Sun, Jul 11
This event is part of Summer Science 2021.
The ExoMars rover is due to launch in 2,022 and will travel across Oxia Planum on Mars drilling for signs of life.
Continue reading “Engineering ExoMars — Summer Science 2021” »
NASA has selected two missions, dubbed DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, to study the “lost habitable” world of Venus. Each mission will receive approximately $500 million for development and both are expected to launch between 2,028 and 2030.
It had long been thought there was no life on Venus, due to its extremely high temperatures. But late last year, scientists studying the planet’s atmosphere announced the surprising (and somewhat controversial) discovery of phosphine. On Earth, this chemical is produced primarily by living organisms.
The news sparked renewed interest in Earth’s “twin,” prompting NASA to plan state-of-the-art missions to look more closely at the planetary environment of Venus—which could hint at life-bearing conditions.
Why an upcoming mission to Phobos may reveal something spectacular.
Both NASA and the European Space Agency are operating or planning major missions to — and back from — the Red Planet in a hunt for signs the once wet planet also hosted microbial life forms.
But it’s possible the best place to look for life on Mars isn’t on Mars at all.
Continue reading “Phobos: Why the largest Martian moon may reveal alien life” »
Stars scattered throughout the cosmos look different, but they may be more alike than once thought, according to Rice University researchers.
New modeling work by Rice scientists shows that “cool” stars like the sun share the dynamic surface behaviors that influence their energetic and magnetic environments. This stellar magnetic activity is key to whether a given star hosts planets that could support life.
The work by Rice postdoctoral researcher Alison Farrish and astrophysicists David Alexander and Christopher Johns-Krull appears in a published study in The Astrophysical Journal. The research links the rotation of cool stars with the behavior of their surface magnetic flux, which in turn drives the star’s coronal X-ray luminosity, in a way that could help predict how magnetic activity affects any exoplanets in their systems.
The rover will dig deeper into Mars than any previous mission in search of ancient life.
The rover, set for launch in 2,022 will bring to a head a decades-in-development program that has suffered a series of setbacks. If all goes well, the Rosalin Franklin rover may be scientists’ best shot at getting a definitive answer about whether there was ever life on Mars and what its fate can tell us about our own planet.
What is the Rosalind Franklin rover?
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are set to welcome a most unusual guest, as “the Blob” blasts off into orbit on Tuesday.
An alien on its own planet, the Blob is an unclassifiable organism – neither fish nor fowl. Nor is it plant, animal, or fungus.
As such, Physarum polycephalum – a type of slime mold – has long fascinated scientists and will now be part of a unique experiment carried out simultaneously by astronauts hundreds of kilometers above the Earth and by hundreds of thousands of French school students.
The skies of Venus may contain signatures of alien life, according to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In the search for alien life, the second planet from our Sun has long been ignored. It’s easy to see why: the Venusian surface reaches temperatures exceeding 800 degrees Fahrenheit; its dense atmosphere applies nearly 100 times more pressure to objects than Earth’s atmosphere; and the planet rains sulfuric acid, a corrosive chemical that causes severe burns to humans.
As such, most scientists have focused on finding signs of ancient alien life on Mars, or current life on moons like Europa or Enceladus. But Earth’s closest neighbor might have been the place to look all along.
Harvard professor Avi Loeb launches new project to search for extraterrestrial life.
An effort announced Monday called the Galileo Project aims to search for and investigate physical objects that could be the result of an intelligent extraterrestrial civilization.
It’s helmed by Avi Loeb, a professor at Harvard University’s department of astronomy, who was recently the subject of scrutiny for claiming that interstellar comet ‘Oumuamua was in fact a piece of annihilated alien technology.
Continue reading “Galileo Project: A new hunt for alien objects in the universe” »
Yesterday, LHCb presented results consistent with the presence of charm content in the proton.
See our news: #IC
Continue reading “LHCb — Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment” »
A team of scientists will embark on a new international research project led by Harvard University to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life by looking for advanced technology it may leave behind.
The Galileo Project is led by the Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb co-founded the project with Frank Laukien, CEO of Bruker Corporation, a Massachusetts-based manufacturer of scientific equipment.
