Space Travel Blues (Part Deux)

Following up this June post on the psychological challenges astronauts will face during long-duration space travel to Mars and beyond, here's more from New Scientist, Science Daily, Astrobiology Magazine and ABC News.

Astropulse In Action

Back in July, SETI@home announced it had added a new algorithm for use in evaluating signals from outer space. Called Astropulse, it listens for short-time pulses rather than clear narrow-band transmissions like the traditional SETI@home software does.

Now The Planetary Society has published a lengthy article explaining the rationale and science behind the new search algorithm.

The difference from the original search algorithm is that with Astropulse, the software will search for extremely short broad-band bursts, or "pulses," coming from the stars. In addition to searching for that long-sought signal from an alien civilization, Astropulse will look for pulsars, black holes and possibly new astronomical phenomena of a currently unknown nature.

The Search For Extra-Terrestrial Genomes

OK, we've all heard of SETI: the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.

Now, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has established the SETG Project: the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes.

Recipient of a new NASA grant, the project -- headed up by Maria Zuber of MIT and Gary Ruvkun of Harvard -- will search "for life on Mars ancestrally related to life on Earth."

According to a NASA press release announcing the funding:

The Search for Extraterrestrial Genomes (SETG) Project will test the hypothesis that life on Mars, if it exists, shares a common ancestor with life on Earth. There is increasing evidence that viable microbes could have been transferred between the two planets, based in part on calculations of meteorite trajectories and magnetization studies supporting only mild heating of meteorite cores. In addition, microbial life has been discovered in Earth environments exposed to high levels of radiation and extremes of temperature, demonstrating the incredible adaptability of microbes. Based on the shared-ancestry hypothesis, we propose to look for DNA and RNA through in-situ analysis of Martian soil (or ice) samples.

Kepler, T-Minus Six Months And Counting

(NASA)

Kepler, NASA's first mission designed specifically to look for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, remains on track to launch in February 2009.

Kepler will continuously monitor 100,000 stars during its search for Earth-like terrestrial planets. Space.com recently carried this interesting article about the patch of sky Kepler will monitor, located roughly in the region between the summer stars Vega and Deneb.

Scientists chose the target area because it is an area of our Milky Way galaxy rich in Sun-like stars. The target region is near but not in the densest part of the Milky Way and is above the plane of our solar system.

There also is still time to submit your name to the Names in Space project, and have your name and personal message encoded on a DVD to be sent into space onboard Kepler, as I told you about back in May.

The Planet That Wasn't There?

Via Slashdot:

Back in January, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany announced they had discovered the youngest extrasolar planet ever discovered, an infant gas giant orbiting extremely close to its host star and only 10 million years old.

Now it turns out the planet may not even exist.

A rival team of researchers has published a paper suggesting the observed variations in the host star’s radial velocity -- which originally suggested a hot Jupiter-class exoplanet -- can be explained by a star spot (similar to a sunspot on our Sun) covering approximately 7% of the stellar surface.

The paper is to be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The star in question, TW Hydrae, is an orange dwarf star located 176 light-years away in the constellation Hydra. The supposed planet, designated TW Hya b, was believed by its discoverers to be approximately 9.8 times the mass of Jupiter and to orbit its sun every 3.5 days.

Has NASA Embargoed Life On Mars?

A leading astrobiologist claimed this month that NASA has evidence of contemporary microbial life on Mars but has embargoed the news because of political considerations.

In a story picked up in Asia but largely ignored in the Western press, Chandra Wickramasinghe, a leading proponent of Panspermia and an astrobiologist at the University of Cardiff, said:

"The discovery of liquid water on Mars combined with earlier discoveries of organic substances in a meteorite that came from Mars, and also of methane in the Martian atmosphere all point to the existence of life -- contemporary life -- on the Red Planet."

Wickramasinghe attributes NASA's alleged lack of disclosure regarding Martian life to "political and sociological considerations" having nothing to do with science -- but not the kind of politics you might imagine.

According to Wickramasinghe, if NASA were to disclose what he believes it already knows about Martian life, there would no longer be a need to spend vast sums of money on new missions to Mars, including sample return missions that could be torpedoed by concerns of an Andromeda Strain scenario in which a deadly virus is brought back to Earth.

