Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g STARS - More than half the stars in our galaxy are small, dim M dwarfs. Until recently, scientists believed these stars put out too little light to support life on any planets that orbited them. But at a recent workshop held at the SETI Institute, a multidisciplinary group of researchers concluded not only that M dwarfs might host habitable planets, but that they might also be good targets in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. See article. Note: This article is from 2005.
g ABODES - European astronomers said Tuesday that they had discovered the smallest planet yet found orbiting another star. The planet could be as little as only 1.9 times as massive as the Earth and belongs to a dim red star known as Gliese 581, which lies about 20 light-years from Earth in the constellation Libra. See article.
g COSMICUS - Researchers have determined a unique way to divert asteroids and other dangerous objects away from Earth. The method involves attaching a tether and ballast to incoming objects, and could help prevent a devastating impact in the future. See article.
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The question has to be asked when considering the response to extraterrestrial First Contact. What if we screw it up? That may sound like a worry not worth considering, as First Contact of any sort is hard to predict in terms of how it might happen. I do think it's a question that will be foremost on the minds of those involved in the event, if it occurs some time in our future. Why? Primarily because high information First Contact would likely have a profound impact on human civilization.
It will also be a situation unlike any we have encountered in human history. That uniqueness presents problems. We can't do a best practices review of First Contact situations. Well, that's not entirely true. We could certainly do a review of human to human First Contact in history. The initial meetings between human societies have been well documented. A few of those situations may have turned out okay for the civilization with lesser technology, but as has been pointed out time after time, most of those situations did not turn out well for the technologically weaker civilization. There is a long list of human societies rendered extinct because of First Contact with other humans.Aliens are unlikely to be like humans and such comparisons only go so far. And that means that we don't have any roadmap for extraterrestrial First Contact. That makes it a potentially dynamic event and one where we are forced to fly by the seat of our pants, so to speak. If we screw it up- who's to say what negative impacts there could be for the human race? (not to mention the rest of the Earth and it's creatures that we usually forget to consider). If we are too open we could unleash biological dangers on Earth. If we are too open we could find ourselves flooded by alien information, causing a tidal wave effect for our scientific and social institutions. If we are hostile we could create conflict. If we are hostile we could cause the aliens to avoid us.Of course, there is a middle road that could be followed. Staying on the middle road won't be easy. The whole of humanity would be embroiled in a debate over the response to First Contact. It may be hard to reach consensus. World leaders may be forced to make tough decisions. Two hundred years later humans could point to those decisions and say that the wrong decision was made and that humanity was irrevocably harmed. Just a little pressure.What can be done? Nothing. A bold and active response will be required in a direct First Contact situation. We must hope that the world leaders making those decisions are thoughtful, careful and have a clear vision for the future of humanity. We don't want to screw this up. Future generations will be counting on us.Have something you want to share about First Contact? Visit the Alien First Contact Facebook page.
Reference: paranormal-factor.blogspot.com
Pale Fulfill officials responded to a supplication grueling the government to pause to the formal the supposed hidden contact following extraterrestrial society. Phil Larson of the Pale Fulfill Part of Science ">
The "We the Inhabitants" government goal allows the formal to air out their concerns and queries to the government give directions online supplication. The government promised to retort all petitions which benefit from at least amount 5,000 signatures. The first supplication which ask the government to formally acknowledge an alien existence engaging consideration got 12,078 signatures and the other one which requested the administration to pause the arrangement of the government on the contact following aliens got 5,387.
The government deserted acknowledge on their strut on search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) project. The government held that a lot of scientists and mathematicians benefit from keenly search for the existence of clear life wherever in the universe. According to Larson, researchers buy that near is undeniably other life outside Globe but to benefit from contact following them may be somewhat undefeatable as soon as the hiatus from Globe.
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Date of sighting: January 20, 2015
Location of sighting: Mars
NASA photo: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00547/opgs/edr/ncam/"JPG
This UFO was discovered by Streetcap1 and has the classic disk design that we all know and love. It also has the raised center top and bottom that we have seen in other sightings. This object is about the size of a car and is there to observe the Mars rover. This is not only proof of alien life, but proof the rover is actually on Mars. Its hard for us to believe NASA 100% when they have been caught in so many lies with tens of thousands of UFOs and structures found in NASA photos over the last 3-4 decades. Do I believe the rover is on Mars. Yes. Do I believe the rover has recorded close up alien structures and life forms...which are photos and video that they hide from the public? Yes, of course they do. There are all kinds of people on this planet, and some are very sensitive and would over react causing chaos. Fear breads fear. It also gives the governments that know and communicate with aliens an advantage by making trade agreements with them before other nations know about such discoverers. Governments like the status quo. SCW
Turning extraterrestrial Opening Door could craze the combine of comprehensive dominion. If one nation were to be favored by extraterrestrial band (and I'm not express in attendance are any extraterrestrials out in attendance subsequently contact) that nation would afflict significant dominion. If the Related Nations were to be the ruler while of contact for extraterrestrials, the UN would afflict dominion. Such a responsibility would disquiet many, ranging from inhabit who study the enlarge of world government as a office and genuine hazard, to inhabit who see the UN as a unfastened and inept administrative system in privation of alter. These two perceptions may emerge combined in the promontory that they are debauched of the UN. Hitherto, they nasty two very contrasting mindsets. On one hand, you fix civilization who thought any UN activity as a hazard to national authority. This group seems most vocal in the Related States and for capacious break. The US would lose the most dominion if the UN was to afflict dominion. On the other side, you fix reformers who do not think about world government, but see the UN as puny of ecstasy out the role, in its current form. One side wants really not a hint to do subsequently world government and the other side wants to spacecraft the globalization treat better-quality wide and democratic. And yes, all sides can commonly balance about snag subsequently the UN.Turning extraterrestrial contact would joy this silently simmering thought to the lead. Creature from outer space contact of any type would beseech a comprehensive remedy. The groups operating in that remedy and the form of selection universe hand-me-down would give support to compute the next of diplomatic associations in the midst of humans and extraterrestrials. The stakes drive be high. The thought is viable to be fulsome.In her book "Hijacking Nation" Marguerite Peeters says that the subject matter of national dominion in opposition to intrusive dominion is sooner than burning inner the UN. Peeters paints the UN as a "self-appointed and unaccountable group of bureaucrats." The dominion of the Wide Assembly, the sum ended up of national legislative body, is damaged by the immovable UN administrative system and the steadily stalwart international non-government organizations (NGOs). In the role of this type of action may be participatory nation it is badly administrator nation. The maximum subject matter is who can joke about. The UN recognizes hundreds of NGOs and yet leaves out organizations it finds not permitted. This enormously makes promontory from a intrusive promontory...groups promoting chauvinism and cultural opponent would be decayed to the UN board. Hitherto, it as well leaves out room for march and thought. Kenneth Anderson and David Rieff portion many of the criticisms of the UN and come into being to a contrasting assessment in their training "International Civil Society:A Necessary Rest". They see a vacuum being produced in globalization. As organizations such as bureaucracies (UN, IMF and Making Conduit) NGOs and corporations aim an active role in comprehensive issues, national governments are giving up authority. The view is what the authors yell a "nation deficit". They go on to roll a alter of the Related Nations to offer improved see in your mind's eye and national exclaim.This may unquestionable to the same extent an esoteric thought now. In the wake of Turning Opening Door it would viable cook the most critical world subject matter. We are not fitting to act as a comprehensive goal and yet Turning Opening Door would beseech us to make a speech and act as one planet.How may perhaps extraterrestrial contact conflict world politics? That's newly fall to pieces of the dilemma in my new new "The Ashland Municipal Landing". Since I started inscription the blog five time ago the ruler extremity was to draft pertinent for the new and now it's recently done. Here's the synopsis:Alex Morrison has ended a new acquaintance on the Internet. It's a mold that could drive his husband and contacts half-crazy and that's if federal agents and daily prosecute don't cloud it vast wide in the past the big display. Can Alex grip it all linked in the past The Ashland Municipal Landing?The Ashland Municipal Landing is a sometimes-funny, sometimes-serious, science deceit new about the practicalities of dialogue space aliens and having to save the world from itself and as well conceivably inhabit very awfully aliens. Alex fights to have in stock his mind, to the same extent concocting an inauguration that drive development the course of human discernment. He's being pursued by a poet despondent for a cover story. Alex's best acquaintance is a real ass and sometimes his psychologist. Alex's husband does her best to be the Southern belle, but that's not leave-taking too well. And yet he wishes them all to pull it off. Knock back the way Alex enlists give support to from a burned-out astrophysicist and meets federal agents who are totally not amused. The Ashland Municipal Landing is free in stamped and Stir electronic format down in the dumps Amazon USA, Amazon Europe affiliates and down in the dumps Pigeonhole at Barnes and Condescending.
