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It’s been a while since we posted something about the Curiosity rover – now, Curiosity has reported that the Martian atmosphere lacks methane. This is a surprise to researchers because previous data seemed to indicate the contrary. The 4 wheel laboratory conducted extensive tests for traces of Martian methane, and the results were conclusive; the […]
Evidence of surprisingly diverse life forms have been found in the 100.000 year old sediments of a subglacial lake in Antarctica. British scientists working on the site have apparently gathered samples without contaminating them. The possibility of life existing in these cold, dark lakes, hidden beneath (sometimes) kilometers of ice has fascinated researchers. We’re talking […]
Although astronomers have identified less than a dozen potentially habitable planets so far, a new study suggests that our galaxy may be teeming with planets actually capable of hosting life. Based on data from NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, researchers had previously predicted that there should be one Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of each red […]
Detailed analysis and review have confirmed the scientists’ initial opinion – the pebble containing slabs Curiosity stumbled upon last year were indeed part of an ancient streambed. When the Curiosity rover landed on Mars, it was expecting to find lots of things – but finding evidence of ancient water so close to the land site […]
A team of Canadian researchers has discovered a bacterium that thrives in the Arctic regions, much below freezing point, at -15 degrees C in one the coldest temperature ever reported for bacterial growth. The discovery of the bacterium Planococcus halocryophilus OR1 was made in Ellesmere Island, Canada, a part of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, […]
Buried deep at some 2.4 kilometers beneath the surface, in the vicinity of an underground mine near Ontario, Canada, scientists have stumbled across what may actually be the oldest water on Earth. Isolated for more than a billion years, the water pocket holds invaluable clues that may hint how ancient life formed, while also shinning hope that […]
The ever resourceful Kepler mission has recently unveiled several new possible Earth-like planet candidates, two of whom are favored by scientists with the best odds yet of supporting alien life. The pair actually orbits around the same star, called Kepler 62, after NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, which is smaller and dimmer than our own star. Kepler 62 […]
New observations have tracked the “rain” of charged water particles over Saturn spewing from its rings with unprecedented detail. The findings show that the rain is dispersed across a larger surface of the planet than previously thought, which might explain some peculiar meteorologic phenomenae. The study concludes that due to erosion, Saturn’s icy rings discharge […]
Life on Mars The sedimentary processes on Mars have generally been governed by wind, not water – but is this the case where the Curiosity rover is searching for life at the moment. If this is the case (and Curiosity will either confirm or infirm this when it reaches Mount Sharp next year), then odds […]
Few destinations in our solar systems are as likely to hold life as Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Even though on the surface it’s a barren, frozen wasteland, there is every reason for it to host life beneath its surface. So it’s quite easy to understand why we’re so excited to see that on page […]
Ok, so big news on the horizon: alien life forms have been found in a meteorite that recently crashed in Sri Lanka, on December 29, bringing along a new perspective on how we view the origin and movement of life. But… have they really? Well, sorry to burst your bubble ladies and gentlemen, but in […]
A while ago, we were telling you about the very exciting environment that is lake Vostok. The lake has been sealed under ice for more than a million years; researchers believed that it still harbored life, possibly bacterian life that evolved on a parallel evolution line. Now, Russian researchers believe they confirmed that hunch, finding […]
If you were to lick the surface of Jupiter‘s icy moon Europa, you would actually be sampling a bit of the ocean beneath – at least that’s what a new paper by Mike Brown, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., and Kevin Hand from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory concludes. Their […]
As the search for life on Mars intensifies, it’s good to remember that there are other places in our own solar system that are much more likely to host life. This may be a “captain obvious” moment for some, but may come as quite the surprise for others. Europa, despite its frozen surface, is thought […]
Despite some initial worry, Curiosity’s drill worked out just fine, and now, the rover has revealed historic images that confirm it has obtained the first samples from the inside of another planet. No other rover or device has drilled to another planet and collected a sample from its interior. “Seeing the powder from the drill […]
After researchers surveyed data from the Kepler mission tasked with identifying possibly habitable planets outside our solar system they found that 6% of red dwarfs – the most common type of planets – are within this zone. This new adjustment would mean that the nearest Earth-like planet might lie just 13 light years away. Astronomers […]