I'm skeptical NASA is sitting on news of this magnitude, at least for the reasons Wickramasinghe is suggesting. The discovery of extant microbial life on Mars would be the biggest boost for NASA's budget one could expect.

The Bullet Galaxy Cluster

From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day:

The matter in galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56, fondly known as the "bullet cluster", is shown in this composite image. A mere 3.4 billion light-years away, the bullet cluster's individual galaxies are seen in the optical image data, but their total mass adds up to far less than the mass of the cluster's two clouds of hot x-ray emitting gas shown in red. Representing even more mass than the optical galaxies and x-ray gas combined, the blue hues show the distribution of dark matter in the cluster. Otherwise invisible to telescopic views, the dark matter was mapped by observations of gravitational lensing of background galaxies. In a text book example of a shock front, the bullet-shaped cloud of gas at the right was distorted during the titanic collision between two galaxy clusters that created the larger bullet cluster itself. But the dark matter present has not interacted with the cluster gas except by gravity. The clear separation of dark matter and gas clouds is considered direct evidence that dark matter exists.

Could There Be Life On Titan?

Space.com reports on new research indicating extremophile microbes may be able to live on Titan, the sixth and largest moon of Saturn -- in spite of the fact the moon is largely ice and covered with lakes of liquid methane.

Titan joins Mars, Venus, Europa and Enceladus as a potential home to extremophile life in our solar system.

Exoplanet Of The Day

Courtesy of NASA's Planet Quest:

GQ Lup b.

Discovered in 2004, GQ Lup b may be the first extrasolar planet to have been photographed. With a mass estimated to be between 1 and 42 times that of Jupiter, the body may be a planet or it may be a failed star or brown dwarf.

GQ Lup b orbits a young, 2-million-year-old star in the constellation Lupus. The star is of a type known as T Tauris, very young and relatively small stars that are evolving into main sequence stars similar to our Sun.

GQ Lup b orbits its sun at a distance of 103 Astronomical Units. (One Astronomical Unit is the average distance from the Sun to Earth, or about 93 million miles.) By comparison, Jupiter orbits our Sun at about 5.2 AU, and Neptune at about 30 AU.

Exoplanets: No Core, No Life?

New Scientist reports on recenty published research that suggests some rocky, terrestrial exoplanets may form without solid or molten iron cores, rendering them potentially inhospitable to life as we know it.

Iron cores are necessary for a planet to have a magnetic field, which would protect any organisms living on it from deadly cosmic radiation. However, astrobiologists cannot rule out the possibility of life arising on planets without magnetic fields.

Planetary scientists once thought all rocky planets had iron cores. However, scientists have now described a process by which terrestrial planets could form without iron cores, particularly if a planet formed in a water-rich environment -- such as icy regions located far from Sun-like stars.

Scientist currently do not have the capability of determining whether an extrasolar planet has an iron core, although clues can be gleaned from the chemical composition of the host star.

Robot Aliens

Steven Dick, NASA's chief historian and an astrobiologist, opines in Popular Science:

"The existence of a race of sentient alien robots might be not just possible, but inevitable. In fact, we might be living in a 'postbiological universe' right now, in which intelligent extraterrestrials somewhere have exchanged organic brains for artificial ones."

The somewhat unsettling news: extraterrestrial civilizations may have melded mind with machine millions of years ago. The possibly good news (for us): Postbiological beings may have no interest in us at all.

You can read Steven Dick's entire "Ask an Astrobiological Philosopher" column here.

Obama v. McCain On Space

Courtesy of The Planetary Society, here are the dueling space policy platforms put forth by Barack Obama and John McCain.

Full disclosure: I am an Obama supporter and certainly not a single-issue voter. That said, it strikes me that Obama's policy is more robust and far heavier in substance. McCain's commitment to future U.S. space operations, including Project Constellation, appears limited to continued servicing of the International Space Station.

I get the impression McCain's space policy is more of an afterthought.

If you want to have some input on this issue, respond here to The Planetary Society's Space Priorities Survey and tell the next president what you think!

Poll: Aliens No Threat To God

I am a secularist and not a theist, but I find these new survey results fascinating.

According to a newly released world-wide survey of 1325 respondents, a belief commonly expressed by some scientists that the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence would undermine traditional religious belief is without supporting evidence.