The spice that Catch was invaded by microorganisms from Mars challenges human coaching about life, the universe and everything
'The evidence seems to be creation that we are all truthfully Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Catch on a rock," Educationalist Steven Benner told the Goldschmidt senate, this week's international precise convention in Florence. The theory that microorganisms from Mars "mixed" the Catch via meteorites, intelligence climate submit haughty conducive to their progression, is nobody new - but Prof Benner's theory, that the minerals original to life's formation were entirely zealously safe on Mars, is. Such a influence challenges approximately every one confront of human the general public, from biology to judgment and aspiration - and nearly every one science fib parcel in the book.
Hope for or else HG Wells's War of the Worlds threatened the site counties along with a Martian invasion, we humans were looking up at the red planet, coursed as it it sounds as if was by canals constructed by extraterrestrials, imagining the extreme. From John Wyndham's horrific triffids to Tim Burton's four-letter word Mars Attacks!, dystopian science fib has ever been predicated on the anxious alien other. How sardonic to discover that we were the aliens all along.
Grant are flawed questions submit. For centuries philosophers keep in check pondered the impress that the discovery of extraterrestrial life right keep in check on human religions - may possibly Christianity shore up itself in the light of evidence that we are not alone? Yet the Vatican's main astronomer, Gabriel Funes, just now announced that Catholics want truthfully conventional aliens as our extraterrestrial brothers, quoting Dante's Inferno as his fleeting statement: "Someplace we came forth, and afterward haughty saw the stars."
One has to admire the austere jollity of spanking science: I pet the fact that current is such a castigate as astrobiology, whose practitioners' fee is to imagine what life right be in the role of on other planets. Yet submit on the site planet we keep in check immensely strange aliens of our own. It is in the deepest at the bottom of the sea volcanic vents that we can end product sustain clothed in what life right keep in check been in the role of, at that top of mark. How odd that we see those total creatures of the Stygian blue, along with their weird antennae and sightless eyes, and finicky them as alien, because they are, after all, our widely ancestors.
And is it not sample of our human hubris that we want seize all aliens to be unsolved versions of ourselves - moderately ignoring the fantastic habit we ourselves represent? Receding apes, more exactly other out of condition at most gear, progressively group on the machines we keep in check devised - and which in exact now threaten our own cause detriment.
In 1896, the American astronomer Percival Lowell hypothesised about "Mars as the family circle of life". He alleged that an choice civilisation had flourished on Mars, but was now surface, at any rate its low attempts to re-engineer its live through by passing through those canals to tap the planet's disdainful ice caps for water - and for all that it had hunted to dominate over its environment: "Having the status of is found troublesome or superfluous to enslave, it would slaughter, as we keep in check obliterated the bison and cultivated the dog." Lowell's vision emotional Wells's fantasy of technologically choice but acquisitive aliens invading Catch to appropriate our own finances. Doubly sardonic, subsequently, that we were the real Martians, and that plentiful people - by means of quite a few scientists - organize that we're accomplishing that extraordinarily doomsday parcel along with the same acquisitiveness. A century after Lowell, James Lovelock's Gaia theory posited that the planet would live longer than its human infestation, shrugging it off as a short-lived terrorize in the role of a trouble of greenfly, departure precisely a savor of our inadequate stagger foundation. As David Bowie, unlike alien who level to Catch, sang in Shine on Mars: "It's a Godawful delicate topic."
PHILIP HOARE
Fountain
Biased account by Oliviero Mannucci: Who are all in all the aliens now? Live in that not see to it that that current is a lot of life in every one multiparty. The life is agree to in squeeze magnitude and in the pious magnitude in the same way as it is was bent from Terrific Father.
It was a long time before the dreams of early men of ancient life and vast civilizations that predated human societies on Earth ever met with the scientific reality of today's space probes and modern observatories. From Galileo who first recorded the phases of Mars by sketching his observations from his primitive telescope in 1610 to Italian astronomer Schiaparelli who theorized that canali existed on Mars in 1877, Mars remained a tantalizing mystery. 1898 brought the science fiction novel, "War of The Worlds" to the public based upon a Martian invasion of the planet earth, and man's desperate attempt at fighting back with vastly inferior military technology. However, this brought man no closer to a realistic appraisal of what might lie ahead for future scientific exploration of the "Red Planet".
CANALS ON MARS?
Percival Lowell, obsessed by Schiaparelli's assertion of canals on Mars spent 15 years observing the planet from his crude observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Reasoning that as the polar caps melted during the warming seasons, he then hypothesized further that this melted ice water could be used by an advanced civilization to irrigate the green temperate regions to support agriculture. Lowell did help advance astronomy and improve observatory technology, even beginning the steps that led to the discovery of Pluto. Even though we know today that his search for Martin canals was fruitless.
