Extraterrestrial life

From Mike Wall at Space.com: The streaks, known as recurring slope lineae (RSL), occur seasonally on steep, relatively warm slopes at many locations on the Red Planet. They were discovered in 2011 by scientists studying images captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). … But it may be prudent to rein in that excitement a bit, according to a new study. Hydrated salts are crystalline solids, and it’s possible that the water the RSL salts contain comes from the Martian atmosphere rather than liquid water at or near the surface, said Raina Gough, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.More. On the bright side, we are now, as noted earlier, looking at specific locations and the hypotheses generated Read More ›

From Tia Ghose at LiveScience: Evidence suggests that the Martian atmosphere was declining as early as 4.1 billion years ago, and any surface water likely dried up long ago. With a thin atmosphere, bombardment by deadly cosmic radiation and likely no modern flowing water, any life that emerged on Mars likely did so very early on in the planet’s history, during a time known as the Noachian period (from 4.1 billion to 3.7 billion years ago), Cabrol said. If that life is still hanging on, it likely went deep underground, where it is protected from Mars’ current harsh environment, she said. … Another way to determine what to look for is to find the most Martian-like places on Earth. The Read More ›

Exhibit A: “If we made contact with aliens, how would religions react?” From Brandon Ambrosino at BBC: The discovery of life on another planet might seem incompatible with faith in a deity. Yet many theologians are already open to the existence of extraterrestrials, argues the writer Brandon Ambrosino. In 2014, Nasa awarded $1.1M to the Center for Theological Inquiry, an ecumenical research institute in New Jersey, to study “the societal implications of astrobiology”. Yes, we noticed that a few weeks back. And we are baffled as to why. Is there any religion on the planet that states as a dogmatic certainty that aliens do not exist? Those people might be worth a quote. Instead, we read This is not just Read More ›

Via Steve Spaleta at LiveScience: Mawrth Vallis – The outflow channel is ~373 miles long (600 km) and about 1.2 miles deep 2 km). The indicators of liquid water in the past have made this area a landing site candidate for the ExoMars 2020 mission. More. See also: Huge ice lake under surface of Mars? Researchers: Life could only exist on Mars far beneath surface and Google Mars Follow UD News at Twitter!

Here:  (breakthroughs not listed in any particular order after gravitational waves): Rocky planet found in habitable zone around Sun’s nearest neighbour Brave new world: artist’s impression of Proxima b To the Pale Red Dot collaboration for finding clear evidence that a rocky exoplanet orbits within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, which is the nearest star to the solar system. Dubbed Proxima b, the exoplanet has a mass about 1.3 times that of the Earth and is therefore most likely a terrestrial planet with a rocky surface. Our newly found neighbour also lies within its star’s habitable zone, meaning that it could, in theory, sustain liquid water on its surface, and may even have an atmosphere. Proxima Centauri is a Read More ›

But not a God, with moral rules. From campus pastor Peter Burfeind at The Federalist: Lacking any evidence of an actual alien, Hollywood’s aliens speak more about the modern psyche fueling the imaginations of their designers. … The aliens in “Arrival” look like tree trunks. Get it? The trees are coming to tell us to work together. (They might acquaint themselves with the rock group Rush to get the full story.) I can’t imagine that has anything to do with the dreamy fantasies of environmentalists. Or again, the alien in “Alien” (1979), fetal in appearance, antagonizes the crew and their ship’s computer, “Mother,” until it gets sucked out of the ship. Wow, can’t imagine that had anything to do with Read More ›

Science writer Charles Wohlforth and planetary scientist Amanda R. Hendrix argue at Scientific American that it’s pretty much the only place off Earth that humans could live. The idea of a human colony on Titan, a moon of Saturn, might sound crazy. Its temperature hovers at nearly 300° below zero Fahrenheit, and its skies rain methane and ethane that flow into hydrocarbon seas. Just needs a bit of staging, as a real estate agent friend would say. Anyway, here’s the theory: It’s cold on Titan, at -180°C (-291°F), but thanks to its thick atmosphere, residents wouldn’t need pressure suits—just warm clothing and respirators. Housing could be made of plastic produced from the unlimited resources harvested on the surface, and could Read More ›

From Mike Wall at Space.com: This vertically exaggerated view shows scalloped depressions in a part of Mars where such textures prompted researchers to check for buried ice, using ground-penetrating radar aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The ice layer, which spans a greater area than the state of New Mexico, lies in Mars’ mid-northern latitudes and is covered by just 3 feet to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) of soil. It therefore represents a vast possible resource for future astronauts exploring the Red Planet, study team members said. More. One suspects we’ll have to go there to really find out. There are volunteers. See also: Researchers: Life could only exist on Mars far beneath surface Follow UD News at Twitter!

