A Serious Search For Extraterrestrial Life

A planet probably the size of Jupiter orbits at a distance about four times that between Neptune and the sun. Many such exoplanets - all atmosphere, no solid surface - have been found since '95, when the first was confirmed.

From Philadelphia Inquirer:

Things have changed since the original Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock set off to seek out new life and new civilizations. Back in the 1960s, while the Enterprise crew was exploring a galaxy full of exotic life-forms, real astronomers were stuck in a solar system with eight desolate-looking neighbors and no signs of any planets beyond.

Now, finally, astronomers are starting to zero in on Earth-like worlds orbiting other stars. Some of the more recent finds even look potentially habitable.

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Telescopes Poised To Spot Air-Breathing Aliens

Image: The next generation of space telescopes will be capable of detecting "biosignatures" in the light from planets orbiting other stars (Image: G. Bacon STSCI / ESA / NASA)

From New Scientist:

SIGNS of life on planets beyond our own solar system may soon be in our sights. Experiments and calculations presented at an astrobiology meeting last week reveal how the coming generation of space telescopes will for the first time be capable of detecting "biosignatures" in the light from planets orbiting other stars.

Any clues about life on these exoplanets will have to come from the tiny fraction of the parent star's light that interacts with the planet on its journey towards Earth. The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have both detected gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapour in the atmospheres of a handful of gas-giant exoplanets as they pass in front of their parent stars. The gas molecules absorb light at characteristic wavelengths, and this shows up as dark lines in the spectrum of the starlight which has been filtered through the planet's atmosphere. But seeing evidence of life - so-called biosignatures - in the spectrum of worlds small enough to be rocky like Earth is beyond the sensitivity of these instruments.

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'Alien Skull' Spotted On Mars

An oddly shaped space boulder appears to show eye sockets and a nose leading to speculation it might be a Martian skull Photo: BARCROFT/NASA

From The Telegraph:

UFO spotters are claiming they have spotted an alien skull on Mars after NASA beamed back satellite images from the planet.

At first glance it looks like a rocky desert - but this image of the Mars landscape has got space-gazers talking.

An oddly shaped space boulder appears to show eye sockets and a nose leading to speculation it might be a Martian skull.
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My Comment: Strange .... but I am very skeptical that it is an "alien skull".

The Hunt For Another Earth Begins: Nasa's New Telescope Scours Space For Life-Supporting Planets

The Kepler telescope pictures the eight-billion-year-old star cluster NGC 6791, 13,000 light years from Earth. It will focus on the 'Goldilocks' zone - an orbital band where temperatures are not too hot and not too cold, but just right to allow the existence of watery oceans, lakes and rivers

From The Daily Mail:

These are the first incredible pictures captured by Nasa's new telescope, preparing to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

Kepler's first image reveals a vast star field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

One fascinating picture is ablaze with stars filling the telescope's entire field of view, while two others zoom in on targeted stars and clusters.

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Do Aliens Share Our Genetic Code?

Was Jabba the Hutt made from the same genetic building blocks as life on Earth?
(Image: Jonathan Hordle / Rex)

From New Scientist:

What similarities will alien life forms have to living things here on Earth? We won't know until we find some, but now there is evidence that at least the basic building blocks will be the same.

All terrestrial life forms share the same 20 amino acids. Biochemists have managed to synthesise 10 of them in experiments that simulate lifeless prebiotic environments, using proxies for lightning, ionising radiation from space, or hydrothermal vents to provide the necessary energy. Amino acids are also found inside meteorites formed before Earth was born.

Paul Higgs and Ralph Pudritz at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, point out that all these experiments produced a subset of the same 10 amino acids and calculate that these 10 require the least amount of energy to form.

This, they argue, suggests that if alien life exists it probably has the same 10 amino acids at its core.