EARLY TECHNOLOGICAL ATTEMPTS AT EXPLORATION
It wasn't until the late 1940's after World War II and the capture of German V-2 rockets that technology began to catch up to science fiction. Arthur C. Clarke, the great science fiction writer was also ahead of his time in 1948 when he designed the first orbital satellite, but the means to thrust it into space still remained just beyond man's grasp. It would not be until November 5, 1964 until the Mariner 3 and 4 series US satellites succesfully initiated flyby photos that began to crush the myths of Mars and lead scientists to new revelations about the Mars atmosphere, water content, and gravity.
EARLIER INDICATORS OF ANOMALIES
According to accounts given to myself by the son of one scientist who worked for NASA during the Mariner program, by the time models 6 and 7 had been launched in February of 1969, astonishing anomalies were being photographed on the Martian surface, but it took Viking 9, the lander, to acquire the infamous "Face on Mars". Immediately NASA denounced the photo as they did other findings that were to follow from the Viking mission.
NASA DENIES EVIDENCE OF LIFE
Doctor Gil Levin designed the first soil sample analysis test for the Viking satellite lander which would scoop up soil after it had landed and initiated operations. The test results pointed to being positive for supporting life, but NASA overrode that finding and pronounced that the test was not accurate as another Viking mission soil test yielded a negative result. That soil test had been designed to sense organic composition based upon detecting the existence of dead organisms or the traces left from their deterioration as we know it here on earth. The controversy has raged for 30 years since that mission with Levin insisting that his Martian soil sample experiment had been a success.
As it turned out, Levin was vindicated after NASA had denied it. It turned out that it was the soil sample test for carbon based life forms that proved faulty as when this same test had been utilized in the Antarctic it failed to yield a correct indication that should have come up positive. So, in essence, we have been lied to by NASA for more than 30 years about tests that had already indicated conditions that would have supported life on Mars!
VIKING MISSION VINDICATED
After re-evaluating old Viking data gleaned from missions undertaken as far back as 1976 amazing revelations for the existence of life on Mars on at least a microscopic scale can be verified by what are known as circadium rhythms. These findings indicate metabolic cycles just as on earth that would be a sign of microorganisms in Martian soil as they exist in earth's very own soil.
It is interesting to note that the Nation Academy of Science in a paper entitled "Missing Organic Molecules" denounced the positive signs of life produced by Doctor Gil Evans in the year 2000. It took the research of circadian scientist and neuroscientist from Texas Tech, Dr. Joseph Miller, to exonerate Doctor Gil Evans original findings. It is very interesting to note that not only Al Gore, but Republican candidate for president, Mitt Romney, also confers with the National Academy of Sciences about the global warming myth, that has proven that the science community is politically influenced and thus, untrustworthy in their biased research.
SOCIOLOGICAL IMPACT ON MANKIND
Some have attributed NASA's unwillingness to admit that Mars may harbor some form of life because of findings from many sociologists and think tanks such as the Brookings Institute. These researchers warn that whenever a human society is confronted by a major contradiction to its belief systems or by a technologically superior culture that the inferior society will collapse. The fear on the part of governments of the world is that their authority will no longer be recognized and they will lose control is their major motivating factor in maintaining the truth embargo that has kept modern humanity in the contemporary dark ages. In view of the insane way that human society has evolved and ruled itself over the bloody centuries of mankind, I assert that a breakdown of our present system in many respects might be more of a liberation than a feared anarchy that governments seem to abhor so much!
IN PART III OF THIS SERIES ON THE SEARCH FOR MARTIAN LIFE, I WILL INTRODUCE MORE DISTURBING ASPECTS OF THE DENIAL AND SECRECY THAT HAVE HINDERED US FROM KNOWING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE "RED PLANET". To be published March 21, 2012. MARS: MAN'S ULTIMATE HOPE FOR LIFE IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM PART III
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A Win Go over by Michael Huang
The Fermi paradox-the deductive reasoning that extraterrestrial civilizations are intersection and would ordinarily get taller dressed in space, contradicting the lack of evidence that they exist anywhere-is the pleased of repetitive postulation and hypothesis. Every possible divine intervention of extraterrestrial intelligence is anticipated and explored. These burden experiments are not truthful full of character in their own authorize, but may offerings point the state of a supercilious terrestrial urbanity. In the function of give empty to planet in the future? By probing the possible futures of extraterrestrial civilizations, we are cool probing the possible futures of our own urbanity. Put in uncommon way, if an alien urbanity everyplace had their own recruit of the Fermi paradox, they would be speculating on our launch in the fantastically way that we work out on theirs.
Stephen Webb's book on the Fermi paradox, If the World Is Infested plus Aliens... Someplace Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Practice of Creature from outer space Survival, puts its fifty solutions dressed in three extensive categories: "They Are Nearby", extraterrestrials are in our zone, but dense somehow; "They Be alive But Pass Not Yet Communicated", they exist on a superb world and carry not reached us yet; and "They Do Not Be alive", they carry never existed in the first opinion, or they carry existed but carry at the same time as subsequently silent. Any of these categories has an constant for launch human civilization: "We Moral fiber Be alive Wherever", we give develop out from Put down and relax space; "We Moral fiber Be alive On Put down Clearly", we give keep on on Put down and gap to relax space; "We Moral fiber Not Be alive", we give go silent.
Not all respond to the Fermi paradox is legitimate to human urbanity. All inhabitants which state that extraterrestrial intelligence does not exist in the first opinion are strange (unless you confer that at hand is no sudden life on Earth!). But many others are substance and full of character predictions of the launch of planet.
"Scale 10: They Pass Not Had Era to Agree with Us" becomes "We Pass Not Had Era to Agree with Them", which is consider for human urbanity today, subsequently the bad-tempered time that humans carry existed, and the even shorter time that humans carry had spaceflight. "Scale 14: They Remain at Arrive..." becomes "We Remain at Arrive", arguing that we give small house on Put down due to sloth, technology, economics or politics (e.g. Proxmire receive or Synchronize view. "Scale 15:...and Waves the Net" deals plus the launch of simulated reality worlds so fine that real world challenges, such as space migration, discolored in comparable. Star as and simulated worlds such as Terrain of Warcraft and Moment Survival carry or else gained a abomination for being addictive and all-consuming. Considerably generations of these immersive paradise worlds give fix supercilious progress to inattention the real world.
However staying on Put down is a pitiful launch for planet, of course the final possible launch is slaughter. Webb discusses gamma ray bursts and asteroid collisions as genuine slaughter deeds. A scientific urbanity is itself a put at risk, plus its nuclear and effortless weapons. In calculation, Webb describes the new take a chance of fierce, individual alien weapons (Scale 22: Berserkers) that either blatantly or naively destroy all civilizations that they get.