A lot of worry was spurred when a malfunction at Curiosity’s drilling mechanism jeopardized the entire mission, but now, everything seems to be working out just fine; the rover conducted its first test drill without any negative events. However, the real work is just beginning, as the first drilling-sampling operation took place. This is the […]
Ridges of Martian impact craters could be fossils of cracks in the Martian surface, formed by minerals deposited by flowing water, according to a new research. The findings, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, one of the most prestigious journals in the field, could explain a mysterious network of ridges that vein across the […]
As our search for alien planets improves and intensifies, astronomers are starting to pay more and more attention to one crucial aspect of alien planets: whether they fit into the ‘habitable zone‘ – the so-called Goldilocks area in which a planet is not too close and not too far from its star – just perfectly […]
A historic expedition that took over 10 years of planning and 3 years of preparation, a national effort from both researchers and students, finally concluded today. The team from Montana State University managed to drill into a lake that has been frozen for hundreds of thousands of years. After hauling equipment hundreds of miles across […]
Exobiologists have found what they believe to be the clearest evidence that Mars supported life – though it may not seem obvious at a first glance. The research published in Nature Geoscience shows all the needed ingredients for life in a huge crater that goes up to 5km below the planet’s surface. The McLaughlin crater, […]
The first sample from underground Mars will come from a rockbed that showcases unexpected mineral veins of gypsum. A Martian candy store Astronomers and geologists are now in the equivalent of a Martian candy store of scientific objectives: the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay is literally teeming with minerals that could only […]
A possible Earth-like planet was found by the Kepler Telescope; if the data is correct, then this would make it the most Earth-like world yet detected beyond our solar system. Unglamorously named KOI 172.02 (Kepler Object of Interest), the planet is some 50% larger than Earth, orbiting its star on an orbit which would make […]
Astronomers have discovered five planets orbiting Tau Ceti, the closest single star that resembles our Sun in terms of temperature and luminosity. Finding our cosmic neighbors If the planets are indeed there and no error was involved in the study, then there’s a good chance one of them is the right distance from the star […]
The Curiosity rover is spending Thanksgiving on Mars, but its plans don’t involve eating turkey or watching football. The rover will spend the day scouting for possible sites to begin its first time drilling. “Thanksgiving isn’t so different on Mars. I had a long drive & plan to take photos. No pie, though,” the Curiosity […]
When you think of asteroid impacts, the last thing that might come to mind is life. Contrary to popular belief, a team of researchers have recently presented their theory that holds intelligent life on our planet spurred with the help of asteroid impacts. As cosmic cold rock hit Earth, the impacts allowed for a shift […]
Curiosity took a break from its usual rock sampling activities and instead focused on the air, trying to figure out how Mars lost the biggest part of its atmosphere, leaving it with 100 times less than what Earth has. Researchers believe in the distant past, Mars was a pretty different sight from what we […]
Humanity has long dreamed of a mission to Mars, but the boots which would take the first steps on the Red Planet could be stomping on all Martian life. Despite any decontamination process, a swarm of 100 trillion microbes will accompany every astronaut who lands on Mars – as a part of their system. This […]
The European Space Agency has officially announced that it will launch a new space telescope tasked with the primary objective of finding Earth-like planets in our neighboring cosmic backyard. Though the mission’s budget is rather small, there’s nothing modest about its goals. Dubbed CHEOPS or CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite, at the end of its 3.5 year-long scheduled mission the […]
A first analysis of the ice that froze onto the drillbit used to drill in the pristine Vostok lake shows no native microbes came with the ice. A while ago, researchers understood that precious insight on alien life could be found right here on Earth – in Russia, to be more precise. But Antarctica’s is […]
It’s dinner time, and you know what there’s on the menu? Rocks! Martian rocks, to be more precise. After what seemed at times to be an excruciating series of baby steps, the rover has finally managed to extract the first samples and place it in CheMin – one of the two miniature laboratories located inside […]
The Curiosity rover is preparing to scoop in the Martian soil for the first time. The vehicle has driven up to a pile of sandy material that mission scientists have dubbed “Rocknest”. Using its clam-shaped tool, Curiosity will start digging in the ground, the first thing to do being to eliminate any previous earthly contamination. […]
Rovers, like Curiosity, have been great for gathering samples and studying the terrain and atmosphere of distant worlds, but what about environments less favorable to wheeled machines? An interesting concept has been unveiled recently, in which scientists propose landing a sort of robotic boat on Titan’s largest methane lake, in order to have a physical […]
