Space

Gliese 581g- Scientists Find What May Be The First Truly Habitable Exoplanet

A team of planet hunters has announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet (three times our mass) orbiting nearby star Gliese 581 at a distance that places it squarely in the middle of the star's 'habitable zone', where liquid water could ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 16 2010 - 12:03am

Venus Lightning Strikes Our Interest

Despite vast great differences between the atmospheres of Venus and Earth, it turns out very similar mechanisms produce lightning on the two planets. The rates of discharge, the intensity and the spatial distribution of lightning are comparable- which may ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 2 2010 - 1:05pm

Energetic 'Halo' Of Airless Bodies In Our Solar System

Scientists have discovered a new type of solar wind interaction with airless bodies in our solar system. Magnetized regions called magnetic anomalies, mostly on the far side of the Moon, were found to strongly deflect the solar wind, shielding the Moon’s s ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 30 2010 - 4:04am

Chinese Eat Our Moon Lunch

The Chinese Chang'e series is taking over the moon.  For lunch, NASA people in Florida are heading to bread lines, while meanwhile the Chinese are microwaving the entire moon for their own consumption.  Okay, I'll ditch the mixed jingoistic metap ...

Article - Project Calliope - Oct 8 2010 - 8:08am

Neptune: Don't Blame Me For The Kuiper Belt

New research is challenging the belief that the planet Neptune knocked a collection of planetoids known as the Cold Classical Kuiper Belt to its current location at the edge of the solar system. The Kuiper Belt is of special interest to astrophysicists bec ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 6 2010 - 11:03am

Planet Hunters- How They Do It

The discovery of Gliese 581g was cause for rampant hype almost everywhere but here, along with some rather ridiculous claims that there was a 100% chance of life there. The actual paper authors were more reserved, though astronomy is far bolder than biolog ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Oct 8 2010 - 3:00pm

Exobiology and Mars- extensive carbonate minerals found

A new report in Nature Geoscience says there may be large deposits of carbonate sedimentary rocks a few miles beneath the surface of Mars. If substantial carbonate minerals exist it might indicate a past surface environment with carbon dioxide, in contrast ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Oct 10 2010 - 10:02am

Life From Space Redux? 65 Cybele Is Second Asteroid Found With Water

A persistent hypothesis is that perhaps life did not 'originate' on Earth at all, perhaps its building blocks came from space. In April, the public, fed by astronomy's runaway hype train, were excited by the discovery of water on an asteroid ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Oct 7 2010 - 11:22am

Interested In Lakefront Property-- On Saturn?

"TAU researcher confirms oily "water" on a Saturn moon", so reads the email that crossed my desk.  Then I learned why no mountain or landform on Titan can ever be taller than 6,200 feet.  The reason surprised me, but first, the backstor ...

Article - Alex "Sandy" Antunes - Oct 8 2010 - 3:01pm

SETI Participant Claims He Found A Signal From Near Gliese 581 Already

Astronomers are certainly not strangers to manipulating public relations through mass media- they write reasonable papers and then encourage the press to go nuts with it.   Witness the recent arXiv paper by  Vogt, Butler, et al on Gliese 581g, should it ev ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Oct 16 2010 - 12:03am