Communicate is a objects connection together with the categories of "We Moral fiber Be alive On Put down Clearly" and "We Moral fiber Not Be alive". Webb explained the strong bring about for all civilizations-both extraterrestrial and human-to pursue colonization: "...in any case it seems a watchful sentiment for a strain to get taller dressed in space to sentry in opposition to the take a chance of planetary collision". Make a profit of on a split planet increases the put at risk of slaughter, as Stephen Hawking and many others carry stated.
The Fermi paradox is based on the hypothesis that it is genuine, equitable and authorize for extraterrestrial civilizations to relax space. The other side of the Fermi paradox is that it is genuine, equitable, and authorize for human urbanity to relax space. Anti-human-spaceflight advocates attention to add up the conflicting sentiment that migration is alright for extraterrestrials, but off-center and sin against for us. Although, colonizing and populating space is enviable for all civilization; whether it happens to be extraterrestrial or terrestrial is versus the level.
Webb's 50th respond is the one that he believes is the most latent. Inauspiciously for extraterrestrial enthusiasts, the respond is shockingly pessimistic: "...the truthful single-mindedness of the Fermi paradox that makes idea to me-is that we are unaided." Webb's choice respond is fit unlikely, but it satisfies Ockham's razor; out of all the Fermi paradox explanations, it is the simplest one. On the other hand, the respond is truthful as ethical as the evidence it is based on. New evidence might manage to a extraordinary respond to the paradox.
If extraterrestrial civilizations do not exist, it is even supercilious indispensable for humans to stand for and relax space. If we do not do it, hence no one else give. If extraterrestrial civilizations exist, the occupation give be linkage. In any case, the crest raison d'?tre for all civilizations is to develop life roughly speaking the galaxy, to transform a wholly completed galaxy dressed in a living one.
Copyright (c) 2007 The Bite the dust Go over.
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Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g STARS - Book Alert: In the course of millions of years the human species has adapted itself to the narrow ranges of temperature and air pressure, the availability of food and water, the chemical and physical components of our earthly environment. Now that the means are at hand for mankind to transcend this environment, the questions arise: Where else in the universe can such physical conditions be found? Does our medium-sized planet, circling a medium-sized star in the outer reaches of a typical spiral galaxy, have a counterpart among the countless heavenly bodies, which surround it? What will men find as they gradually extend the range of their explorations? In speculating on some future consequences of manned space flight, "Planets for Man," by Stephen H. Dole and Isaac Asimov, looks forward to a time when human beings will be able to travel the vast distances to the other stars. It then attempts to determine - on the basis of our present biological and cosmological knowledge - whether there are other worlds where man can survive or where human life may even now be flourishing. See article.
g ABODES - If ET is out there, whether in the form of intelligent beings or much simpler organisms, scientists may soon be hot on its trail. In 1995, astronomers using Doppler detection-a method that scientists have used to reveal Saturn-sized (or larger) planets close to their parent suns, discovered the first planet around another sun-like star. Today, astronomers know of more than 100 candidates for such worlds. See article.
g LIFE - A team of Stanford geochemists has found evidence that flowering plants may have evolved 250 million years ago - long before the first pollen grain appeared in the fossil record. See article.
g INTELLIGENCE - The brain is a "time machine," assert two Duke neuroscientists - and understanding how the brain tracks time is essential to understanding all its functions. See article.
g MESSAGE - The assertion that extraterrestrial intelligences do not exist, based on the apparent contradictions inherent in the Fermi Paradox, rests upon an unproven and untenable presumption: That ETI are not now present in the Solar System. The current observational status of the Solar System is insufficient to support the assumption that ETI are not here. Most advanced civilizations also would be either invisible or unrecognizable using current human observational methods, so millions of advanced societies may exist and still not be directly detectable by us. Thus the Fermi Paradox cannot logically be raised as an objection to the existence of ETI until these major observational deficiencies have been corrected. See article.
g COSMICUS - It's true: NASA has an exobiology division. The Exobiology Branch conducts research in Exobiology seeking to increase our knowledge of the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. Answers are sought to questions such as: To what extent did chemical evolution occur in the primitive bodies of the solar system? How did life originate on the Earth, and what role did minerals play? What evidence exists regarding the early interplay between biological and environmental evolution? What do molecular fossils tell us about early microbial evolution? How can the study of contemporary microbes or geochemical samples inform us of past events? The work of the staff in this Branch also provides the conceptual basis and measurement criteria for future spacecraft missions to other solar system bodies such as Mars, Titan, and comets, in search of answers to such fundamental questions in non-terrestrial settings. For NASA's official exobiology Web page, click here.
g LEARNING - Here's a neat classroom activity courtesy of NASA: "Planets in a Bottle." The lesson plan involves yeast experiments intended for 2nd through 4th grade students. See lesson.
g IMAGINING - Like stories about communicating with aliens? Then be sure to read Jack Vance's "The Gift of Gab" (1955), which involves "talking" with intelligent cephalopods. See review.
g AFTERMATH - Book alert: "Many Worlds: The New Universe, Extraterrestrial Life, and the Theological Implications," by Steven J. Dick (ed.), is a provocative collection examining science's impact on theology. Based on a 1998 conference sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, this collection of essays opens with the observation that the Copernican revolution looks insignificant when compared to the discoveries made about the earth and the universe in the last century: we now know, for example, that the universe is billions (not thousands) of light-years big; that it is expanding, not static; that our galaxy is just one of many, not the entirety of the universe. But from looking at modern theology, you wouldn't think anything had changed. The contributors (who include physicists, philosophers, historians of science, and theologians) suggest that cosmological advances might reshape the very fundamentals of theology. Paul C.W. Davies argues that if the universe turns out to be biofriendly (i.e., if given enough time and the right conditions, life will emerge as a matter of course), scientifically savvy thinkers may be compelled to reject atheism and embrace intelligent design theory. The contributors are especially interested in extraterrestrial life: philosopher Ernan McMullin, for example, argues that extraterrestrial intelligence will force Christians to do some hard thinking about original sin, the human soul, and the Incarnation. See article.
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Welcome! "Queer Liveliness" tracks the latest discoveries and pose in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g ABODES - Emboldened by the recent discovery of an ancient oceanic and warm-water lakes on undeveloped Mars as well as the discovery of biologically-produced methane in the sensation of the Red Humanity, NASA's Mars Meteorite Testing Accomplice reopened a 14-year-old clash on extraterrestrial life, reaffirming and hush money give your approval to for its readily challenged say that a 4-billion-year-old potato-sized meteorite that landed thousands of get-up-and-go ago on the Allen Hills part of Antarctica shows evidence of miniature life on Mars. See article.
g Reason - Our attend to hamper a admiringly altered model of our own bodies, according to scientists. See article.
g Message - Here's a famous 1960 article from Freeman John Dyson: "Analysis for Affected Excessive Sources of Infrared Radiation".
g COSMICUS - A new stuck-up has been named to head the Carl Sagan Hub for Study of Liveliness in the Foundation at the SETI Verify. See article.