The moment many of us have been waiting for is almost here: Curiosity prepares to make its first contact with a Martian – a Martian rock, that is. The rover has been on the Red Planet for six weeks now, still preparing its devices, namely its Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) which will be used […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover has already driven 112 meters on the surface of Mars, leaving behind these tracks, photographed by another NASA satellite orbiting the Red Planet. The spacecraft landed one month ago, on August 5, in a mission to search for the basic ingredients of life, and figure out if Mars has, or had at […]
Since it landed, the Mars Science Laboratory mission has offered a series of premieres for space exploration like the first-ever panorama of Gale Crater, the first measurements of high energy radiation on another planet, the first movie of a spacecraft landing on another planet, the first images from a focusable camera on another planet or first images […]
NASA’s Curiosity rover is really getting down to business, sending spectacular pictures back to Earth – including a colour panoramic image of the Gale Crater landing site. During a press conference, NASA officials announced the pictures are not only spectacular themselves, but also crucial to understanding the Martian landscape. “The Navcam and Mastcam images have […]
The video captures the thrilling final few minutes of the Curiosity rover’s white-knuckle ride as it descended towards the surface of Mars, where it will hopefully provide valuable information about the Red Planet’s history. You shouldn’t expect a fantastic hi-res video, because the rover’s Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) only has a low-resolution camera. During the […]
Curiosity has landed. The Mars Science Laboratory is set to go, and today, we’ll be writing tons of posts about it: videos, pics, facts, etc – given that it is, without a doubt the most important accomplishment of the year in space exploration. Unlike Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity doesn’t use solar panels as an energy […]
The Mars landing isn’t an easy feat, even if you’re NASA; the car-sized Curiosity roverch is on its way to fulfilling the two year $2.5 billion project it embarked on: finding out whether Mars has, or had at any time in its existence, life forms. The rover has been traveling 8 months and a half, […]
With the Mars rover Curiosity due to land this weekend, it can be a real drag following NASA’s everyday lingo, which sometimes seems to resemble Martian more than English. Processes have nicknames, parts have nicknames or acronyms, and if you want to know if MSL will nail the EDL for example, you have to learn […]
In 2010, a NASA study published in the journal Science heralded the discovery of a bacteria, called GFAJ-1, which the authors at the time claimed it substitutes arsenic for phosphorus to survive. This contravened with the elemental recipe for life, where phosphorus is essential, stirring a wave of controversy within scientific community, as it would mandate a […]
Last year, we reported on this incredible study from NASA scientists, where the possibility of a vast ocean of water beneath the surface of Titan, one of Saturn’s moon, was discussed. The study was in its incipient form, and now researchers have released a new report in which they conclude it’s very much likely that a huge […]
In the summer of 2011, Swedish marine explorers looking for various goods from shipwrecks, which sank in the Baltic Sea a long time ago, came across a peculiar discovery. The Swedish treasure hunters’ sonar revealed an extraordinary image: a formation of objects at the bottom of the sea that bears an uncanny resemblance to Star Wars’ fabled Millennium Falcon. One […]
The most sophisticated rover developed by NASA to date, the Mars Curiosity rover, is set to land on the red planet in August. During its one year mission, the rover’s main objective is that of investigating for signs that might hint towards the presence of life, past or present, on Mars. Scientists have unanimously agreed […]
NASA is equivalent to innovation and cutting edge technology, and this was made possible by the creative flow of whole generations of brilliant scientists. The same philosophy is in place today, as well, and even though the agency has been faced with drastic budget cuts in the past few years, it has kept an open […]
When the administration gives you budget cut lemons, make a different scientific lemonade – that’s pretty much what NASA is trying to do in light of these decisions. Less money, more problems Citing lack of funds, the Obama administration is cutting healthy chunks of the NASA budget, placing a big question mark on many important […]
One of the most outstanding dreams astronomers and other scientists hope to accomplish is to someday encounter proof that extraterestrial life exists. Intelligent life might be extremely far off, however microbiological life should without a doubt be present elsewhere other than our planet or solar system. For life to blossom, however, the right conditions have […]
The hunt for the second Earth, a similar life-bearing paradise like our own, rages on, and while no candidate came any close so far, scientists have made some extraordinary discoveries in the process. The latest exciting find is a super-Earth, a planet larger than Earth, but no bigger than Neptune, that represents the first of […]
After two decades of drilling in the frozen wastelands of Antarctica, Russian researchers have finally managed to drill down to lake Vostok, which has been sealed under kilometers of ice for over 15 million years. When they first announced they reached the water, biologists were ecstatic; not only did they get a unique chance to […]