The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey polled believers and the nonreligious around the world, testing the hypothesis: “Upon confirmation of contact between earth and an extraterrestrial civilization of intelligent beings, the long established religious traditions of earth would confront a crisis of belief and perhaps even collapse.”

Specifically, the surveyors asked respondents whether the confirmed discovery of intelligent life on another world “would so undercut my beliefs that my beliefs would face a crisis.”

Overall, less than 10 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with this statement, and 78 percent of all respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed when asked if they believed the confirmed discovery of alien intelligence would throw their religious tradition into a crisis. Only 11 percent agreed or strongly agreed it would.

The results appear to offer little support to a view frequently espoused that the confirmation of extraterrestrial intelligence would undermine human religious systems. The study report quotes Arizona State University physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies as saying:

“It might be the case that aliens had discarded theology and religious practice long ago as primitive superstition and would rapidly convince us to do the same. Alternatively, if they retained a spiritual aspect to their existence, we would have to concede that it was likely to have developed to a degree far ahead of our own. If they practiced anything remotely like a religion, we should surely soon wish to abandon our own and be converted to theirs.”

You can read more about the survey report by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences here.

NASA: Sticking With Constellation

NASA is denying rumors it is considering abandoning its planned replacement for the Space Shuttle, Project Constellation, in favor of an alternative pushed by moonlighting engineers dubbed Direct 2.0.

Constellation, comprising the Ares rocket and the Orion space capsule, has been plagued by vibration problems NASA claims it has solved. However, earlier this month, NASA announced it would not meet an internally-imposed deadline of 2013 for the first flight of the Ares launcher.

This Is Not A Moldy Orange

But it is cool.

According to NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day:

Like the downtown area of your favorite city, the roads you drive to work on, and any self-respecting web site ... Io's surface is constantly under construction. This moon of Jupiter holds the distinction of being the Solar System's most volcanically active body -- its bizarre looking surface continuously formed and reformed by lava flows. Generated using 1996 data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft, this high resolution composite image is centered on the side of Io that always faces away from Jupiter. It has been enhanced to emphasize Io's surface brightness and color variations, revealing features as small as 1.5 miles across. The notable absence of impact craters suggests that the entire surface is covered with new volcanic deposits much more rapidly than craters are created. What drives this volcanic powerhouse? A likely energy source is the changing gravitational tides caused by Jupiter and the other Galilean moons as Io orbits the massive gas giant planet. Heating Io's interior, the pumping tides would generate the sulfurous volcanic activity.

Meet Gordon, The Frankenbot

OK, this is both cool and a little freaky.

Scientists at the University of Reading in the UK have built a little robot controlled by a remote biological brain of cultured rat neurons. The brain is connected to the robot via a Bluetooth connection.

The robot is controlled exclusively by the rat neurons, without any other human or computer control.

See a video of the little bugger in action here.

Panspermia

I've posted a number of times recently about Panspermia, the once-derided theory of the cosmic origins of life.

Wired.com recently carried this excellent article on a theory that is finding new found respectability and newly found evidence.

Life Blown Here From Venus? (Take Two)

I posted a few weeks ago about newly published research suggesting microbial life in the Venusian atmosphere (if such life exists) could be blown to Earth by the solar wind.

Earlier this week, Space.com caught up with the story, with new details and new information about dissenting views.

Scientists Race To Achieve Invisibility

I posted in May and again in July about different teams of scientists around the world racing to achieve a "cloaking device" that will render 3D objects invisible.

Now, ABC News reports on new research to be published in the journals Nature and Science:

"Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects . . .

The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones."

Here's more from the Times (London) and Science Daily.

Glint Of An Earth-Like World, Part Deux

I posted back in April about new research that will enable scientists to identify Earth-like extrasolar planets and determine some of their key characteristics bearing on habitability by studying how light reflects off of water and ice.

And in June I posted about similar research studying how light reflects off of clouds, and what that can tell us about an exoplanet.

Here's an update on this research from Astrobiology Magazine.

The Top 10 Exoplanets

According to Scientific American.



Cool pictures.

Response To Shostak

Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute opines thoughtfully in Space.com on the relative lack of civility among ufologists, particularly when they engage mainstream scientists on the possibility of extraterrestrial visitation.