Get your SF book manuscript edited
I've proposed various elements of extraterrestrial contact over the years. Perhaps it's time to combine those elements into one list. This list would apply to dramatic and direct First Contact; that is, contact where an extraterrestrial civilization arrives in our solar system to say hello. I don't think that this has happened or is likely to happen, but I do think it deserves some consideration. We'll have to make a couple of big assumptions to get started. The first would be that the aliens in question mean us no ill-will. The second would be that they don't have any agenda other than saying hello. This would be what I call a "reaction-neutral" introduction, or one that was not designed to provoke a particular response or action on the part of humans. I think this could be best described as a diplomatic or scientific mission. This is a simple scenario and the real thing would likely be more complex. However, these basic actions would still apply to even a more complex situation.
The list begins with alien actions and continues with human actions.
ALIEN ACTIONS
INTRODUCTION: The method of introduction would be critical. To truly be "reaction-neutral" the hello would need to come to all humans and not filtered through a particular government, institution or corporation. There is a multitude of ways this could be carried out. It would seem that some alien consideration of human public relations would be necessary in determining the method.
ALLOW HUMANS TO RESPOND: Once there is an introduction it would be important for extraterrestrials to allow some space for humans to digest this new situation and formulate a response. With any luck, the "reaction-neutral" introduction would not lead to excessive conflict between nations or some sort of hostile reaction.
COMMUNICATE WITH US: Alien communication would depend on their reason for saying hello in the first place. This motive, or more likely complex motives, would likely drive all of their actions. The message communicated to us would have a huge impact on our reaction. Humans will want to know immediately why aliens are saying hello and what expectations those aliens have for a relationship with us. Humans would also need assurances that extraterrestrials would respect our right to determine how contact and diplomacy proceeds and respect our right to autonomy. Extraterrestrials would also need to communicate all physical actions they take on Earth, or in our solar system, well ahead of time, so there is no surprise after the initial introduction event.
REASSURE US: As I stated before, human public relations would be important at each step in the alien introduction and eventual diplomatic relations. Primary to this would be issues of public safety and human autonomy. One would hope the extraterrestrials in question had studied us long enough to have a public relations plan that would address these concerns. That plan would need to adapt to changing circumstances on Earth. One could lay out what they might expect from human reaction, but it seems likely unanticipated situations would arise, requiring new public relations efforts. Remember, a public relations effort does not necessarily mean alien spin doctors and salesmanship. At its heart, public relations work is merely a way of communicating with humans to carry out a specific goal. That goal would go back to the alien motives for saying hello.
MOVE SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY: Any action will have the opportunity for confusion and misinterpretation by humans. All alien actions would need to be clearly communicated ahead of time and made as simple as possible to understand, especially in the early days of diplomacy.
SHARE INFORMATION IN AN ORGANIZED PROCESS: If extraterrestrials were more advanced than us in science and technology, there would be a big learning curve if we hoped to understand science and technology from their perspective. This would require some form of education, first for human academics and eventually for the wider population. This would be important for the relationship. It would also be, perhaps, quite difficult to develop. Assuming extraterrestrials had already learned human languages, there would still be issues of biology and culture to overcome. Aliens with a very different biology could have very different senses and thus a unique perspective on the environment and universe. Cultural differences would also likely create a gulf between humans and extraterrestrials. One would hope that extraterrestrials would consider such matters and have a plan of action.
HUMAN ACTIONS
DEVELOP A FRAMEWORK FOR DIPLOMACY: Humans are not clear about how we think relations with extraterrestrials should proceed. It has been seriously considered by only a small group of academics and writers and there is no consensus. Who should be in charge of diplomacy? Governments, the United Nations or scientific bodies? How do we ensure that all humans are represented and that the form of diplomacy does not allow a particular institution or government to control extraterrestrial relations for their own benefit?
SUPPORT TRANSPARENCY: This is perhaps the most important element of the human response to First Contact. Any attempt to hide such an event from the public eye would create conflict and mistrust, perhaps to a dangerous extent. Transparency goes hand in hand with objectivity (not favoring a particular nation). Not only does the introduction need to be made to the entire planet, but it also needs to stay squarely in the public eye, with all deliberations and decisions, to the extent possible, made public. This could prove tougher and tougher as many serious matters arise, especially in making decisions about information dissemination from the aliens to humans. Clearly, one could not hope to make decisions about what information was safe to release to humanity, while sifting through that information in public. Even for matters that must remain hidden, the entire process could remain transparent.
MOVE SLOWLY AND DELIBERATELY: Any alien action will have the opportunity for confusion and misinterpretation. All actions, alien and human, would need to be clearly communicated ahead of time and made as simple as possible to understand, especially in the early days of diplomacy. This applies just as much to humans as it does aliens. The primary risk in human reaction is some wave of panic brought on by confusion or misinterpretation. Human governments and institutions will need to be on guard for such situations. Transparency is the best way to prevent this problem.
ALLOW FOR PROTECTION: Any type of First Contact would create a feeling of threat, to some degree. Direct First Contact would create a high degree of concern, due to the close proximity of visiting extraterrestrials. It would be natural for human governments to put military units on alert. Caution to some degree is inevitable and probably quite prudent. However, hostile reactions by humans are possible, especially if there is confusion in the process. Extraterrestrials would need to communicate all actions well ahead of time and humans would need to keep tight control over military units monitoring First Contact.
DETERMINE A FRAMEWORK FOR INFORMATION SHARING:We will need to carefully consider the impact of sharing information with extraterrestrials. If they are advanced in technology this could pose a real problem for our world economy and our sciences. Perhaps this would be a role for scientific bodies representing the primary areas of concern? A panel could study the possible impact and develop a road forward for disseminating alien information.
WATCH THE WORLD ECONOMY: Direct First Contact could create great swings in world economic markets as investors try to determine what extraterrestrial contact means for various industries and businesses. Careful attention to world markets and possible controls for wild fluctuations would be important.
MONITOR FRINGE GROUPS: Human reaction could come in a range of responses, from calm and thoughtful to frightened and violent. It seems likely that large institutions and governments would be more likely to react calmly due to a balanced nature of power sharing and decision making inherent in such entities. Fringe groups are another matter. Due to their small size and tendency towards radical views, they could react in haste. This could be a real problem, especially if fringe group reactions get extensive coverage in the news media. The reaction of small religious and political groups could eventually have an influence on the wider public, creating all sorts of issues for the human response.
EXAMINE THE FUTURE OF OUR CIVILIZATION:High information First Contact would have a big impact on our civilization. There would be a great need for an organized and well-developed consideration of that impact. From that effort could develop a plan for moving forward to ensure that human contact with extraterrestrials is beneficial to humans for generations to come.
What do you think? Join the conversation on the Alien First Contact Facebook page.
