Sheldon: I would argue that this is a very weak argument, mostly trying to jazz up a very boring data set or at least distract the audience from remembering the “standard candle” Nobel Prize assumed that all white dwarfs were identical. Either way, its a preposterous story attempting to distract from its most distressing results.
Extraterrestrial life
Some researchers hope to grow crops on the moon
Maybe this is the closest we’ll ever really get to extraterrestrial life. Go there and grow stuff.
Researchers: Rocky dead planets common, therefore ET life common
In case you thought this field was “settled science,” see also, recently: “‘Evolution’ says we are alone” and “Once again, for the thousandth time, we are “closing in” on alien life
“Evolution” says: We are alone
Why do we keep running into arguments for intelligent design that don’t seem to realize that they ARE arguments for intelligent design?
Once again, for the thousandth time, we are “closing in” on alien life
Life on Mars would be a lot of fun but one suspects it’ll never live up to the hype.
At Scientific American: We did find life on Mars in the ‘70s. Rob Sheldon weighs in
Levin: When the Viking Molecular Analysis Experiment failed to detect organic matter, the essence of life, however, NASA concluded that the LR had found a substance mimicking life, but not life. Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results.
Are some galaxies more hospitable to life than others?
When the researchers tested the thesis by studying 100,000 simulated galaxies, they found that small or dwarf galaxies with comparatively abundant heavy elements offered the best chance. Some of us would settle for a single fossil bacterium on Mars and forget all the theories.
SETI aims to become more “respectable”
And get government grants. The thing is, we do not actually have any evidence-based reason to believe that ET is out there. Why should government fund a search for ET as an alternative to, say, health care and affordable housing, for which we needn’t search very hard to see the need?
Once upon a time, Venus (might have) had life, say researchers
The finding “flies in the face of conventional notions of habitability, which state that Venus’ orbit places it beyond the inner edge of our Sun’s habitable zone (HZ). Within this “Venus Zone”, according to conventional wisdom, a planet absorbs too much solar radiation to ever be able to maintain liquid water on its surface. But as Way indicated, their simulations all indicated otherwise.”
Aliens are observing us from Mars orbit
Gotta be true. Is this to certain secularist communities in science what an imminent Rapture is to certain evangelical Christian ones?
Should we infect Mars with bacteria?
Natalie Coleman at Futurism: A paper published last month … argues that the “primary colonists” of the Red Planet should be “microorganisms” — the bacteria, viruses, and fungi that support many of life’s processes here on Earth.
Researchers: Exoplanet, 2x the size of Earth, has not only water but possible rain clouds
Most exoplanets, we are told, fall into this size range and it is not yet known if it has a rocky surface, considered important for life. Here’s a roundup of some things we know.
At New Scientist: We’ll soon find out for sure if aliens are out there
Of course, they’re out there and as long as there’s an Out There, they’ll always be out there.
Researchers: Earth may not be the most life-friendly planet
Their computer model might seem more convincing if a single extraterrestrial life form of any sort had ever been found.
Rob Sheldon: Don’t give up all ET hope due to recent exoplanet disappointment
Sheldon: … in our own solar system, Saturn is far outside the “Goldilocks Zone” yet it has a moon, Enceladus, that is emitting steam jets filled with hydrocarbons. … The danger of being overly-quantitative is not just the overreliance on models, or the higher risk of failure, but rather the real probability that “certainty” blinds one from observing the actual phenomenon.