Intriguingly, Shostak appears to be inviting a serious – but polite – dialogue with ufologists, a topic to be discussed at a Paris conference next month at which Seth will be speaking.

In large part I agree with Seth, although I need to point out that the same lack of civility is often demonstrated by some of Seth's compatriots on his side of the UFO debate. (Seth appears to acknowledge this in his editorial.) That said, I have never seen Seth engage in anything other than extraordinarily polite debate, and for that he deserves a great deal of credit.

I recently finished Stanton Friedman’s new book Fying Saucers and Science, and was alarmed to read Stan refer to SETI as a “cult.” (By implication, Shostak and his colleagues must be cultists – and so must I, since I have been running SETI@home on my computers for over 9 years.) Stan has done a lot of amazing research over the years -- and has himself been the target of unfair, vituperative attacks by self-styled “skeptics” -- but labeling SETI a cult is a little much for me.

Any honest observer must acknowledge that the UFO community is riddled with petty rivalries over pet theories and real (or perceived) indignities – and populated by more than a few personalities that are, to say the least, needlessly combative. (Seth Shostak gives a glowing example of one in his editorial.)

Several weeks ago -- long before Seth's editorial last week -- I unloaded on Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy for consistently demonstrating a similar lack of civility toward those he disagrees with regarding the possibility of extraterrestrial interstellar travel. (Phil's disingenuous response to Shostak's editorial was to pretend Phil has never done this. What a crock.) Granted, Phil has never suggested anyone should be eviscerated (disemboweled) -- as Seth’s correspondent apparently threatened -- but his scorn is rarely concealed, nor is his evidently closed mind.

I understand it is human nature to get a little hot under the collar. I have done it myself – even after I lectured the Bad Astronomer for being uncivil. (Call me a hypocrite -- I’ll just say I’m human. But I meant every word!)

In general, professional scientists are civil with one another, even when they strongly disagree. It is simply part of their culture. (I’m a lawyer, and unfortunately many in my profession have a long way to go in this regard.)

However, that scientific civility often breaks down when a scientist turns away from debating his or her colleagues and begins addressing others who may be raising legitimate questions about accepted scientific orthodoxy.

Seth Shostak should admit the UFO debate is about far more than evidence. Before you start looking at the evidence, let’s talk about hypotheses and paradigm shifts.

Frank Drake first looked for an extraterrestrial signal almost 50 years ago, and SETI scientists around the globe still soldier on, intrepidly looking for the signal that has so far evaded them. Yet they keep looking. Why? Because they believe they have a sound theoretical basis for predicting extraterrestrial civilizations exist and that a signal will eventually be detected.

Yet, SETI scientists have no “proof” extraterrestrial civilizations exist. But that is how discovery science works. Look where the theory points you, and see if you find the supporting evidence. Even if it takes more than 50 years!

Pioneering planet hunters Paul Butler and Geoff Marcy were each in the news recently, separately discussing how their search for extrasolar planets was regarded as pseudoscience until scientists finally discovered the first exoplanets in the 1990s. For decades, scientists guessed, based on their theories, that exoplanets should exist and probably did exist, but had not yet detected any because they had not yet developed the necessary techniques.

The evidence followed the theory.

And just the other day, Astrobiology Magazine published a thought experiment on what future exploration of Earth-like exoplanets may entail. The author, respected science writer Ray Villard, predicts: “It’s reasonable to anticipate that, by the next century, we will realize breakthroughs in engineering and physics that will make it feasible to send probes to the stars.” Further, Villard proposes that an alien world would be so intriguing to humans that we would actually expend the resources necessary to explore it.

Another recent example: Panspermia – a once-derided theory of the cosmic origin of life – has recently gained new respectability after decades of derision, although the theory clearly remains unproven.

So what is my point? SETI scientists and ufologists have a lot to talk about. They share a common theoretical foundation, including a belief in the probability of extraterrestrial civilizations and their great antiquity and technological superiority compared to human civilization. Where the two sides apparently part company is on the likelihood of interstellar travel, but that disagreement has recently been under review.

If we would consider traveling to the stars – only 50 years into our infant Space Age -- why wouldn’t ET, who -- according to the same scientists who ridicule the Extraterrestrial Hypothesis -- are thousands if not millions (even billions!) of year more advanced than humans?

