Did NASA Discover Alien Life In Our Solar System?

On Thursday NASA is bringing together a geologist, an oceanographer, a biologist, and an ecologist for a press conference  to talk about an astrobiology discovery that 'will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life, according to the article below. Sounds pretty important. I have included the official media advisory from NASA below the article. They seem to be hinting at alien life in our solar system.
    . . . June

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Is NASA about to announce the discovery of extraterrestrial life?:
By Alasdair Wilkins  -  Science Overmind

NASA is bringing together a geologist, an oceanographer, a biologist, and an ecologist for a press conference on Thursday to talk about an astrobiology discovery that 'will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.' Yeah, this could be major.

Blogger Jason Kottke did some inspired sleuthing regarding what Thursday's press conference might be about. He discovered the expertises of the various people involved include the interaction of geology and life on alien planets (specifically Mars), photosynthesis using arsenic, Saturn's moon Titan as an early Earth environment, and the chemistry of life, including in places without carbon, water, or oxygen.

Taking that all together and combined with the current blitz of news from NASA's Cassini probe around Saturn, Kottke guesses the announcement might have something to do with the discovery of arsenic on Titan and, quite possibly, some primitive bacterial form of life using it for photosynthesis.

Considering NASA's claim that this will impact our search for alien life, I'd have to figure this has something to do with expanding the definition of "life as we know it", suggesting more elements than we previously thought possible can be used as the raw materials for life. All this, of course, is just speculation - we'll be listening in to the press conference on Thursday and have the news for you as it breaks.


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NASA MEDIA ADVISORY : M10-167

NASA Sets News Conference on Astrobiology Discovery; Science Journal Has Embargoed Details Until 2 p.m. EST On Dec. 2

 

WASHINGTON -- NASA will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. EST on Thursday, Dec. 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.

The news conference will be held at the NASA Headquarters auditorium at 300 E St. SW, in Washington. It will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website at http://www.nasa.gov.

Participants are:
-     Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology Program, NASA Headquarters, Washington
-     Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.
-     Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
-     Steven Benner, distinguished fellow, Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Gainesville, Fla.
-     James Elser, professor, Arizona State University, Tempe

Media representatives may attend the conference or ask questions by phone or from participating NASA locations. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must send their name, affiliation and telephone number to Steve Cole at stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov or call 202-358-0918 by noon Dec. 2.

For NASA TV streaming video and downlink information, visit:  http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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Wow! Sounds intriguing doesn't it?  Of course, life somewhere other than on earth is not all that unexpected, so why not?  Do you believe that there could be life that close to home?  Please leave a comment.

June

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FASTSAT - Scientific Laboratory For Research In Space

FASTSAT - NASA's Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite has been successfully launched from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Kodiak Island, Alaska on Friday, according to the following article.Apparently, the microsatellite which weighs just under 400 pounds, will serve as a scientific laboratory containing all the resources needed to carry out scientific and technology research operations for the mission time period.
    . . . June

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NASA Launches Newest Microsatellite In Alaska
Space News Story - WESH Orlando:

FASTSAT To Serve As Scientific Laboratory For Research In Space


"HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA's Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite has been successfully launched from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Kodiak Island, Alaska on Friday.

Project manager Mark Bordeaux said the FASTSAT was launched aboard a Minotaur IV rocket at about 7:25 p.m. CST and entered low-earth orbit 406 miles of Earth approximately 22 minutes later.

“This milestone is a testament to our FASTSAT team that worked tirelessly to design, build and test a fully functional, low-cost satellite in a year,” Bordeaux said.

Bordeaux said the microsatellite FASTSAT, which weighs just under 400 pounds, will serve as a scientific laboratory containing all the resources needed to carry out scientific and technology research operations for the mission time period.Bordeaux said the spacecraft and six on board atmospheric and technology demonstration experiments will go through an on-orbit commissioning phase for the first 11 days. The next 180 days will be focused on science operations before an additional characterization of the spacecraft will be performed to test additional flight objectives.

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A MYSTERY MISSILE Over Southern California?

There appeared to be a missile launch near Los Angeles as a mysterious object was spotted over the Southern California sky, according to the article below. Apparently, no one in the Pentagon knew exactly what it is as there was no planned military launch. Was is actually a missile - or will it turn out to be something else quite mundane?
    . . . June

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Mystery Object No Threat to Nation:
NORAD | NBC San Diego: By R. STICKNEY Updated 3:54 PM PST, Tue, Nov 9, 2010

What appeared to be a missile launch near Los Angeles Monday night may be something entirely different as military and aviation agencies and experts chime in on the mysterious object spotted over the Southern California sky.

A local television station showed video captured by a traffic helicopter around sunset. The location was reported to be west of Los Angeles, north of Catalina Island and approximately 35 miles out to sea, KFMB reported.

