Dawn Arrives at Ceres

Mission controllers have confirmed that the planetary exploration spacecraft Dawn has entered orbit around the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres. 

Mars Bound Craft Sterlization Unnecessary?

For the past several years, NASA's Office of Planetary Protection have taken  expensive efforts to keep Earth microorganisms off Mars.  

Now two astrobiologists from Cornell University - Alberto Fairén and Washington State University -  Dirk Schulze-Makuch say that NASA's efforts are expensive and unnecessary.

Fairén and Schulze-Makuch, posit that such efforts are probably in vain since life from Earth has had billions of years and untold meteorite impacts to spread Earth-life to Mars.  Plus Several Earth spacecraft have visited Mars without undergoing the sterilization procedures now in place.

The researchers have said that should be cleaned to avoid confusing results, however craft like orbiters and geology-oriented devices should be scaled way back on sterilization. 

For more:

Science Daily Article

Project KARA (tech demo for Quantic Dream)

Here is a short film written and directed by David Cage of Quantic Dream. The video runs real time on the PS-3 and was created as a demo of the software game engine to convey different emotions.

What we get though is a disturbing and poignant short about a new robot helper who seems to become self aware. This is grounds for instant disassembly while the android
begs for its' life.

As a tech demo, it's amazing, but its real calling is in the morality play that plays itself out in a few short minutes. It asks us to examine when and in what form can we accept a machine as an alive and thinking individual.

Youtube page

Ancient Martian Channels Formed by Lava Not Water?

From The Daily Galaxy is an article stating that the Martian structures resembling ancient riverbeds may have been made by huge fast moving rivers of lava instead of the more commonly accepted water theory.

David Leverington, an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech, employing high-resolution photographs, has determined that the Martian channels only superficially resemble channels on Earth that formed by floods. However, unlike Earth’s water-formed channels, the Martian structures lack the delta-like, sediment-laden deltas that exsist at the mouths of Earth's major tributaries but instead terminate in vast plains composed of volcanic basalt.

This is supported by abundant evidence of past eruptions of lava at the heads of these large systems, very similar to what is seen on the moon and on Venus.

The image is the Kasei Valles, a circum-Chryse outflow channel, which flowed into the Chryse Planitia. Credit: NASA/Texas Tech.

Complete Daily Galaxy article here

Proof that Panspermia Happened?

From the pages of yahoo news, Tim Sayell sends in an intriguing article.

In a meteorite discovered in the Sudan, scientists have found something that by all rights should not exist. Scientists have discovered amino acids, the very building blocks of life. Finding them on a meteorite seems to indicate that, far from an isolated occurrence, building amino acids and possibly the proteins that are built from these simple structures, are likely much more common and much easier to synthesize in space.

According to the Yahoo article:

• (previously) scientists found amino acids in samples of Comet Wild 2, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Finding amino acids in these objects supports the theory that the origin of life got a boost from space.

Read the complete fascinating Yahoo article here

Mars' Methane Levels may Prove That Life Still Thrives on the Red Planet!

As in the earlier article (http://wrfrbeameup.blogspot.com/2009/12/mars-rock-may-indeed-contain-signs-of.html) many scientists are of the opinion that life on the red planet may have very likely have existed at some point in the past.

Now according to a new article in Physorg online sent in by Shaun Saunders, there is compelling evidence to suggest life still flourishes beneath the surface. The article centers around the levels of Methane on Mars. Many scientists believed that the levels were being maintained through meteor impacts. But recent research shows that the amount of impacts is not sufficient to maintain methane at its current level. Methane is very short lived. In Mars' harsh environment, it is broken down in just a few hundred years. But instead of dissipating, the gas is being replenished and the levels are being maintained higher than can be supplied by meteor impacts.

From the article:

• This leaves only two plausible theories..... Either there are microorganisms... that are producing methane gas ... or methane is being produced as a by-product of reactions between volcanic rock and water.

Read complete article

Fermi Paradox Where Are They?

