Recently in Search for Life Category
"'An automated rendezvous does all sorts of things for your missile accuracy and anti-satellite programs,' said John Sheldon, a visiting professor of advanced air and space studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. 'The manned effort is about prestige, but it’s also a good way of testing technologies that have defense applications.'" In order to keep pace with the increasingly proficient Chinese space program, President-elect Obama may be considering retying NASA to the Pentagon, "because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015...Obama has said the Pentagon’s space program -- which spent about $22 billion in fiscal year 2008, almost a third more than NASA’s budget -- could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals as the recession pressures federal spending."
Hmm. On one hand, I would think making NASA yet another fiefdom of the Pentagon would greatly facilitate its ability to lock down the funding it needs for various exploratory endeavors, recession or no. And if the types of conveyance vehicles NASA needs are basically sitting around gathering dust in some Pentagon-owned warehouse next to the ark of the covenant, well then it only makes sense to combine the two programs. No need to reinvent the, uh, rocket.
On the other hand, putting the brass in charge is probably going to have deleterious effects on the types of projects NASA pursues in the future. And, in a perfect world, there's something to be said for having a civilian space program completely outside the purview of the military. In fact, now that i think about it, won't combining the Pentagon and NASA space programs cut back on the types of international cooperation that have guided our efforts in space in recent years? GIven the current economic climate, I guess this is the best way for NASA to continue pursuing its goals in the short term. Still, there could well be trouble ahead.
"'We're thrilled to have identified clear signs of water on a planet that is trillions of miles away,' said study leader Giovanna Tinetti of the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris in France." Scientists discover clear signs of existing water well outside the solar system at HD 189733b, a Jupiter-ish gas giant in the Vulpecula constellation, 64 light years away. "The researchers found that the planet absorbed starlight in such a way that could only be explained by the presence of water vapor in its atmosphere."
NASA prepares a probe, named Phoenix, to dig for water on Mars. "Upon reaching Mars in May 2008, the spacecraft is to land just as the winter ice begins to recede around the polar cap."
"Because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X." The big news today, of course: Astronomers announce the discovery of an earth-like planet, Gliese 581c, at the galactically tiny distance of 120 trillion miles (20.5 light years) away. (For the stargazers, Gliese 581 is a red dwarf "located in the northeastern part of constellation Libra.") Of course, we still don't know if we even have to go that far to find extraterrestrial life -- Europa, Mars, Ganymede, and Callisto all still pose unresolved questions. Nevertheless, it's an exciting moment in our history to discover the first planet far afield that might possibly be inhabited (and inhabitable)...and even more exciting to know that there'll assuredly be many more to come. The stars, our destination!
A faraway Jupiter-like gas planet, HD 209458b, is found (by some) to have water in its atmosphere. I saw this on Blivet on Friday and spent the weekend dreaming about it: If my sleeping brain can be trusted, HD 209458b has winged, eel-like space reptiles cavorting amidst the gaseous clouds there. Alas, my subconscious makes for a lousy exobiologist: "[A] Jupiter-like gaseous planet such as this one, as opposed to a rocky one like Earth, is highly unlikely to harbour any kind of life." Well, damn.
New photos released by NASA from the Mars Global Surveyor seem to suggest the possibility of surface water on Mars, which would make any attempt to visit -- or colonize -- the red planet considerably easier (although, obviously, it's still no walk in the park.)
"'We certainly have not convinced the community, and that's been a little bit disappointing,' said David McKay, a NASA biochemist and leader of the team that started the scientific episode." Ten years later, CNN summarizes the simmering scientific dispute over a Martian meteorite, and the possible (albeit now seemingly quite unlikely) signs of life within.
The WP takes a gander at the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT), which "can see 13 billion years back in time, nearly to the big bang. With its 10-by-11-foot hexagonal mirror -- the largest of its type in the world -- SALT concentrates the faintest, most distant light in the universe. If a candle were to flicker on the moon, SALT could detect it."
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa...oh, and Enceladus." In very big news, NASA announces that Cassini has found water plumes on Enceladus, Saturn's moon. "This finding has substantially broadened the range of environments in the solar system that might support living organisms, and it doesn't get any more significant than that...I'd say we've just hit the ball right out of the park." What's more, "unlike Europa, which researchers believe harbors a vast ocean beneath kilometers of thick ice, Enceladus' water may be just below the surface."
Using the relatively new technique of gravitational microlensing, astronomers discover their "most Earth-like planet yet", orbiting a star in Sagittarius 20,000 light-years away. While this planet -- currently named OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb -- is likely too cold for habitation, "'we may predict with reasonable probability that microlensing will discover planets with masses like that of Earth at a similar distance from their stars and with comparable surface temperature,' said study co-author Bohdan Paczynski from Princeton University."