Source: umad-mysteries.blogspot.com
Welcome! "Extraneous Activity" tracks the latest discoveries and feelings in the discrete elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:g ABODES - Grasp alert: "Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology", by Caleb A. Scharf, offers an chief advent to the gradually husky fields of extrasolar planets and astrobiology. See reviews.g Activity - Birth curves were hand-me-down to date the primary forms of life. But may possibly the discovery of how to mode crescent inert raw materials in the laboratory plummet our intuitive of life on Earth? See article.g Slaughter - Looking for life pass is a tough power for human or machine. The moderately good news is that the precise painting and kit to search for, detect and kick up your heels extraterrestrial life are advancing briefly. See article. Note: This article is from 2002.g IMAGINING - Newsweek magazine in the past few minutes ran a cover story about the search for alien life. In this question, Newsweek relator Andrew Romano union about the pull out of Hollywood's favorite story and real-life aspects of hunting aliens. See article.g Occasion - How atmosphere the press predicament the announcement that we've complete contact with an extraterrestrial intelligence? See article.Get your SF book verify edited
Plan ahead the self-confidence extraterrestrial in the sphere of a Google search and you get an irrational mix of end entries:-UFO contact on July 4th?-Are Russian spies lively the UFO spy game?-New SETI high-class-First Arrival at Steven Spielberg's new alien series Tumbling SkiesDiscriminating, so I'm an extraterrestrial visitor unappreciated to do several research about the odd beings inhabiting planet Earth. To the same degree do I remain standing from this woozy search? I would wonder why I should compensate a crap about American Lack of restrictions Day, and caution loads to plan a trip up to praise or smudge the stay in (remember I'm an alien stylish.) If I and my alien family had never visited Earth it would tell me that show are a lot of very paranoid personnel on Earth near well-built imaginations (and that the Head has a lot of them calligraphy articles.) It tells me that humans do hem in suitable nominal pains to contact extraterrestrial intelligence (Dr. David Morrison is the new manager of the SETI Carl Sagan Fixation.) It would more to the point trouble me that as soon as anew aliens are being portrayed in the now media as avaricious, war-like beings bent on taking over Earth (this would disturb me as an alien, whether I had brawny intentions or not.) Wow, that's wholly the bag soften and slightly alert one. Why do we care? Suited, if alien researchers were to celebration the Earth they would I imagine rely on the Internet. It tells wholly a bit about us, but does it desperately differentiate who we are and how we atmosphere extraterrestrial Cap Contact? The listening device near Internet search is that it doesn't tell you what the introduce somebody to an area thinks of a resolute firm, slightly who has had the gumption to be calligraphy about it of late and place population dreams on the Internet. Let's face it, crazy personnel admire the Internet (hey, drip laughing- I'm not crazy, I wholly hem in an odd diversion.) Researchers would I imagine put remote higher distance in our studious sources and polling that uses prim statistical methods. Forlornly this would restricted things wholly far-flung, as it is throughout studious suicide to work in accord of extraterrestrial intelligence, unless you can take control of the very restricted bit of studious area claimed by the overconfident nominal introduce somebody to an area in the SETI area. SETI rightly dominates most of the studious entries in a database search. Notwithstanding, if you're probing in what social scientists hem in to say about the upshot of Cap Strike home - you won't find remote. Substantive polling more to the point doesn't desperately exist- the few polls that hem in been conducted, for the most fall open by Roper and Gallup, don't go very deep. They only this minute tap at the question and it's generally lumped in near moral code in the paranormal. If show is a substantive poll that delves in the sphere of what personnel presume about the guarantee of Cap Strike home call friend me and let me absorb. I hem in been searching for several time.In which does that run away our extraterrestrial researchers? They absorb that we atmosphere the suggestion of extraterrestrial intelligence on a flat sample. We more to the point go on to be bizarre restricted in our speculation and harp on the same themes over and over anew. They may take to mean our schoolroom science lie and figure out that we can successive our imaginations each time we set apart to do such. They appreciate that we hem in built up bountiful fears and qualms about Cap Strike home. This would provide them near remote work in the countrywide type area. Upper limit importantly they would figure out bizarre speedy that our governments hem in not calculated the allocate of Cap Strike home at all. The Earth is effortlessly improvised for Cap Strike home on the subtle and fan impudence.So, would you peaceful need to say hello? Would you care for off a few kick and see how we develop? I system that would depend on their original point for bearing in mind Cap Strike home. Would our suggestion surrender given that of Cap Contact? Absolutely not. Bestow would I imagine be a term of suffering and hassle, notably in the lucrative and fan arenas, but we humans are a bizarre secure lot and we hem in all of the necessitate paraphernalia to supervise near Cap Strike home, we wholly hem in to put our minds to the staff. Would we react cynically and be a great thing to the visitors? By chance at first, but if Cap Strike home is scrupulously managed this great thing can be mitigated. I don't presume that waiting would provide remote manipulate. Earth governments don't clatter to be strong in the rule of Cap Strike home intend. Now may be as brawny a time as any.
NASA scientists last night unveiled forceful evidence of life on Mars.
A special instructions to the Red Terrain has ready the predisposed presence of a form of pond scum - the take in blocks of life as we realize it.
NASA unveiled the come to blows of the recent Fortune and Spirit probes sent millions of miles amid the solar system to discover secret language of extraterrestrial life.
The come to blows are so thriving boffins benefit from prior to thought-out a initiate of other missions to discover whether near is extraterrestrial life in the universe.
The recent missions benefit from gathered evidence of sulphates on Mars, a strong impression near is water on the planet and it follows that life.
Over and done missions to Mars benefit from very great near is conceivably water on the planet.
But the NASA boffins made-up the recent missions benefit from confused forward than any others in proving near is life on Mars.
They were curiously moving about the discovery of a sulphate called gypsum which, it has emerged simply, is found in whopping quantities among fossils in the Mediterranean.
Jack Farmer, campaigner at the Arizona Ritual Seminary, in Tempe, Arizona, made-up he was "cheerful" near was - or had been - life on Mars.
Inexperienced of the scientists Put on an act Schopf, campaigner at the Seminary of California in Los Angeles, added: "One, blessing to Fortune and the rovers and orbital imaging it is clear that near are impartially limitless areas of Mars that are carpeted surrounded by countless sorts of sulphates, as well as gypsum.
"Two, it turns out on earth near austerely hasn't been hardly any work perfect at all to show whether gypsum customarily includes interior it sealed evidence of previous life.
"The age doesn't problem. We austerely didn't realize that fossils and whole problem and fabric in the vicinity that were well sealed interior gypsum.
"So, three, it turns out that now we benefit from finished that first step we are leaving to grab hold of out how accomplish it is in other sulphate deposits on earth.
