Monkeys in Space!

I don’t know how I missed this, but yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the launching of Baker (a squirrel monkey) and Abel (a rhesus monkey) into space. They were the first primates to survive a trip into space (although Abel died a few days after the trip due to an infected electrode. National Geographic [...]

Dust With Life Like Qualities?

Science Daily has an interesting article up concerning the lifelike qualities of some inorganics caught in a plasma field:

Snakes on a (Galactic) Plane

Via the JPL comes this great picture of snakes on a galactic plane…

The Future of Space Science: Depressing

According to New Scientist the fate of NASA’s science budget is pretty gloomy: NASA’s proposed cuts to its science budget will have a devastating impact on astronomy and Earth-science research for years to come, an expert panel told a US congressional committee on Thursday. Panellists urged NASA to restore funding for research and analysis grants, [...]

More Organic Chemicals Found in Space

Scientists associated with NASA’s Spitzer Telescope have discovered polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: “NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has shown complex organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are found in every nook and cranny of our galaxy. While this is important to astronomers, it has been of little interest to astrobiologists, scientists who search for life beyond [...]

Comets and Organic Molecules

Deep Impact collision ejected the stuff of life Millions of kilograms of fine dust particles and water and a “surprisingly high” amount of organic molecules sprayed into space when NASA crashed its Deep Impact spacecraft into Comet 9P/Tempel 1 on 4 July 2005, reveal a trio of new studies. The observations bolster theories that comets [...]

Cool Science: Part One

Saturn’s Rings Have Own Atmosphere which came as a surprise to me – but I’m not an astronomer or astrophysicist or anything. Apparently, due to some interesting properties concerning the way water (i.e. H20) behaves in the region of Saturn an atmosphere is generated: Water molecules are first driven off the ring particles by solar [...]

Earth’s Early Atmosphere and the Search for Life on other Planets

Model Gives Clearer Idea Of How Oxygen Came To Dominate Earth’s Atmosphere Researchers interested in how earth’s atmosphere came to be dominated by oxygen have come up with an interesting model to explain why there was a lag between the origin of photosynthesis and the domination of earth’s atmosphere by oxygen. There were several processes [...]

Organic Molecules in the Early Universe

Nasa’s infrared telescope (the Spitzer Telescope) has found traces of organic molocules that are believed to be about 10 billion years old: Using Spitzer, scientists have detected organic molecules in galaxies when our universe was one-fourth of its current age of about 14 billion years. These large molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are comprised [...]

Is There Life on Titan

Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, is the only satellite with a major atmosphere. It is composed largely of nitrogen, argon and methane with traces of hydrogen. Additionally, traces of hydrocarbons (ethane, propane, ethlene, etc) nitrogen compounds (hydrogen cyanide, cyanogen, etc) and carbon monoxide and dioxide have been found. One of the things Huygens will be [...]

Was the Ordovician Mass Extinction Caused By a Gamma Ray Burst?

From Geotimes: Given the incidence of gamma-ray bursts in the cosmos, astrophysicists estimate that at least once in the last billion years, a burst has occurred within about 6,500 light years of Earth. Now, astrophysicists at the University of Kansas and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center report that if directed at Earth, such a blast [...]

Belated Happy 15th Birthday To The Hubble Telescope

I am so ashamed. Not only did I completely miss Earth Day – but I missed Hubble’s 15th birthday as well. Flog me with a wet noodle!Proto-planetary disks in Orion A Hubble Space Telescope image shows “proplyds,” or protoplanetary disks, in the Orion Nebula. According to NASA, nebulae, flattened disks of gas and dust, “are [...]

Well, This is Freaking Wonderful

From the New Scientist apparently the network of satellites that monitor environmental health is detiorating badly. The US network of satellites monitoring the environmental health of the Earth is on the verge of collapse, according to a highly critical report released on Wednesday by the country’s National Research Council. Six recent NASA Earth-observing missions have [...]

Organic Chemicals Found On Titan

From New Scientist Cassini has found complex organic chemicals on Titan. Some complex organic molecules – such as benzene and diacetylene – had already been picked up on an earlier approach to Titan, but the latest encounter has yielded an even wider range. It includes nitriles and scores of different hydrocarbons, some with up to [...]