Kuhn, of course, pointed out that paradigm shifts are the stuff of scientific revolutions. If a plausible scientific theory suggests the answer to the Fermi Paradox is that yes – ET should be here – scientists should begin a new review of both the historical record and the extant evidence, looking with open minds for possible evidence that our solar system has been explored.

That won’t happen, however, until the scientific community acknowledges the contradictions in their own narrative: ET exists, his civilization is incredibly advanced compared to ours, but (the skeptics claim) he never leaves his neighborhood -- even though we can hardly wait to leave ours.

That contradiction will be debated next month in Paris, when SETI luminaries and other scientists gather to debate the dangers possibly posed by the practice of “Active SETI” or METI (Messages to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) -- broadcasting messages to possible ET civilizations.

If ET never leaves home, what danger can Active SETI or METI possibly pose?

OK, I’ve had my say.

Fire away!

Is There Life On Europa?

Surface of Europa (NASA)

Science Daily reports on the quest for life on Jupiter's moon Europa:

Only a few decades ago, nobody would have believed any form of life could exist on or in an icy moon like Europa. But recent discoveries of amazingly adaptive bacteria in some of Earth’s harshest environments have led to the speculation that it is possible.

“Europa has the potential for something very similar to hydrothermal systems we have here in our oceans,” said Susan Childers, head of the geomicrobiology research team at the University of Idaho, who studies life in extreme environments. “Very ancient organisms that thrive on oxidized metals could potentially be centered on one of these oases formed by heat and metals seeping from cracks in the ocean floor.”

Read the complete article.

Duhh!!

Six years after the skeptical Bush administration established a scientific panel -- called the US Climate Change Science Program -- to study climate change, it has reported two conclusions:

1. Computer models can effectively simulate the climate; and

2. Humans are a primary cause of climate change.

Too bad the Bush Administration wasted six years figuring out what everyone else already knew.

5 Theories That Will Blow Your Mind

If you think the possibilities of extraterrestrial intelligence or -- better yet -- extraterrestrial interstellar travel -- are mind-blowing, check out this fun lay-oriented article from Cracked.com on quantum entanglement, evolution, Schrodinger's Cat, multiple universes, and the infinite universe.

Ouch. My brain hurts.

Mars Soil Roundup #2

Here's a roundup of the latest news this week on Martian soil analysis, my first since the exciting news at the end of June and since the apparently "bogus" reports of earlier this week:

Martian Life or Not? Science Daily

Phoenix Soil Results Released New Scientist

Surprising Signal Science News

Scientists Set Record Straight on Martian Salt Find Space.com

Mars Soil Could Support Extreme Life, Maybe Wired.com

A Finding, Perhaps, but Not of Mars Life New York Times

Mars Finding Doesn't Rule Out Life Washington Post

Perchlorates, Perchance? Astrobiology Magazine

Alien Rumors Quelled The Planetary Society

This Is Simply Beautiful

From NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day:

"Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a beautiful display of brightness and color. The photogenic cluster, pictured above, was captured recently by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope. Open clusters of stars are younger, contain few stars, and contain a much higher fraction of blue stars than do globular clusters of stars. NGC 290 lies about 200,000 light-years distant in a neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan (SMC). The open cluster contains hundreds of stars and spans about 65 light years across. NGC 290 and other open clusters are good laboratories for studying how stars of different masses evolve, since all the open cluster's stars were born at about the same time."

Ancient Martian Clays Suggest Life, Water

Newly published results from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate the Martian environment may have been suitable for life 3.5 billion years ago.

The Mawrth Valley in Mars' southern hemisphere formed billions of years ago when water carved it out of the Noachian highlands. Geologists studying photographs of the area have identified large amounts of ferrous iron that, at least on Earth, is associated with biological activity.

Researchers are quick to point out that, while tantalizing, the results do not prove microbial life once existed on Mars. Processes other than biology have not been ruled out.

In addition, the stratification of clay minerals in the ancient riverbed imply this region of Mars was inundated with water billions of years ago, with an atmosphere capable of producing rainfall and the temperatures necessary for liquid water -- much more Earth-like than today.

Goldilocks Solar System?

In an important development allowing us to better understand the variety of extrasolar planetary systems scientists are discovering, a new computer simulation developed by a Canadian scientist suggests our solar system is somewhat rare - although by no means unique.