Fermi's paradox as you know, ask the question, given that there are millions if not billions of Earth class planets, that even if a fraction of these planets support life and only a fraction of them intelligent beings, where are they?

Some of the most interesting ideas are based around the colonization wave front.
From the Technology Review article:

• Various analysis suggest that using spacecraft that travel at a tenth of the speed of light, a colonization wave could take some 50 million years to sweep the galaxy. Others have calculated that it may be closer to 13 billion years, which may explain why we have yet to spot extraterrestrials.

Speculation aside, Carlos Cotta and Álvaro Morales from the University of Malaga in Spain, take a slightly different path to explain the curious absence. Cotta and Morales' suggest that the automated probe idea may be closer to the truth.
Again from the article:

• The scenario involves a civilization sending out eight probes, each equipped with smaller subprobes for studying the regions that the host probe visits.....this could advance much faster than the colonization wave front.

This still has a time scope of about 300 million years before there is any indication of life elsewhere in the universe. Taking into account that this is likely to be the time it would take to explore 4% of the galaxy.

Cotta and Morales ask, why do we assume that only one intelligent race exist at any one time in the galaxy. Why not several and each sending out probes. Ahh but now it gets interesting.

Say each major probe had a lifespan of 50 million years and any evidence of their visit to a solar system lasted 1 million years, the figure that comes up is no more than 1000 intelligent races in the galaxy. The bad news is, that if each sub-probe left evidence in each visited solar system that lasted for 100 million years there would be no more than 10 civilizations out there.

Not good news at all huh? Read complete article in Technology Review

Mars once had massive lakes

Tim Sayell sends in an article concerning new discoveries of substantial water on Mars. There has been ample discoveries of water with the polar missions, but to this point large bodies of water were merely extrapolations. Now with this new body of evidence it is clear that Mars did in fact have huge bodies of open water. This new evidence takes the form of: "definitive evidence of shorelines on Mars" according to an article in Yahoo News.

Researchers have found an ancient shoreline of a large deep-water lake that existed some three billion years ago. It covered as much as 80 square miles and was up to 1,500 feet deep -- roughly the equivalent of Lake Champlain bordering the United States and Canada.

Another truly astonishing discovery is just how fast this lake disappeared! Mars is a dry planet now....no big surprise. How fast it became that way, might be though. As bodies of water on Earth evaporate they leave successive shorelines. Mars' lake did indeed leave a shoreline but only one. It's very possible that the climate change on Mars was so dramatic and fast that the lake may have frozen solid and sublimated to water vapor over millions of years.

Yahoo story CBS News story

*I thought I would share an observation that Shaun Saunders had on the pic for this article. If we view the original graphic for this story you see a fairly typical horizon shot with the the sun light being filtered through the Martian atmosphere....which of course is rendered in red which as we have seen over the past years of photography from Mars is totally wrong. Shaun points out that the sky should as he puts it should be "pale blue, like Arizona, not red, unless there is a current dust storm in the area" Well I feel like a de de de for missing that....lol

Looking for Life in all the WRONG places....

Shaun sends in an article from NewScientist that suggests that we may be looking in all the WRONG places for life outside out own planet.

According to the article:

• The universe's best real estate for life may be around stars a little less massive than the sun, called orange dwarfs - These stars live much longer than sun-like stars, and have safer habitable zone. Orange dwarfs, massing between 50 and 80% that of the sun, have only a little bit more flare activity than sun-like stars and far less than longer lived red dwarf stars. Lower flare activity means less radiation stress on any life bearing planets plus they would also provide a haven for life for a much longer time – roughly double the 10-billion-year lifetime of a sun-like star.
• Moreover, they change very little in brightness compared to sun-like stars. Our own sun has brightened by about 30% since the solar system began, and will likely make Earth too hot for life in about 1 billion years, even though the sun will still have about 5 billion years of fuel left to burn.
  
• Another factor in Orange dwarfs favor for possible life supporting star systems, is that they are about three to four times as abundant as sun-like stars...

more

Is Mars still alive?

