a better picture of where the European Space Agency's Rosalind Franklin ExoMars rover will be driving when it lands on Mars for its life-seeking mission, all thanks to a brand new geological map of its landing zone.

"This map is exciting because it is a guide that shows us where to find the answers," said Peter Fawdon of the UK's Open University in a press statement . "It serves as a visual hypothesis of what we currently know about the different rocks in the landing site. The instruments on Rosalind Franklin will allow us to test our knowledge on the spot when the time comes."

Originally a partnership with Russia, who were providing the landing platform for the rover, the mission has been delayed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The new launch date is scheduled for no earlier than October 2028 as scientists revamp the mission and design and construct a new landing platform, with the intention to arrive on Mars by 2030.

Related: ExoMars: Europe's astrobiology missions to Mars

The chances of finding microbes living on Mars today is very slim given the cold, dry and irradiated conditions on the red planet, but the prevailing hypothesis is that Mars was warm and wet and potentially had conditions for life over 3.5 billion years ago. We see evidence for this in the remains of river channels , floodplains and coasts, in the mineralogy of these regions, and in the presence of organic molecules . 

If life did exist long ago, perhaps its biosignatures remain locked up in Martian rocks that are just waiting to be discovered by the Rosalind Franklin rover.

The rover's mission will involve driving many kilometers across Oxia Planum , which is a huge plain rich in clay-bearing minerals that were laid down long ago by liquid water. The rover will routinely drill 2 meters (6.5 feet) into those clay sediments and retrieve samples to be analyzed by the rover's on-board 'Pasteur' suite of instruments. 

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Clays are considered an excellent material for preserving biosignatures, and among the tools that the rover will use to study these samples with is its Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA), which will test the sampled material to try and identify organic, carbon-based molecules such as amino acids, lipids and even RNA and DNA (or their Martian analog) that could only have been left behind by life. Hence why the rover has been named after Rosalind Franklin , the British chemist who played a critical role in the understanding of the structure of DNA.

However, once the rover's wheels are touching Martian dirt, scientists back on Earth need to know where to drive Rosalind Franklin to stand the best chance of achieving its goals. 

The new map will therefore help scientists plan the rover's journey, with the identification of 15 specific types of geologic unit in the Oxia Planum region, including boulder fields, transverse aeolian ridges (TARs) believed to be formed by wind, widely spaced fractures, craters and their associated material such as ejecta, honeycomb material formed from polygonal and rectilinear troughs, overlying dark material, and different bedrock types and layers of sediment dating back nearly 4 billion years. 

It's still not clear how all these features formed; polygonal forms have often been linked to sub-surface ice or permafrost typically found at higher latitudes, for example, but the presence of ice below the surface of Oxia Planum, which is at the low latitude of 18 degrees north of Mars' equator, has not yet been discovered (although ice has been found elsewhere near Mars' equator ).

 —  European Space Agency suspends Mars rover launch on Russian rocket

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— Drilling for water ice on Mars: How close are we to making it happen?

These varied geological types, and the epochs that they originate from (the Noachian epoch dating from 4.1 to 3.7 billion years ago, the Hesperian from 3.7 to 3 billion years, and the Amazonian from 3 billion years ago to the present day) ago are color-coded on the map. It has a scale of 1:25000, meaning that every centimeter (0.4 inches) on the map represents 250 meters (820 feet) on Mars. An average daily drive by the rover of 25–50 meters (82–164 feet) would span just a few millimeters on the map. 

The genesis of the map was actually a COVID-lockdown project, with 80 trained volunteers characterizing 134 discrete locations each a square kilometer in area based on data from Europe's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter . 

The rover's lead scientists then pieced together all the information from the volunteers to build the final version of the map, which was published in the Journal of Maps . 

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: [email protected].

Keith Cooper is a freelance science journalist and editor in the United Kingdom, and has a degree in physics and astrophysics from the University of Manchester. He's the author of "The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" (Bloomsbury Sigma, 2020) and has written articles on astronomy, space, physics and astrobiology for a multitude of magazines and websites.

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• Torbjorn Larsson In other "ESA will be there" astrobiology news, it has decided on an Enceladus mission! https://www.universetoday.com/166309/europe-has-big-plans-for-saturns-moon-enceladus/ Reply
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N° 21–2024: ESA to search for life on Mars with ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission

9 April 2024

ESA continues its quest to find signs of life beyond Earth with the announcement of significant progress in the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission. ESA has signed a pivotal procurement contract with Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture between Thales and Leonardo, to build key elements of this ambitious Mars exploration mission. 

Marking a crucial moment in interplanetary exploration, the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission is set to reignite Europe’s exploration of the Mars surface, an accomplishment made possible through the unwavering commitment of ESA and its members states alongside a reinvigorated collaboration with NASA.  

With the mission's original scientific objectives firmly intact, the partnership aims to make unprecedented discoveries on the evolution of the Red Planet, the Solar System and possibly life itself, drilling and investigating deeper than any previous Mars mission. 

"This is a significant milestone in our ongoing exploration of Mars," said ESA Director for Human and Robotic Exploration Daniel Neuenschwander. "The Rosalind Franklin mission represents a major step forward in our understanding of the Red Planet, combining cutting-edge technology with the collective expertise of our European industry and international partners. Together, we are committed to unlock the secrets of Mars and, perhaps, uncover evidence of life beyond Earth." 

The ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission will face both scientific and technological challenges, pushing the boundaries of innovation in space exploration. From the development of advanced materials for thermal protection during atmospheric entry to the intricacies of software for navigation and control, the mission is poised to revolutionise our understanding of Mars and the broader Solar System. 

