Big news from the NASA Mars team today. There is now strong evidence of at least occasional surface water on Mars! Let that sink in for a minute. #extraterrestriallife #Mars #NASA - http://clapway.com/2015/09/28/nasa-confirms-salt-water-on-mars123/

Big news from the NASA Mars team today. There is now strong evidence of at least occasional surface water on Mars! This is especially exciting in light of recent reinterpretation of old evidence that has lead scientists to believe that Mars contains organic molecules.

Let that sink in for a minute. We now know that Mars has both water and organic molecules!

Image taken by Hubble Telescope (NASA)

For a detailed analysis of the new information, see The Visionlearning Blog, where staff writer David Warmflash landed an inside scoop and broke the story this morning. The new data are revealed in a paper by Lujendra Ojha and colleagues published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The idea of water on the surface of Mars is an old one. Astronomers in the 1800s saw black lines on the Martian surface and thought they could be rivers or even canals constructed by intelligent life forms. However, it has been known for many decades that Mars has an extremely thin atmosphere and so there is negligible atmospheric pressure on the surface. This means that water evaporates far more quickly than it does on Earth. No pressure; no water. By the 1970s, photographs from space probes confirmed that the black lines do not contain running water.

Image taken by Viking 1, 1980 (NASA)

However, new data has confirmed something has been speculated previously: the Martian surface has a great abundance of an ion called perchlorate.

So what, you ask? The presence of perchlorate changes the story because if water ever emerged on the surface of Mars, say from an underground reservoir, it would have a high concentration of dissolved perchlorate and be extremely salty. Very salty water has different properties. For starters, it does not vaporize nearly as easily, even at low atmospheric pressure. In other words, the presence of perchlorate means that water would persist on the surface much longer than previously thought.

If water did persist for extended periods of time on the Martian surface, it would collect into steams and flow down hills and mountains, just like bodies of water on Earth. Over time, flowing creeks and rivers would cut lines into the surface of Mars, which would remain visible even after the river ran dry. Those black streaks on Mars may be the scars left by dried up rivers. If they are, we would expect an even higher concentration of perchlorate within the black lines, as salt left behind from the evaporating rivers.

Image taken by Mars Global Surveyor (NASA)

That is exactly what Ojha and colleagues found! The high concentration of perchlorate within the black streaks on Mars is strong evidence that water has flowed on Mars in the recent past. This argues that there must be sub-surface sources of liquid water. While the surface water would be far too salty to support life as we currently understand it, the hidden sources of water could be very different. There could be small lakes or even vast oceans of liquid water under the surface. Protected from the temperature extremes and harsh solar radiation on the surface, who knows what interesting things are lurking?!

Image taken by Mars Global Surveyor (NASA)

The other big implication of the confirmation of abundant perchlorate on Mars is that it may tell us that there are organic molecules on Mars after all. The only organic molecules found by the Viking missions in the 1970s and 80s were trace amounts of chloromethane and dichloromethane. Since these are both common compounds in industrial cleaners, scientists assumed these were contaminants brought by the Viking landers themselves.

However, once again, the presence of perchlorate on the surface of Mars changes this interpretation also. When organic compounds are treated with perchlorate, among the most common products are chloromethane and dichloromethane. This means that the organic compounds that the Viking landers detected all those years ago may have been Martian in origin after all!

The issue of water and organics on Mars will be explored and debated by the scientific for years to come, but there is no denying that the search for life on Mars just got a huge boost.

Nathan H. Lents (@nathanlents)

BREAKING NEWS: NASA Confirms Salt Water on Mars

Water World Hopefuls Get Interstellar Reality Check - http://clapway.com/2015/08/15/water-world-hopefuls-get-interstellar-101/

One would think, despite the strangely haunting sequence of monstrous waves ripping and chewing spacecraft and human bodies alike, that extraterrestrial planets covered in water would be prime life supporting material. One might even go so far as to suppose that–considering the degree which water is both necessary and nearly sufficient to support any kind of carbon-based life–that an ocean world should actually be preferred to one covered with land or archipelago.

WATER WORLD HOPEFULS TO GO DAUNTED

According to new research published online before in print in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, that’s not the case. Water that totally covers the surface of a planet interacts with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in ways that are capable of turning chilly planets frigid and warm ones even hotter. This recent research shows that Earth-sized water worlds would be habitable in an extremely limited range of temperatures; from roughly 32 to 260 degrees Fahrenheit. Any world slipping outside of that range is liable to be detrimental to primordial forms of life. The bad news is that these sub- and super-temps are actually quite common among planets inhabiting the “Goldilocks zone,” which, for a G2 star like our sun, places a planet roughly 102 million to 140 million miles from its star.

For comparison, the Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun.

INTERSTELLAR REALITY CHECK

When temperatures fall below freezing, the ocean water decomposes more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas of obvious portent, which reduces the planet’s temperature, and at higher temperatures, less carbon dioxide is absorbed, causing the ocean to release a much greater amount of carbon dioxide, which sets a planet into a runaway warming period (hence the term greenhouse effect).