It does appear a substantial object left a large contrail over Southern California Monday evening but no one in the military has identified the object, NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported Tuesday morning.

No one in the Pentagon knew exactly what it is.

It cannot be a planned military launch because no branch had a military action planned, according to Miklaszewski.

A possibility is that the missile was launched unintentionally. It may have been a screwup. Someone may have simply punched the wrong button.

Vandenberg Air Force Base officials said the facility's last launch was a satellite on Friday. Naval Base Ventura County spokeswoman Teri Reid told the LA Timesy that the contrail did not originate at Naval Air Station Point Mugu.

"It didn't happen here," she told the Times. "There was no firing on the range yesterday."

Another possibility would be a sophisticated launch just to create a spectacular sight in the sky.

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I personally think someone pushed a button by mistake and doesn't want to admit it. What do you think it really was? Leave a comment.

June

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NASA Wants Hypersonic Jets that Travel at 5 X Speed of Sound

The US space agency wants to manufacture an aircraft that would travel at five times the speed of sound and bring in a new age of aircraft akin to a turbo-charged Concorde, according to the article below. Travelling at such speed would reduce the flight time from New York to Sydney to around two-and-a-half hours, from the 21 hours it is now. In a way, it's a wonder it hasn't already happened. The technology is now here.
    . . . June

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Nasa to develop 'hypersonic' jets that travel at 5 times the speed of sound
Mail Online:

NASA is planning to build hypersonic jets that will fly through the Earth’s atmosphere and slash flight times around the world to a few hours at most.

The US space agency wants to manufacture a craft that would travel at five times the speed of sound and bring in a new age of aircraft akin to a turbo-charged Concorde.

Travelling at such speed would reduce the flight time from New York to Sydney to around two-and-a-half hours, from the 21 hours it is now.

The project is thought to be aimed at making a reusable aircraft that could fly to Mars but, as with previous space technology, it could have a huge impact upon passenger transport too.

Under the NASA Aeronautics 2010 proposal, the space agency will allocate $5million per year for the next three years to make the new aircraft a reality.

The aim is to create something which can carry passengers through the atmosphere, descend and land safely before being reused.

According to the proposal, engineers will look into ‘entry, descent and landing of high-mass vehicles entering into planetary atmospheres’ and ‘airbreathing access to space’

NASA is also aware of the many challenges it faces to build such a machine.

The proposal says: ‘The hypersonic heating environment, coupled with the emphasis on reusability, creates additional severe technology challenges for materials, material coatings, and structures that not only carry the aerodynamic loads of the air but also repeatedly sustain high thermal loads requiring long-life and durability while minimizing weight.

‘Space access launch vehicles must be lightweight, fully reusable and easily maintained if low-cost access to space is to be achieved.’

Hypersonic aircraft is still a fairly new concept and follows on from Concorde, which flew at Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.

A hypersonic aircraft would reach Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound.


Read more: 

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DEEP IMPACT Spacecraft Will Fly By Comet Hartley On Nov. 4

After a voyage of years, the Deep Impact spacecraft will fly by Comet Hartley on Nov. 4, according to the following article. This  will give scientists clues to the early days of the solar system.This is Deep Impact's second comet encounter after serving as the mother ship for NASA's Deep Impact mission

    . . . June

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NASA prepares for comet fly-by

UPI.com: "WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- NASA is preparing for next week's encounter between its Deep Impact spacecraft and a comet, set to pass within 500 miles of each other, the agency says.

After a voyage of years, the spacecraft will fly by Comet Hartley on Nov. 4, SPACE.com reported.

The near-miss, only the fifth time close-up images of a comet will be captured, will give scientists clues to the early days of the solar system.

Around 2,000 images of the comet have been beamed back to Earth every day since Oct. 1, researchers said.
This is Deep Impact's second comet encounter after serving as the mother ship for NASA's Deep Impact mission, which intentionally sent a probe to crash into Comet Tempel 1 in 2005 to study the object's composition.
The spacecraft has covered about 3.2 billion miles since its January 2005 launch and is approaching Comet Hartley 2 at speeds of about 27,000 mph, NASA says.
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LUTETIA - Huge Asteroid in A Thick Dust Blanket

 Outer Space is still virtually an unknown entity. Every day new worlds are being uncovered as the technology improves. New planets, moons and asteroids are being identified and named on a daily basis, for example, an asteroid named Lutetia. According to the following article, a trip to Lutetia may be very uncomfortable. Read on . . .
     . . . June


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Huge Asteroid Wrapped in Thick Dust Blanket
Yahoo! News:

If astronauts ever visit the asteroid Lutetia, they may have to strap on snowshoes to avoid sinking into its nearly half-mile-thick layer of dust.