From astrophysicist Paul Sutter at Space.com: An unusually strong signal from a sun-like star. A repeated pattern that seems too precise to be natural. Bleeps and bloops from unknown sources with head-scratching signatures. Sure, there’s a ton of stuff in space that could potentially maybe kind-of-sort-of create those signals, but could this … be it? Could this be the key piece of evidence that answers one of the ultimate existential questions? Are we alone? No serious astronomer ever wants to rush out and blurt, “Hey, everyone! I’ve found aliens!” But at the same time, there’s a strong desire to get your name in the history books. So when these signals pop up, you get lots of shrugging and hemming and Read More ›

From Nick Allen at Telegraph: US President-elect Donald Trump is set to slash Nasa’s budget for monitoring climate change and instead set a goal of sending humans to the edge of the solar system by the end of the century, and possibly back to the moon. … According to Bob Walker, who has advised Mr Trump on space policy, Nasa has been reduced to “a logistics agency concentrating on space station resupply and politically correct environmental monitoring”. … Its funding has gone up 50 per cent under President Barack Obama. At the same time Mr Obama proposed cutting support for deep space exploration by $840 million next year. More. Well, if They’re out there, We’ll find them. See also: Rob Read More ›

Yes. From astrophysicist Caleb Sharf at Nautilus: Alien life could be so advanced it becomes indistinguishable from physics. After all, if the cosmos holds other life, and if some of that life has evolved beyond our own waypoints of complexity and technology, we should be considering some very extreme possibilities. Today’s futurists and believers in a machine “singularity” predict that life and its technological baggage might end up so beyond our ken that we wouldn’t even realize we were staring at it. That’s quite a claim, yet it would neatly explain why we have yet to see advanced intelligence in the cosmos around us, despite the sheer number of planets it could have arisen on—the so-called Fermi Paradox. … In Read More ›

From Ian Johnston at Independent: Mars is almost devoid of surface water with areas that are drier than the driest deserts on Earth – so any life would have to be “far below the surface” to survive, scientists have said. An international team of researchers looked for evidence of rust on metals in meteorites that have hit the Red Planet as a way to gauge the level of moisture. A previous study found evidence that very salty water might be able to condense on the Martian surface. But the new research, led by Stirling University academics, suggests only a tiny amount of liquid is being produced in this way. More. See also: Don’t let Mars fool you. Those exoplanets teem Read More ›

From Suzan Mazur’s Public Evolution Summit: At a meeting last May in New York with Andrew Pohorille, NASA’s senior-most scientist on origins of life, Pohorille told me that there is a certain factor to life that far cannot be captured in the lab, i.e., life is not purely a technical matter, and that he does not expect “we” will find life anywhere else in the solar system, including Mars – he added that there is as yet o consensus on what life is. But what Andrew Pohorille did not tell me at the time was that just a few days prior to our meeting, NASA’s Astrobiology Program—headed by Mary Voytek—awarded $1.108 million (5% of its annual budget) to the Center Read More ›

From Mike Wall at LiveScience: Humanity should be wary of seeking out contact with alien civilizations, Stephen Hawking has warned once again. … For what it’s worth, some other astronomers believe Hawking’s caution is unwarranted. Any alien civilization advanced enough to come to Earth would surely already know of humans’ existence via the radio and TV signals that humanity has been sending out into space since 1900 or so, this line of thinking goes. More. Hawking airs his concerns in his new documentary, Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places (paywall) See also: But surely we can’t conjure an entire advanced civilization? and How do we grapple with the idea that ET might not be out there? Follow UD News at Twitter! Trailer:

From Hanneke Weitering at Space.com: In the film, six astronauts aboard the space station study a sample collected from Mars that could provide evidence for extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet. The crew determines that the sample contains a large, single-celled organism — the first example of life beyond Earth. … At first, the tiny alien seems cute and harmless as it sits inside a gloved containment box. When one of the astronauts puts his hands into the gloves and reaches in to touch the alien, its small, stringy, mushroom-like figure wiggles as if it’s being tickled. But the cuteness doesn’t last long. More. No, It wouldn’t. Otherwise, there’d be no story. Happily… See also: What we know and don’t Read More ›