WIDER IMPLICATIONS

This supposition sketches scenarios for water worlds whose type falls outside that of Earth-sized planets and Sun-like stars. Researchers involved in this study have added that the process would be very similar for larger worlds orbiting even more gigantic stars.

The same cycle would take place with greenhouse gases like methane. With such thin temperature range necessary for habitability, ocean planets unfortunately are not likely to make the splash we might have hoped they would as we explore our interstellar neighborhood for signs of life.

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Water World Hopefuls Get Interstellar Reality Check

Kepler 452b: Second Earth Perhaps Not For Us - http://clapway.com/2015/07/24/kepler-452b-second-earth-perhaps-not-for-us789/

Many scientists and space enthusiasts awaiting news about a second Earth were answered when NASA announced the results its phoenix-like telescope, Kepler, had found. The exoplanet that created so much excitement has a size and age reminiscent of Earth’s, and, critically, even exists in the Goldilocks zone of its Sun-like star, ensuring its neither freezing nor burning away any possibility of complex life.

Size, age, and other specs of second earth

Known as Kepler 452b, it’s the smallest exoplanet we’ve discovered existing within that coveted circular area of a G2 star colloquially called the Goldilocks zone. G2 is a category of star-luminescence that our own Sun also falls under. The new planet is about 6 billion years old, has a diameter sixty percent that of the Earth, and is located in the constellation Cygnus, roughly 1,400 light-years away from us.

WHY Kepler 452b IS SIMILAR TO EARTH

Kepler 452b orbits its sun-like star in a year lasting 385 days, which puts it undoubtedly within the habitable zone, which means it is very likely it will have liquid water.

But we shouldn’t get too excited to leap into our planet’s family’s arms.

DON’T JUMP THE SHARK, BECAUSE YOU CAN’T

The associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Washington headquarters, John Grunsfeld, called Kepler 452b a “close cousin to the Earth.” This is an apt description. Since the planet is rocky, like ours, yet smaller, the difference in gravity could do more harm than good.

Additionally, initial studies have suggested to us that the planet has entered a rather misfortunate runaway greenhouse gas phase, similar to what happened to Venus long ago, which is why the planet is so hot and antagonistic to life.

COLLECTIVE FERVER & SENTIMENTALITY

But this unfortunate atmospheric development didn’t stop the Chinese from getting excited, whom after hearing about the new planet flooded social media with over 44 million posts about the planet’s “substantial opportunity” to host life. China’s microblogging service, Sina Weibo, the hashtag #AnotherEarth exploded, with nearly 90,000 participants in the discussion.

Their state-run Xinhua news agency, Xinhua, had to quell high hopes for Kepler 452b’s biocompatibility, but the Chinese populace remained undaunted in its manic ravishing of the discovery, with the highest trending comment “Even Earth has found its other half, why am I still single?” lending credence to the notion of humankind’s innate alienation.

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Kepler 452b: Second Earth Perhaps Not For Us

The because according to #StephenHawking “We are intelligent, we are alive, we must know." - http://clapway.com/2015/07/20/stephen-hawking-teams-up-with-russian-billionaire-in-search-for-extraterrestrial-life-224/

When worldwide renown physicists like Stephen Hawking says they’re going to do something, people have a tendency to perk their ears up and listen. Monday morning, Hawkings and Russian tech entrepreneur Yuri Milner announced that they were going to partner up and get to the bottom of the extraterrestrial life debate.

What Makes This Attempt Any Different?

The program is being called the Breakthrough Initiative, and so far it’s the largest and most ambitious search for extraterrestrial life ever attempted. It’s a 10-year project that will use both open data and software in an attempt to catch chatter among the closest 1,000 stars.

Two of the world’s largest telescopes, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in Australia, are being used in the search, and the Breakthrough Initiative are offering a $1m prize for anyone that’s able to find any evidence of extraterrestrial life.

Andrew Siemion, director at the University of Berkley’s SETI research center, state that this attempt is somewhere between 50 and 100 times more powerful than any efforts made previously. Any extraterrestrial life broadcasting anything with power similar to a “common aircraft radar” will be heard from the widest range of stars we’ve been able to listen out for yet.

Having the Right Resources

The Breakthrough Initiative is receiving $100m in funding to get the ball rolling, but Milner is also pitching in $160m to help fund the Breakthrough Prize, which is a prolific award to recognize major advances.

“This was once a dream, it is now a truly scientific quest,” Milner said. “In the 21st century we will find out about life at a galactic scale.”

A Leap of Faith

Scientists have been searching for signs of extraterrestrial life for decades, and still seem light years away from finding out the truth about whether or not Earth really is that lone, tiny pale dot Carl Sagan once referred to. That’s to no fault of their own, however. Space is a big place and even if aliens were trying to communicate with us, we may not have the tools, or the capacity, to understand what to look for.