According to a recent post on Science Daily, some scientists feel it is very likely. Why? According to the article:

• A team of NASA and university scientists has achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This discovery indicates the planet is either biologically or geologically active.

Scientists studied Mars over several Martian years with NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility and the W.M. Keck telescope, both at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Spectrograph analysis showed the distinct pattern for methane. This compound is rapidly destroyed in the Martian atmosphere, so it's presence indicates some ongoing process is releasing the gas.

Not enough is known about Mars' geology or the presence or absence of life to make a definitive theory on the source of methane. Researchers hope future missions, like NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, may help to discover the origin of Martian methane.

Lab created life: tantalizingly close

Shaun Saunders sends in an article from Live Science that has been a science fiction staple for as long as I can remember: Lab created life.

Scientists have created something in the lab that "is not life" they say but something that copies some of the same basic structures and functions that are the hallmark of life.

From the article:

• The researchers, at the Scripps Research Institute, created molecules that self-replicate and even evolve and compete to win or lose.
  
• The researchers synthesized RNA enzymes that can replicate themselves without the help of any proteins or other cellular components, and the process proceeds indefinitely.
• More significantly, the scientists then mixed different RNA enzymes that had replicated, along with some of the raw material they were working with, remarkably, they bred.

<- more ->

Top 10Weirdest Things in Space

Cathy sends in a neat list from the Discovery Channel. A list of the truly strange things going on in our universe and even in our own galaxy. From Hyper velocity stars to black holes...this list is a feast for the imagination. Here is the list:

10: Hyper-velocity Stars
9: Black Holes
8: Magnestars
7: Neutrinos
6: Dark Matter
5: Dark Energy
4: Planets
3: Gravity
2: Life
1: The Universe

Of course the list doesn't even start to cover some of the real brain twisting going on here.

Check out the artwork and detailed descriptions here

Something Weird going on with the Phoenix Lander

This is what I just read on the AstroEngine.com web page: Phoenix has found something more compelling than water - President Bush informed.

Damn! now that sounds very mysterious. However NASA scientists are quick to point out that t they have not discovered direct evidence for life on Mars. But something is going on and it's important enough that NASA and the University of Arizona are going to great lengths to keep the details out of the public domain!
The official line is: the Phoenix team need more time to analyze the complex data they’ve received and will wait till mid-August at the earliest to make a press release.

The release in Universe Today is a bit more forthcoming: new data appears to indicate the "potential for life"

But the 800 lb. gorilla here is that this is all good and fine, and very exciting, but since when does that instantly rate informing the leader of the free world?

<- UPDATE NASA say Mars environment could support extreme lifeforms ->

Men could be from Mars - Women, even farther away!

A long time staple of science fiction is life on Earth being "salted" from extra-terrestrial sources. Finding what appeared to be ancient microbes in Mar's meteorites only served to foster the idea further. However according to recent research panspermia may be more than the fodder of the science fiction writer. Research on the Murchison meteor, which landed in Australia in 1969, found molecules in those meteorite fragments that confirmed some of the raw material for DNA and RNA did not contaminate the rock after it landed on Earth, but actually originated in space. Scientists figure that since the Murchison meteor fell to Earth bringing the molecules uracial and xanthine — precursors to DNA — there must have been a lot of this stuff pelting the planet billions of years ago. There are about 70 different amino acids in the Murchison meteorite. About six or so are the same kinds of amino acids associated with life on Earth. Though not conclusive, since these chemicals can also be synthesized on Earth, it does however show that the building blocks could very well have originated somewhere else entirely!

Nova Science Now story IO9 Article

Tiniest extrasolar planet found

Astronomers have sighted the smallest extrasolar planet yet orbiting a normal star just three times the size of our own. The planet orbits a star which is itself of such low mass it may in fact be a "failed star", or brown dwarf. The planet, called MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, is about 3.3 times the size of Earth. Astronomers found the new world using a technique called gravitational microlensing. This takes advantage of the fact that light is bent as the rays pass close to a massive object, like a star. Discoveries like this bring astronomers closer to discovering micro-planets, around the mass of the Earth, which might harbor life.

Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the article from BBC News

Phoenix Lander digs in....

From msnbc online I read that Phoenix did a few test digs this past weekend. Here is a real interesting photo taken of soil inside the scoop. Initial tests will ascertain whether or not the white patches in the upper right are water, CO2 or some form of salt. The actual digs are expected to start later this week, where the 8 foot arm will make a series of trenches looking for water and organic compounds that could be the building blocks of life.

Spreading life to the stars....is this a good thing?

Casey Kazan over at The Daily Galaxy blog writes an interesting commentary on the spreading of Earth based life to the far corners of the galaxy and possibly the universe beyond.

In a vast, cold universe we aren't just "Keepers of the Sacred Flame" of life, we are the bloody flame!

Casey takes issue with calling Earth life a contamination in a quote that I find pretty damn appropriate: One problem with this viewpoint is that it talks about the spread of Terran life as 'contamination', which is like describing painting as 'contaminating' a pristine canvas.

It certainly is worth reading and sitting a moment and thinking about. Agree or not, you have to admit that Kazan makes a compelling argument.

Phoenix Lander arrives and is healthy!

The Mars Phoenix Lander parachutes down to Mars on Sunday, in this image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. As you can see in the B&W image from the MRO the lander is clearly visible below the parachute as it nears the surface. The next photo This is one of the first images captured by the Phoenix lander, showing the vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars. Peter Smith, of the University of Arizona at Tucson and principal investigator for the Phoenix mission noted that the ground looks like the "active surface of the Arctic regions of Earth." Cracks in the soil show that surface is "active" because no dust or sand has filled in the cracks. over the next few days, the lander's 7.7-foot robotic arm is scheduled to begin functioning. The robotic arm is set to collect the first soil samples in about a week. The lander is expected to function for about 90 days with energy generated by the solar panels.

Sol may not be "unusual" for supporting life.

Shaun Saunders send in an article from New Scientist Space which pours a bit of water on the theory that our sun is in some way an optimal star for supporting life on its planets.

There's nothing special about the Sun that makes it more likely than other stars to host life, a new study shows. The finding adds weight to the idea that alien life should be common throughout the universe. Some previous studies of the Sun's vital statistics have concluded that it is unusual among stars, for instance, by having a higher mass than average. Such atypical properties might somehow help explain why the Sun seems to be unique, as far as we know, in having an inhabited planet. But the earlier studies only looked at a small number of solar features, such as its mass and iron content. (Scientists have) now analyzed 11 features of the Sun that might affect its ability to have habitable planets. They included its mass, age, rotation speed and orbital distance from the centre of the Milky Way. The Sun did stand out in two ways: it is more massive than 95% of nearby stars and its orbit around the center of our galaxy is more circular than those of 93% of nearby stars. But when all 11 properties were taken on board, the Sun looked very ordinary. (Scientists) conclude that there are probably no special attributes that a star requires to have a habitable planet, other than the obvious one – the planet must be within the star's habitable "goldilocks" zone, orbiting at a distance where the temperature is not too hot for life, nor too cold, but just right.

(Image: SOHO-EIT Consortium/ESA/NASA)

Synthetic life closer!

A US team reports in Science magazine how it built the entire DNA code of a common bacterium in the laboratory using blocks of genetic material. The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Some researchers have expressed ethical concerns. These critics are calling for a debate on the risks of creating "artificial life" in a test tube. But Dr Hamilton Smith, who was part of the Science study, said the team regarded its lab-made genome - a laboratory copy of the DNA used by the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium - as a step towards synthetic, rather than artificial, life. Dr. Smith has said "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life." With synthetic life, we're re-designing the cell chromosomes; we're not creating a whole new artificial life system."

Thanks to Shaun Sauders for the post from BBC News