EARTH IS JUST ONE PLANET OUT OF 100 BILLION -- From Astrobiology.com: 100 Billion Planets May Populate the Galaxy. Not only could there be 1011 planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are an estimated 1021 stars in the universe. This seems to make Earth, and the humans who inhabit it, seem rather insignificant. But consider this quote …
Category: Astrobiology
Around the web 12/1/2012
NUKE THE MOON!!!! -- U.S. had plans to nuke the moon -- The U.S. Government really wanted to explode a nuclear weapon on the moon in the late 1950s, sort of as a macho "We're better than the Soviets" thing. One of the researchers on this project was a graduate student named Carl Sagan. BIG NEWS …
Jesus is for geologists (and other scientists)
I've always known that Jesus is for geologists, as well as for biologists, chemists, physicists, archeologists, astronomers, and all other sorts of scientists. There are, of course, many Christians who are scientists, and many scientists who are Christians. As a graduate student in geology, I found rich fellowship with a half dozen Christian geologists-in-training, and …
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Arsenic in DNA – maybe
News of surprising biochemistry: Thriving on Arsenic (NASA Astrobiology Magazine) NASA microbiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon has discovered bacteria that apparently can use arsenic in its DNA in place of phosphorus. Most biochemistry can be done with six elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur (CHONPS). Smaller amounts of a variety of other elements are also …
NASA going nowhere?
From Yahoo! News: Senators to NASA chief: Go somewhere specific President Obama's budget proposal would axe NASA's planned trip to the moon. So where should NASA send astronauts? The long-term goal is to send astronauts to Mars, but what are good shorter-term objectives? Here are two items that caught my attention regarding a future trip …
A cheaper way to get humans to Mars: One-way tickets
NASA's Astrobiology Magazine has the text of a presentation given by physicist Paul Davies: A One-way Ticket to Mars. The greatest expense in sending a group of astronauts to Mars is actually getting them back to Earth. Davies estimates that we may be able to save up to 80% of the costs by sending a …
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More Martian gas
Yesterday I wrote briefly about the ongoing release of methane from the crust of Mars. This is the topic of today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Here's the description from APOD: Why is there methane on Mars? No one is sure. An important confirmation that methane exists in the atmosphere of Mars occurred last week, …
Martian methane
From LiveScience.com: Mars Methane: Geology or Biology? Plumes of methane gas detected over certain locations on Mars in 2003 could point to active geological processes on the red planet, or perhaps even to methane-burping microbes deep below the Martian surface, a new study reports. There is no firm evidence for life on the red planet, …
Rare Earth?
Many Christians, including myself, find the arguments expressed in the 2003 book Rare Earth to be a powerful statement of the uniqueness of the Earth in the universe. The thesis of the book, written by two respected University of Washington scientists (Ward, a geologist, and Brownlee, an astronomer) is that the conditions present on the …
Life in the Laboratory
From an AP news story on efforts by scientists to create life "from scratch" in the laboratory: Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they’re getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.” …
Life on Gliese 581c?
The headlines: Science Daily: New Planet Could Have Life Yahoo News: Potentially Habitable Planet Found Scientists have discovered more than 200 extrasolar planets (planets orbiting stars other than our sun) since the mid-1990s, and the numbers will certainly continue to increase as instruments improve. In regards to suitability for life, a vast majority of these …
Water on Mars
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows two images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor. A comparison of the same crater in 1999 and 2005 shows that there is an active slope process occuring in a crater, and many interpret this to be a brief flow of liquid water down from the rim. Liquid water, …
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