“We are intelligent, we are alive, we must know,” said Hawking when talking about the potential danger of contact extraterrestrial life.

Whether or not the Breakthrough Initiative is able to find signs of extraterrestrial life, it’s good to see someone as prominent as Hawking throw his hat into the ring.

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Stephen Hawking Teams Up With Russian Billionaire in Search for Extraterrestrial Life

Naysayers about comet 67P"s inhabitance. - http://clapway.com/2015/07/08/claims-of-extraterrestrial-life-on-67p-are-baseless-255/

Contrary to previously hyped headlines, there exists no evidence to support the claim of extraterrestrial life on comet 67P, Churyumov-Gerasimenko, according to leading astrobiologists.

The Headline That Rocked The World

The commotion over extraterrestrial life existing on the comet 67P began as news outlets from around the world reported earlier this week on the findings of two British astronomers, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, and Dr. Max Wallis of the University of Cardiff. The two claimed that comet 67P, also referred to as Churyumov-Gerasimenko, after the two Soviet scientists who discovered it in 1969, shows signs of extraterrestrial life in microbial form due to certain features visible on photos of the comet’s surface.

Their claims were presented in Llandudno, Wales, at the National Astronomy Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their claims further stated that ice from the surface of the comet could melt as it comes closer to the Sun, combining with certain organic compounds present on the comet to facilitate extraterrestrial life in the form of micro-organisms.

A Flight of Fancy

Many astrobiologists, however, including the Australian Centre for Astrobiology’s Malcom Walter, refuted the claims of the two scientists from the United Kingdom, saying that there simply was no actual evidence to support the notion that there is extraterrestrial life on comet 67P. One of the scientists who helped to develop the COSAC analyzer on the Philae probe, France’s Uwe Meierhenrich of the Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, also stated that none of the scientists on the Rosetta team assumes that there is extraterrestrial life on the comet. NASA’s Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at Ames Research Center, even stated that to go from the established presence of ice and organic compounds on comet 67P’s surface to claiming the existence of extraterrestrial life is quite the leap that goes beyond the data available.

A Historic Mission

The Rosetta Mission is a project of the European Space Agency, launched in 2004 as a joint project with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It is hailed as the first mission in human history to have orbited and touched down on a comet. After ten years of chasing the comet 67P, the Philae probe was launched from the main Rosetta spacecraft and landed on 67P on November 12, 2014. It has been sending data back to Earth since then, including many photographs.

It is the photographs sent back by the Rosetta mission that spurred the claims of extraterrestrial life on comet 67P.

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Claims of Extraterrestrial Life on 67P are Baseless

Conspiracy or not? - http://clapway.com/2015/06/25/ufos-seen-by-iss-camera-just-before-nasa-stops-live-feed-233/

A NASA camera captured UFOs seemingly leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. But the live feed was terminated just after the objects appeared.

THREE UFOS ON CAMERA

The UFO event was recorded and uploaded to YouTube by user Mister Enigma, who gave his video the sensational title, “UFO Mysteries: UFOs, Angels Or Biological Creatures Seen Leaving The Earth?”

This video was allegedly recorded from NASA’s live feed from the International Space Station (ISS). Three objects are seen emerging slowly from the distance, coming from beyond the Earth, or possibly from the Earth.

These three UFOs gradually move in a seemingly ascending flight path. Two of the objects disappear from view. But NASA’s video stream is interrupted while the third object is still in frame. The feed cut to a warning screen that read, “Please stand by. The High Definition Earth Viewing experiment is either switching cameras, or we are experiencing a temporary loss of signal with the International Space Station.”

COMPLICATIONS OR CONSPIRACY?

As Mister Enigma’s UFO video highlights, some believe this video is evidence of extraterrestrial life. And conspiracy theorists surmise that NASA intentionally cut the ISS feed to prevent any additional viewers from observing authentic alien spacecraft.

Space is littered with satellites and all sorts of debris. The objects in the video don’t display any sort of fantastic flight capabilities or abnormal behavior that makes them any more likely to be alien spaceships than ordinary satellites or space junk. And, as the warning message on the feed explains, there are legitimate reasons for live stream to be interrupted.

But because the feed interruption coincided with the appearance of three anomalous objects, that’s all the proof required by some to demonstrate an attempt by NASA to hide UFOs from the public.

UFOS LOVE THE ISS

This certainly isn’t the first time cameras aboard the ISS have captured UFOs.

Countless videos have emerged by those claiming proof of extraterrestrial spaceships since the onset of live video feeds from space. Some tireless individuals invest hours in reviewing footage from the ISS feed, pointing out every glitch, glow, and anomaly captured by the camera. It seems like there is a new video showing UFOs and the ISS every month.

Although some of the objects recorded on the ISS feed are genuinely mysterious, most are eventually explainable as mundane objects, camera artifacts, or space weather-related phenomena.

Or maybe that’s just what NASA wants us to believe . . .

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UFOs Seen by ISS Camera Just Before NASA Stops Live Feed