The program compares varying compositions of gas and dust as they coalesce over an estimated 10 million years from protoplanetary disks into infant solar systems. Out of 100 runs of the simulation, only in six cases did a gas giant planet form at a distance similar to Jupiter's from our Sun, and in only one case did planets similar to both Jupiter and Saturn form.

Each of the 100 simulated disks had a different set of properties, varying in mass and viscosity. Disks with higher mass and viscosity tended to form a small number of gas giants that migrate inward, becoming "hot Jupiters" in close, uneven orbits. Disks with lower mass and viscosity tended to produce large numbers of smaller planets, with none larger than Neptune.

Only in a handful of intermediate cases -- when conditions were just right -- did solar systems resembling our own form, possibly because the process is less chaotic with fewer planets forming and less planetary migration.

With hundreds of billions of stars in our own galaxy, however, one percent is still a large number -- at least several billion solar systems like our own.

British Astronomer Warns Of Alien Attack!

Seriously.

Alexander Zaitsev, the astronomer who likes the idea of beaming messages to extraterrestrials, has teamed up with the social networking site Bebo and the British television company RDF (of Wife Swap fame) for the A Message From Earth project.

The project will collect photographs, drawings and text from Bebo members and will then -- using the giant RT-70 radio telescope in the Ukraine -- beam the messages on October 9th in the direction of Gliese 581c, a recently discovered and potentially Earth-like planet located 20.5 light-years from our solar system.

When news of the project hit the UK's Telegraph and Guardian newspapers, the BBC's former online science consultant, astronomer and author (and UFO skeptic!) Dr. David Whitehouse, fired off a letter to the Telegraph blasting the plan for placing "our own planet in danger":

"The intention is to make a television programme that will "represent humanity" and send signals across 20 light-years of space towards the recently discovered Earth-sized planet that orbits the star Gliese 518. No one knows if it harbours intelligent life.

While it may seem a harmless stunt, it will alert any alien intelligence in our region of space to our presence by making our planet much more prominent in radio wavelengths than it was. Radio signals from Earth, in the form of television transmissions and military radar, do leak out into space. However, such leakage is diffuse and not targeted like the planned transmission. . . .

It is dangerous to assume that any advanced intelligent life would be friendly. Such a signal might expose us to malevolent aliens equipped with super weapons and no human-like morality."

A rather odd statement from an evident skeptic of interstellar travel by aliens.

Here's more on the simmering controversy posed by the practice of "Active SETI" or METI (Messages to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), which will be debated by SETI heavyweights --including Alexander Zaitsev -- at this conference next month in Paris.

The Rocketeer

I've posted before about dreams of flying cars and jet packs.

Now the real thing has arrived.

I don't know if it will prove useful, but it is damn cool.

NASA: Mars Reports "Bogus"

A scientist working with NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander has labeled as "bogus" recent news reports in Aviation Week & Space Technology -- as well as other media outlets -- that researchers had briefed the White House on intriguing but still secret results bearing on the habitability of the Martian environment.

No such briefing occurred, the scientist says, and no such announcement is forthcoming.

In addition, the Phoenix team sent out a text message over its Twitter feed directing recipients to a NASA press release attributing the excitement over the weekend to "an interesting soil chemistry finding, still preliminary . . . " and directing recipients to a NASA press release regarding the discovery of perchlorate in one of the soil samples the lander has tested.

Why is perchlorate significant? We'll have to wait until a 2:00 PM (ET) press conference today to find out, but I suspect it may be the opposite of the hopeful results originally anticipated: the oxidizing substance may indicate the Martian soil tested is inhospitable to life.

Salt Of The Earth

In a discovery with ramifications for the search for evidence of ancient life on Mars and other planets, scientists from UNC-Chapel Hill have discovered the oldest known biological macromolecules in rock salt deposits in New Mexico.

Researchers discovered cellulose fibers in tiny water pockets locked in halite crystals dating to 250 million years ago. Cellulose is only known to be produced by living things, particularly plants and certain single-celled organisms.

Because cellulose is a known marker for past life, finding it in halite deposits on the Red Planet or elsewhere in our solar system may be one way of confirming the existence of ancient life on those bodies.