Dusty debris shrouds the huge asteroid to a depth of at least 2,000 feet (600 meters), scientists have calculated. The dust probably resembles the regolith found on the moon, and it's a result of the intense cosmic pummeling Lutetia has endured from other space rocks since the birth of the solar system.

'It must have been produced by impacts,' said Rita Schulz of the European Space Agency in a media briefing yesterday (Oct. 4) in Pasadena, Calif. The announcement came at a conference organized by the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences.

The new look at Lutetia, which is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is the result of a close fly-by made by ESA's Rosetta spacecraft in July. Rosetta, whose chief task is chasing down and studying a comet, zoomed to within 1,900 miles (3,162 km) of Lutetia, making it the largest asteroid ever to be visited by a space probe.

Rosetta snapped some detailed photos and probed the space rock from afar with a suite of instruments. The data confirmed that Lutetia is an elongated body with its longest side spanning approximately 81 miles (130 km), ESA officials have said.

But it took some time for scientists to process and analyze much of Rosetta's data. Over the last few months, they scrutinized some of Lutetia's many craters, measuring how deep they are. Researchers then compared that information with predictions of how deep such craters are expected to be based on theoretical models.

The craters were much shallower than researchers had anticipated, Schulz said, because of the thick layer of dusty debris. Indeed, one of Rosetta's most dramatic photos shows a landslide of dust at the bottom of an enormous crater.


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VIRGIN GALACTIC Spaceship Makes First Solo Test Flight

A private spaceship flew its first solo test flight on Oct. 10 from Mojave Air and Space Port in California, according to the following article. Though the craft did not reach space, it was a major milestone for SpaceShipTwo backed by billionaire Richard Branson, establishing the Virgin Galactic firm to offer passengers suborbital treks at $200,000 a seat. Wow! Just like in  the movies!
     . . . June

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Virgin Galactic's Private Spaceship Makes First Solo Glide Flight
Yahoo! News: "SPACE.com Leonard David

A private suborbital spaceship flew its first solo test flight today (Oct. 10) from Mojave Air and Space Port in California.

Though the craft did not reach space, it was a major milestone for the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, which flew in glide mode for some 15 minutes once released from its carrier plane, WhiteKnightTwo, according Bill Deaver, an eye-witness of the test flight.

'It was perfect landing,' Deaver told SPACE.com. 'It looked just spectacular.'

Once released from the huge mothership, two pilots controlled the SpaceShipTwo to a safe runway touchdown

Designed to carry six ticket-holding passengers, the suborbital spaceship is named VSS Enterprise. U.K. billionaire Richard Branson is backing the development of the spaceliner, establishing the Virgin Galactic firm to offer passengers suborbital treks at $200,000 a seat. To date, over 340 people have signed-up for flights to the edge of space
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There has been a steady progression of testing of the vehicles over the last several months. For example, for the first time on July 15, VSS Enterprise flew with crew on board.

The first WhiteKnightTwo, christened VMS Eve after Richard Branson's mother, was revealed to the public for the first time in July 2008 and started its test flight program later that year.

As planned for that test last July, the spaceship remained attached to its carrier plane -- VMS Eve -- for the duration of the flight, and numerous combined vehicle systems tests were conducted. Also in that flight, the two crew members on board VSS Enterprise evaluated all of the spaceship's systems and functions from end to end in the air.

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Hubble Space Telescope Helps NASA With Vesta Mission

Asteroid Vesta

We tend to forget that there is always ongoing exploration in outer space - if not manned, then by telescopes. The NASA mission described below is one such endeavor. The new Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 just added in February is helping to correct some previously calculated orientations as new technology becomes available.
    . . . June


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NASA Mission to Asteroid Gets Help From Hubble Space
Telescope -- WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of the large asteroid Vesta that will help scientists refine plans for the Dawn spacecraft's rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011



Scientists have constructed a video from the images that will help improve pointing instructions for Dawn as it is placed in a polar orbit around Vesta. Analyses of Hubble images revealed a pole orientation, or tilt, of approximately four degrees more to the asteroid's east than scientists previously thought. The new


This means the change of seasons between the southern and northern hemispheres of Vesta may take place about a month later than previously expected while Dawn is orbiting the asteroid. The result is a change in the pattern of sunlight expected to illuminate the asteroid. Dawn needs solar illumination for imaging and some mapping activities.

'While Vesta is the brightest asteroid in the sky, its small size makes it difficult to image from Earth,' said Jian-Yang Li, a scientist participating in the Dawn mission from the University of Maryland in College Park. 'The new Hubble images give Dawn scientists a better sense of how Vesta is spinning because our new views are 90 degrees different from our previous images. It's like having a street-level view and adding a view from an airplane overhead.'