“We’re truly honoured that ESA has renewed its trust in our company by awarding us the contract for the renewal of this challenging mission to search for traces of life on Mars,” said Massimo Comparini, Deputy CEO and Senior Executive Vice President, Observation, Exploration and Navigation at Thales Alenia Space.  

Scheduled for launch between October and December 2028 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ExoMars Rosalind Franklin mission will deploy a European rover equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation for autonomous exploration of the martian surface. Designed to drill up to two metres into the martian soil, the rover will collect and analyse samples to detect signs of past or present life, a major step in humankind's quest for answers about the origins of the Solar System. 

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has been a scientific powerhouse, exceeding its original operational lifespan. TGO continues to deliver valuable insights into the martian atmosphere and surface composition from orbit. It is also an essential asset for Mars exploration providing communications between rovers on the surface of Mars, such as NASA’s Perseverance rover, and Earth. Having surpassed its design lifetime, TGO will have its operational lifespan extended, allowing for future support to the Rosalind Franklin rover mission. 

Further Information

More information about ExoMars

Social Media 

Follow ESA on:  Twitter:  @ESA ,  @esascience Instagram:  Europeanspaceagency   Facebook:  EuropeanSpaceAgency   YouTube:  ESA   LinkedIn:  European Space Agency - ESA   Pinterest:  European Space Agency - ESA  

Images 

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images   Photos: ExoMars Rover

Terms and conditions for using ESA images:  www.esa.int/spaceinimages/ESA_Multimedia/Copyright_Notice_Images  

For questions or more information related to ESA images, please contact directly  [email protected] . 

Videos 

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos   B-Rolls: ExoMars

Terms and conditions for using ESA videos:  https://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Terms_and_Conditions  

For questions or more information related to ESA videos, please contact directly  [email protected] . 

About the European Space Agency 

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space. 

ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. 

ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia are Associate Members. 

ESA has established formal cooperation with four Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement. 

By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes as well as with Eumetsat for the development of meteorological missions. 

Learn more about ESA at  www.esa.int  

• Franklin Graham Tells Poland: ‘Hang on to Your Faith’

By Laura Bailey   •   April 12, 2024

Watch the replay of the God Loves You Tour from Kraków.

In interviews with Poland’s national media, Franklin Graham, ahead of the God Loves You Tour in Kraków, Poland, explained the importance of preaching in this European country.

“Poland has held onto the faith probably longer than all the other European countries,” Franklin Graham said. “But it’s changing. It’s the secularists who hate God, they take God out of everything.

“I want the people of Poland to know—hang on to your faith. Don’t turn your back on your faith.”

This is the evangelist’s second time to hold an evangelistic event in the country, after his 2014 outreach in Warsaw.

Poland has seen many changes since then, including the ongoing war in neighboring country Ukraine. This conflict has people in this region on edge, he said, questioning where to put their trust.

“Regardless of what happens politically in the world,” Franklin Graham said, “God is ultimately in control.

“Jesus Christ can change the direction of a nation. The greatest need in the world today is Jesus Christ.”

Teaching the truth of God’s Word and the Good News of Jesus Christ is the most important work for pastors, he said, and to inspire members to actively share His hope with family, friends, and co-workers.

“Witness out on the streets, witness in the workplace, witness in the schools, and invite people to come to church,” said Franklin Graham.

“We see secularism, which is anti-Christ, taking hold of governments throughout Europe and around the world. For us as the church, we do not change. We hold fast to the truth. We don’t compromise.”

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FDA Grants Orphan Drug Designation for Treatment of Scleroderma Developed by Helix 51's BLR Bio

In this section.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted an Orphan Drug Designation for an investigational therapy under development by Helix 51 company BLR Bio for the treatment of systemic sclerosis (SSc), also known as scleroderma.

Orphan Drug Designation is granted by the FDA to investigational therapies addressing rare medical diseases or conditions that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. The status provides benefits to drug developers, including assistance in the development process, tax credits for clinical costs, exemptions from certain FDA fees and seven years of post-approval marketing exclusivity.

According to the National Scleroderma Foundation, scleroderma is a rare rheumatic disease that affects connective tissue and the vascular system, producing excessive collagen that causes fibrosis in the skin (localized) or in internal organs (systemic sclerosis). The result can be disfigurement and disability. Patients commonly experience loss of mobility and function, pain and fatigue. 

The cause of scleroderma is unknown and there is no cure. It has the highest mortality rate among rheumatic diseases, with a 2.5-fold higher risk of death than the general population. 

The investigational therapy, BLR-200, is different from other therapies now in development for the treatment of systemic sclerosis.

“Our therapy addresses multiple disease-supporting elements or redundancies in the pathways to initiation and progression, and targets a key scar-forming cell population of myofibroblasts,” said Bruce Riser, PhD, CEO of BLR Bio. “The FDA’s granting of Orphan Drug Designation to BLR-200 highlights the urgent need for new and innovative therapeutic options for patients afflicted with the disease.”

BLR Bio was awarded a $780,000 grant in collaboration with expert investigators at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 2022 to further study BLR-200 in scleroderma. This research is ongoing and has demonstrated promising in vivo results.

Executive Vice President for Research Ronald Kaplan, PhD, said the orphan designation represents an important milestone in the development of BLR Bio’s drug candidate.

“BLR-200 has the potential to establish first-in-class clinical benefits by addressing multiple elements driving scleroderma and treating multiple organs negatively impacted by the disease,” Dr. Kaplan said.

To learn more about BLR Bio, visit  blrbio.com .

Wednesday — February 21 02/21/2024

Thursday — February 1 02/01/2024