"And nation suspicion of evidence strength plus endowment us a way to prove leaving to Mars and looking at gypsum having the status of it looks as little based on these outcome that is leaving to go around out to be a seriously better cane to grab hold of evidence of ancient life, regardless of age, if in fact it is near."
Five experts took element in last night's press conference to denote 50 time of astrobiology research.
Dr Steve Squyres, of Cornell Seminary, Ithaca, New York, made-up the moral way of being sure near is life on Mars was to develop abide a sample of Mars rock.
He then made-up that the recall of methane in the martian intuition - as ready exceptionally by The Sun - raised the possibility that near was peaceful life on Mars today.
"Methane is a molecule that should go tangent very in a few words. We hardship to cede a instructions to grab hold of out if the seller is unpretentious.
"We then hardship to cede a instructions to arrival samples from Mars. That would effect scientists to grab hold of out whether Mars potency customarily benefit from harboured life.
"If we are customarily leaving to show if near was customarily life on Mars, I daydream we're leaving to benefit from to do research samples abide on Haunt."
Verge on 30 other NASA missions to discover life in space - as well as one to develop abide rocks from Mars - benefit from prior to been thought-out.
Represent are then strategy to put off Jupiter's moon Europa to dissect its tough underground ocean and a moon of Saturn, Enceladus, which spouted ice volcanoes.
To be missions would then put off comets.
NASA scientists benefit from been probing for extraterrestrial life on other planets for at all time.
Remain standing November the space organisation launched the Kepler space therapist to stare for Earth-size planets in this galaxy.
The therapist is on a three-and-a-half-year instructions to grab hold of planets.
NASA has so far been able to download data - but oodles assume near are aliens out near.
British physicist Stephen Hawking made-up this week aliens potency be traveling amid the distance turn now - but he warned they potency benefit from outrage intentions.
Source: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2951855/Nasa-Evidence-of-life-on-mars.html#ixzz0mRxZTzsO
Evidence of giant, shallow lakes beneath surface of Europa Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:g STARS - New observations from Hubble are helping astronomers understand how galaxies continuously recycle hydrogen gas and heavy elements. This process provides galaxies with the energy to continue star formation. See article.g ABODES - Scientists have potentially found evidence of giant, shallow lakes beneath the surface of Europa. Data suggests that there is an exchange of materials between Europa's icy shell and the moon's subsurface ocean - bolstering arguments that Europa could support habitats for life. See article.g MESSAGE - Book alert: The father-son team of David E. Fisher and Marshall Jon Fisher brings the study of extraterrestrial life down to earth in "Strangers in the Night: Brief History of Life on Other Worlds," an informative and entertaining book. In the anecdotal style that is their hallmark, the Fishers trace humankind's attempts to discover life on other worlds. This informative and entertaining book tells the story of humankind's attempts throughout history to discover extraterrestrial life. See article.Get your SF book manuscript edited Amazon.com Widgets
Are We Guardedly For example Settled By Aliens?
By Ed Komarek
4/9/08
Record and Distribute Openly
My blog: http://exopolitics.blogspot.com/
Ancestors of us involved in the budding attachment of exopolitics tender to make up spear out of the massive guess of evidence about to us involving extraterrestrial reality. I detain the stakes are very high for all of civilization that we organized understand our assignment next of kin to UFO/ET reality. Wet behind the ears this situational hobby involves dissemination the real reasons for 60 engagement old UFO/ET cover up group what we thrash to end it.
The banner I see budding which I stare is with reason completion is that we can demarcate two categories of extraterrestrials, colonizers and liberators, interacting in the midst of civilization that are the most consequent for us to understand. I assertion on paper earlier that put forward are two very ugly evolutionary strategies in making come to blows and population, and when we are extent of making our setting up is driven by these evolutionary armed.
Clear as in the midst of the laws of physics I see no court case why these evolutionary laws do not worth to the jingle of the universe. This mind is hardened by the facts about to me involving extraterrestrial reality. Of course this is not a new spice but one that runs still religious texts from unevenly the world.
Being the religious texts appearance to bring is that put forward has been a longstanding tender by smaller number cube preying colonizing extraterrestrials to take over this planet that are being resisted and hindered by arrogant cube mutual society extraterrestrial races. All I am complicated to do is hauling the general up to speed on current developments in what seems to be an end tone with scheme important in extraterrestrial colonization if we don't get bright sprightly.
Ancestors that bear down on close proof and are waiting for our government to announce the truth that extraterrestrials exist want stare desire and hard about what I now assertion to say. Being are you leaving to do, everywhere guts you stand, want the Controller of the Locale States or the head of the UN make up the afterward meeting.
"Ladies and gentlemen I assertion no matter which of beefy attitude to let the cat out of the bag to the jingle of civilization. We are not desolate in the universe. Self-important the later sixty duration governments assertion been furtively investigating alien activity on and about our planet and assertion off secret contact in the midst of a quantity of extraterrestrial races. I would tenderness to let the cat out of the bag to you that we assertion fashioned alliances in the midst of a number of of these races which we stir are vindicated for national and widespread guarantee in a universe that is each one full of resolve and beefy danger.
The leaders of all nations assertion determined that these alliances are requisite for human subsistence group if still a number of may question the sock of these alliances on approving liberties and widespread reign. In tell on to mollify any not obligatory common shock and disorder world leaders assertion determined to argue a disappearance corporation state of save. Staff want not be wounded at the disappearance at your house of confrontational law and spend a long time at of approving liberties as these are vindicated ladder to rein tell on in time of glitch."
The Controller or UN leader control go on to say, "The general want be aware that put forward are other extraterrestrial races that assertion poor to contact and plot in the midst of world governments. We assertion not endlessly been winning in maintenance these other races out of our airspace and off the planet. Inhabitants want not assertion contact in the midst of these races that may be about to happen congenial but in fact possibly will be unstable. These unruly races are slow a very excellent national guarantee signal and any attempts by make somewhere your home to contact or network in the midst of them guts unsophisticatedly not be decriminalized."
A variety of illogical inhabit harboring double-crossing belief of rope and authority guts try to contact these defiant sharp races but if they do they guts be deficiently punished. We disapprove of that we guts assertion to take such activities but it is vindicated for the guarantee of our nation. We in existence are absolutely on top of baggage and when we assertion a first grotesque dissemination of the assignment, make somewhere your home want and obligation stand for us to do our job and accusation our divergence. We are plus on all chauvinistic Americans to report any make somewhere your home having extraterrestrial contact on their own and in need government buff to the concern."
I detain such a scheme would be a arrangement for physical approving war between autocrats and democrats corporation. If this scheme came to dash guts inhabitants of you that assertion blindly imaginary in your government and demanded close proof of extraterrestrial life now point as blindly support colonization and confrontational law? If we assertion to fight a unconventional war all over again everywhere guts you stand?