The recent images were obtained by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 in February. The images complemented previous ones of Vesta taken from ground-based telescopes and Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 between 1983 and 2007. Li and his colleagues looked at 216 new images -- and a total of 446 Hubble images overall -- to clarify how Vesta was spinning. The journal Icarus recently published the report online.

"The new results give us food for thought as we make our way toward Vesta," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Because our goal is to take pictures of the entire surface and measure the elevation of features over most of the surface to an accuracy of about 33 feet, or the height of a three-story building, we need to pay close attention to the solar illumination. It looks as if Vesta is going to have a late northern spring next year, or at least later than we planned."

Launched in September 2007, Dawn will leave Vesta to encounter the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015. Vesta and Ceres are the most massive objects in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists study these celestial bodies as examples of the building blocks of terrestrial planets like Earth. Dawn is approximately 134 million miles away from Vesta. Next summer, the spacecraft will make its own measurements of Vesta's rotating surface and allow mission managers to pin down its axis of spin.

"Vesta was discovered just over 200 years ago, and we are excited now to be on the threshold of exploring it from orbit," said Bob Mase, Dawn's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. "We planned this mission to accommodate our imprecise knowledge of Vesta. Ours is a journey of discovery and, with our ability to adapt, we are looking forward to collecting excellent science data at our target."

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Nasa's WONDER WALL Is Made Up Of Multi Wide Screens

 Exploring Outer Space is pretty exciting, but the article below shows us how the NASA folks keep track of all the various areas and purposes with their Wonder Wall which tracks weather and national disaster observations to displaying images from Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope - as shown here - the quarter-of-a-billion-pixel, 128-screen, 23ft-wide LCD array is the world's highest-resolution display system. Wow! Talk about wide-screen.
        . . . . June

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Outer space: Nasa's multi-screen wonder wall
Mail Online:


You may think you've got a pretty good widescreen set-up at home, but nothing comes close to Nasa's hyperwall-2.

Used for a multitude of purposes, from weather and national disaster observations to displaying images from Nasa's Spitzer Space Telescope - as shown here - the quarter-of-a-billion-pixel, 128-screen, 23ft-wide LCD array is the world's highest-resolution display system.

Here, a Nasa analyst is examining a colourised image of part of the centre of our galaxy. The blue specks are Milky Way stars, and the bluish-white haze in the background is light from older star clusters. In the top left of the picture (the third screen along) you can see the Black Widow Nebula, ten thousand light years away.

Installed at Nasa's Ames Research Centre in 2008, the system is powered by 128 graphics-processing units with 1,024 processor cores, running at speeds of up to 74 teraflops - that's 74 trillion calculations per second, the equivalent of over 300 PS3 consoles.

But all this power isn't being used to play giant games of Modern Warfare 2 - it enables scientists to analyse massive data sets and run simulations that might take weeks on lesser computers.

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NASA Plans Mission To MARS in 2013

 In just three years, NASA will launch a mission to Mars. According to the article below, this trip will be aimed at investigating the mystery of how the 'red planet' lost its atmosphere."Mars can't protect itself from the solar wind because it no longer has a shield, the planet's global magnetic field is dead," said Jakosky, describing how the magnetic field disappeared and the atmosphere then exposed to the punishing solar wind. We still have a lot to learn about this planet.
     . . . June


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NASA to launch new mission to Mars
Yahoo! News: "– Wed Oct 6, 1:52 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US space agency NASA announced it has given the green light to a mission to Mars aimed at investigating the mystery of how the 'red planet' lost its atmosphere.

NASA gave the approval Monday for 'the development and 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission,' the agency said in a statement, noting that the project may also show Mars' history of supporting life.

'A better understanding of the upper atmosphere and the role that escape to space has played is required to plug a major hole in our understanding of Mars,' said MAVEN's lead investigator Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

"We're really excited about having the opportunity to address these fundamental science questions," he added.
Three main scientific instruments will be launched to Earth's neighbor aboard a craft in November 2013 as part of the 438-million-dollar project.

Clues on Mars' surface, including features that resemble ancient riverbeds and minerals that could only form in the presence of liquid water, suggest the planet "once had a denser atmosphere, which supported the presence of liquid water on the surface," said NASA.

However, most of the Martian atmosphere was lost as part of a dramatic climate shift.

"Looking forward, we are well positioned for the next push to critical design review in July 2011. In three short years, we?ll be heading to Mars!" exclaimed MAVEN project manager David Mitchell of NASA's Maryland-based Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Mars can't protect itself from the solar wind because it no longer has a shield, the planet's global magnetic field is dead," said Jakosky, describing how the magnetic field disappeared and the atmosphere then exposed to the punishing solar wind.

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