For Alien Life-Seekers, New Reason to Hope

The New York Times has an article about the recently discovered “super earths” and what that might say about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.

Source: [New York Times]

June 24, 2008 / Posted by: Shige Abe

How Low Can Geologists Go?

Scientists have begun the final leg of a five-year, NASA-funded mission to reach the bottom of Cenote Zacatón in Mexico, the world’s deepest known sinkhole.

No one has ever reached bottom and at least one diver has died in the attempt. Scientists want to learn more about Cenote Zacatón’s physical dimensions, the geothermal vents that feed it and the forms of life that exist in its murky depths.

Previous expeditions tested the robotic probe that will make the dive. The Deep Phreatic Thermal Explorer, known as DEPTHX, is a tangerine-shaped submarine designed to survey...

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November 13, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Getting to the Core of Exoplanets: From Gas to Ice Giants

The measured masses and orbits of the 200 secure exoplanets within 200 pc reveal the processes of formation and subsequent dynamics. Several planets reveal information on their cores and interiors. Multiple-planet systems, especially those in resonances, inform us about migration, scattering, and capture. Planets from 5-14 Earth masses are now detectable, and several have been found. The Kepler Mission and a new 2.4-m “Automated Planet Finder” telescope at Lick Observatory portend the detection of rocky planets.

November 13, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

NASA Predicts Non-Green Plants on Other Planets

NASA scientists believe they have found a way to predict the color of plants on planets in other solar systems.

Green, yellow or even red-dominant plants may live on extra-solar planets, according to scientists whose two scientific papers appear in the March issue of the journal, Astrobiology. The scientists studied light absorbed and reflected by organisms on Earth, and determined that if astronomers were to look at the light given off by planets circling distant stars, they might predict that some planets have mostly non-green plants.

We can identify the strongest candidate wavelengths of light...

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November 12, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Discovering Earth-like Exoplanets

In this week’s Science, astrobiologists from NAI’s University of Hawai’i Team review the prospects for discovering smaller planets more like Earth, some of which may even have conditions suitable for life. Improved techniques and the ability to monitor fainter stars now enable astronomers to discover smaller planets, particularly planets orbiting much closer to their host star than the Earth is to the Sun. This review article is based on an NAI-supported session at the May, 2007 meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Source: [Link]

October 11, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe

Coping with Contamination

Carol Stoker is the principal investigator for the Mars Analog Research and Technology Experiment (MARTE). MARTE has just begun its second field season drilling into the subsurface near the headwaters of the Río Tinto in Spain, searching for novel forms of microbial life. In a four-part interview with Astrobiology Magazine Managing Editor Henry Bortman, conducted just before Stoker left for Spain, she explained what MARTE hopes to accomplish. In this third part, Stoker described how the MARTE team avoided contaminating their drill-core samples.

Astrobiology Magazine (AM): When you drilled last year at Río Tinto,...

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September 22, 2007 / Posted by: Yael Kovo

Looking for Life in All the Right Places

This new video from JPL shows how NASA astrobiologists are gathering exciting clues that will help them pick the best spots to search for possible signs of life beyond Earth.

Source: [Link]

July 30, 2007 / Posted by: Shige Abe