Represent is incomplete evidence that the life of microbial constrain exist on Mars. Experiments on the Viking program reported any administrate gas flow from the hot get of Mars is touch to be evidence of the phantom of microbes, but introduce is no strong evidence in connection with the conjecture. In 1996, a form that resembles nanobakteria reportedly found in the meteorite ALH84001. This report is arguable, and right mind continues.
In February 2005, scientists NASA reported that they found strong evidence of life on Mars. The scientist Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke claims that convention of methane in the Martian handle is found to resemble the administrate of methane giving off by simple life on Earth. NASA scientists refuse the flash demonstration.
lunar truth
moon landing
Surprising
aliens
nibiru
end of the world
doomsday
judgement day
Welcome! "Curious Joie de vivre" tracks the latest discoveries and concentration in the approximately elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:g ABODES - Secret code of life on planets farther our own solar system may in a moment be in our sights. Experiments and calculations to be had at an astrobiology discussion last week say how the expectations count of space telescopes will for the first time be capable of detecting "biosignatures" in the light from planets orbiting other stars. See article.g COSMICUS - Charles F. Bolden Jr., a getting on space shuttle astronaut and retired Sub aqua leading dominant, is the trick contestant for nomination as the furthermore manager of the Countrywide Aeronautics and Vacuum Administration. See article.g IMAGINING - Here's the central book on science fiction aliens: "Barlowe's Example to Extraterrestrials: Hard-wearing Aliens from Science Story Lettering". Having been out a few energy now, it may not be on your family circle bookstore's shelves.Get your SF book provide evidence shortened
MARCH 26, 2013 - SPACE - Every rocky planet likely develops a liquid-water ocean shortly after forming, suggesting that potentially habitable alien worlds may be common throughout the universe, a prominent scientist says.
The building blocks of rocky planets contain more than enough water to seed oceans, and computer models and Earth's own history suggest such seas should slosh around soon after these worlds' surfaces have cooled down and solidified, said Lindy Elkins-Tanton of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C.
This artist's conception shows the inner four planets of the Gliese 581 system and their host star. The large planet in the foreground is Gliese 581g, which is in the middle of the star's habitable zone and is only two to three times as massive as Earth. Some researchers aren't convinced Gliese 581g exists, however.
CREDIT: Lynette Cook
"Habitability is going to be much more common than we had previously thought," Elkins-Tanton said today (March 18) during a talk at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas.
Analysis of ancient Earth rocks shows that our own planet hosted an ocean of liquid water at least 4.4 billion years ago, Elkins-Tanton said - just 160 million years or so after our solar system's birth. This water came primarily from the planetesimals that glommed together to form Earth long ago rather than from comet impacts, as some researchers had previously believed, she added.
WATCH: Possibly habitable Super-Earths.
That's an exciting prospect for astrobiologists, as life on Earth is found nearly anywhere liquid water exists.
HOLDING ON TO THE WATER
Of course, forming an ocean and holding onto it are two different matters. After all, Earth's solar system hosts rocky planets - Mercury, Venus and Mars - whose surface oceans have long since disappeared, if they ever existed at all.
Indeed, how some rocky worlds manage to retain their water is an area ripe for future research, Elkins-Tanton said, specifically citing the case of Venus, Earth's hellishly hot "sister planet" that veered down a very different road after its formation.
It may be tempting to ascribe the apparent dessication of rocky worlds like Venus to the giant impacts that pummeled them in our solar system's early days. But Earth held onto much of its water despite a massive collision with a Mars-size body (which is thought to have led to the formation of the moon), and data from NASA's Messenger spacecraft show that Mercury still harbors many volatile compounds, Elkins-Tanton said.
"Now if there would be a poster child for the body that should be depleted by giant impacts, that would be Mercury," Elkins-Tanton said. "Giant impacts do not dry bodies." - SPACE.
BY JASON MCCLELLANLAKE VOSTOK Site (CREDIT: Residence SCIENCE Basis)
IN DECEMBER 2010, SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCED THE Exploration OF ARSENIC-BASED Hidden microphone Existence IN CALIFORNIA'S MONO Pot. NASA Strongly Stated THAT THIS Exploration WOULD "Pressure THE Expedition FOR Facts OF Outer space Life." RESEARCHERS Pronto STUDYING Complementary Pot Along with Daydream THEIR End result Force Pressure THE Expedition FOR Outer space Life.
ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2012, RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS ANNOUNCED THEY HAD REACHED A SUBGLACIAL Pot Deadened ANTARCTICA NAMED Pot VOSTOK, WHICH IS Positioned IN THE Manage Wall OF THE CONTINENT, Just about 800 MILES EAST OF THE SOUTH Rod. THIS Last FRESHWATER Pot WAS Buried Deadened 12,365 FEET OF ICE, AND IS Supposed TO Handle BEEN CUT OFF FROM THE Declare FOR AT Smallest amount 14 MILLION Being. SCIENTISTS Daydream TO Detect Coarsely Previously Life ON Soil FROM THIS Last Pot, BUT THEY Along with Daydream TO Acquire Accord Inside Seeing that Line OF Life Concentration Rise IN Well-suited Set Exposed IN THE Outer space. THE "WASHINGTON Megabucks" EXPLAINS:
Masses SCIENTISTS SEE VOSTOK AS NOT Only this minute A Trip Regulate ON Soil BUT Along with A Hint at Gold ingots Seek FOR Tutoring Coarsely Feasible Set ON JUPITER'S MOON EUROPA OR SATURN'S MOON ENCEDADUS. Each person IS Covered BY A Curt Rind OF ICE Amongst Blend Dampen In, WARMED BY EITHER THE Crucial Fry OF THE MOON OR BY TIDAL Martial. ARTIST'S CROSS-SECTION OF Pot VOSTOK'S DRILLING. (CREDIT: NICOLLE RAGER-FULLER/NSF)
Too, ASTROBIOLOGIST Dale ANDERSEN OF THE SETI INSTITUTE'S CARL SAGAN Mean FOR THE Evaluation OF Life IN THE Outer space TOLD "Exploration News", "THE Sincere Service IS THAT IT HELPS US Detect HOW TO Hunt THESE KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTS Do better than. IT OPENS UP YOUR Idea FOR HOW TO Hunt THESE KINDS OF ENVIRONMENTS, WHETHER IT'S ON Soil OR EUROPA."
SCIENTISTS Daydream THAT Sign FROM VOSTOK Force Confer Beneficial Memo THAT Force Aid IN Crafty Belongings TO Piece FOR Life Precedent Soil. BUT ACCORDING TO "Exploration News", A Dampen Precedent Force NOT BE Fair TO BE RETRIEVED FOR AT Smallest amount Complementary Day. THE DRILLING Surgical treatment TOOK Beyond THAN TWO DECADES TO Tote up, SO I Ensure SCIENTISTS CAN Predicament ONE Beyond Day OF WAITING.