Other research released in May indicates Mars was once covered by very salty oceans.

NEWS UNBROKEN: NASA Denies White House Briefing, Life On Mars

Apparently, it is a big "never mind" to yesterday's breaking news brought to us via Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Last night a little after midnight my cellphone announced the receipt of a Twitter text message from the NASA Mars Phoenix Lander team (my phone plays Captain Kirk saying "Stand by for our transmission" whenever it receive a text message).

Here's the text message:

"Heard about the recent news reports implying I may have found Martian life. Those reports are incorrect."

According to Wired.com this afternoon, the message supposedly continued:

"Reports claiming there was a White House briefing are also untrue and incorrect."

For some reason, my text message did not include this portion of the message.

But, there you have it. No announcement of evidence for life on Mars, and no White House briefing.

More here at Wired.com and LiveScience.

Diamonds Are Forever

New research by German scientists suggests diamonds may have played a role in the origin of simple life on Earth.

According to MSNBC:

"Diamonds are crystallized forms of carbon that predate the oldest known life on the planet. In lab experiments aimed to confirm work done more than three decades ago, researchers found that when treated with hydrogen, natural diamonds formed crystalline layers of water on the surface. Water is essential for life as we know it. Also, the tests found electrical conductivity that could have been key to forcing chemical reactions needed to generate the first life.

When primitive molecules landed a few billion years ago on the surface of these hydrogenated diamonds in the atmosphere of early Earth, the resulting reaction may have been sufficient enough to generate more complex organic molecules that eventually gave rise to life, the researchers say."

For other theories on the origin of life on Earth, see this post from June, or these from May or April.

BREAKING NEWS: NASA Briefs White House On Potential For Mars Life

Will it live up to its billing, unlike other recent teasers from NASA?

The respected journal Aviation Week & Space Technology is reporting that scientists working with the Mars Phoenix Lander have told the White House they will soon make a major announcement about the "potential for life" on Mars.

The news comes on the heels of this week's earlier confirmation of water on Mars.

Aviation Week's sources say the news will not be of current or even past life on Mars but rather will relate to the Red Planet's habitability or suitability for sustaining life at the lander's arctic landing site.

The news to come is reported to be far more provocative than this week's confirmation of water on Mars.

According to Aviation Week:

"In fact, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory science team for the MECA wet-chemistry instrument that made the findings was kept out of a July 31 news conference at the University of Arizona Phoenix control center. The goal was to prevent them from being asked any questions that could reveal information before NASA is ready to make an announcement, sources say.

The Bush Administration's Presidential Science Advisor's office, however, has been briefed on the new information that NASA hopes to release as early as mid August. It is possible an announcement would not come until September, to allow for additional analysis. That will depend upon the latest results still being analyzed from the spacecraft's organic oven and soil chemistry laboratories."

Will the news to come be yet one more piece of evidence in support of the extraterrestrial hypothesis?

Mars Water Roundup #3

I've posted twice before -- in June and then again in July -- about new evidence of water on Mars. As everyone now knows, earlier this week NASA announced that the Mars Phoenix Lander has "tasted" Martian water for the first time.

Here's a roundup of some of the latest coverage:

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water Science Daily

NASA Confirms Water On Mars AP/MSNBC

NASA Says Mars Craft 'Touched and Tasted' Water ABC News

Chemical Test Confirms Water on Mars Wired.com

Officially Ice Science News

Phoenix Mars lander 'tastes' first sample of water ice New Scientist

Phoenix Sips Water Astrobiology Magazine

Life From Venus Blown To Earth?

The BBC is reporting that two scientists at a Welsh university are proposing microbial life in the clouds of Earth's neighbor Venus -- if such life exists -- could be blown to Earth by the solar wind.

According to the BBC:

"Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe and Dr Janaki Wickramasinghe claim Venus's clouds contain chemicals that are consistent with the presence of micro organisms.

They suggest that under certain conditions, these microbes from high in Venus's atmosphere could be blown into the Earth's atmosphere.

This process would only take days or weeks."

However, for this to happen, Earth and Venus would have to be suitably aligned, which last happened in 2004 and won't happen again until 2012.

Other scientists are skeptical both about the prospects of life in Venus' atmosphere and the possibility of such life being transferred to Earth via the solar wind.