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Finding Twin Earths Is Harder Than Thought

This artist's conception shows a hypothetical twin Earth orbiting a Sun-like star. A new study shows that characterizing a distant Earth's atmosphere will be difficult, even using next-generation technology like the James Webb Space Telescope. If an Earth-like world is nearby, though, then by adding observations of a number of transits, astronomers should be able to detect biomarkers like methane or ozone. (Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 21, 2009) — Does a twin Earth exist somewhere in our galaxy? Astronomers are getting closer and closer to finding an Earth-sized planet in an Earth-like orbit. NASA's Kepler spacecraft just launched to find such worlds. Once the search succeeds, the next questions driving research will be: Is that planet habitable? Does it have an Earth-like atmosphere? Answering those questions will not be easy.

Due to its large mirror and location in outer space, the James Webb Space Telescope (scheduled for launch in 2013) will offer astronomers the first real possibility of finding those answers. In a new study, Lisa Kaltenegger (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and Wesley Traub (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) examined the ability of JWST to characterize the atmospheres of hypothetical Earth-like planets during a transit, when part of the light of the star gets filtered through the planet's atmosphere. They found that JWST would be able to detect certain gases called biomarkers, such as ozone and methane, only for the closest Earth-size worlds.

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Planets Like Earth Appear To Be Out There

Image from National Geographic

From Japan Times:

LONDON — The real wonder of our age is this. You can go on the Web, type in PlanetQuest New Worlds Atlas, or Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, or NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, and directly access the data on 340 new planets that have been discovered in the past five years.

That number is set to grow very fast now, for on March 6 The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched the Kepler telescope, which will find many more planets including potentially Earth-like ones. It will stare unblinkingly at an area of space containing about 100,000 relatively near stars, watching for the tiny dimming of a star that happens when one of its planets passes between the star and us.

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Hunting For Earths

Hundreds of solar systems have been picked out of the sky; all harbor exoplanets the size of Jupiter or larger, but so far other Earths have eluded astronomers. NASA's Kepler space telescope, however, is expected to give the first reliable count of any habitable planets. Credit: NASA/NRC Canada/C. Marois et al.

From Discovery:

A new NASA mission in search of exoplanets has experts weighing in on whether we'll find life off Earth.

Earth seems so alone, drifting through space -- but are there other Earth-like worlds out there capable of supporting life, and if so how many are there nearby?

To answer that question once and for all, NASA is sending the Kepler telescope into space. Once there, it will stare down thousands of stars to seek out the slightest glimpse of a small, rocky world like our own.

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Are You Out There, ET? Searches For Habitable Planets Are About To Get A Boost

UP, UP AND AWAY: The Kepler satellite, scheduled to take flight March 6, is lifted for attachment to its launch rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Kepler will look for Earth-like planets that may be hospitable to life. NASA

From Scientific American:

Next week brings a milestone in the search for extraterrestrial life with the scheduled launch Friday of NASA's Kepler satellite. The mission, named for 16th- and 17th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler, will study a group of stars for three-plus years in search of subtle, periodic dips in stellar brightness—the telltale signs of planetary orbits. Although more than 300 planets outside the solar system have already been found using this method, among other techniques, Kepler's strength will lie in its instruments' sensitivity to smaller, cooler planets more hospitable to life and more like our own.

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Galaxy May Be Full Of 'Earths,' Alien Life

Photo: An artist's impression shows a planet passing in front of its parent star. Such events are called transits.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there's new buzz that "Star Trek's" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched.

Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.

There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."

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Most Detailed Lunar Map Suggests Little Water Inside Moon

An international team of researchers has created the most detailed map of the Moon yet, using the laser altimeter (LALT) instrument on board the Japanese Selenological and Engineering Explorer satellite. C.K. Shum, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, is a member of the LALT science team and a co-author of a paper appearing in the February 13 issue of the journal Science. (Credit: Image copyright Science/AAAS)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2009) — The most detailed map of the Moon ever created has revealed never-before-seen craters at the lunar poles.

The map is also revealing secrets about the Moon's interior -- and hinting about Mars's interior as well.

C.K. Shum, professor of earth sciences at Ohio State University, is part of the international research team that published the map in the February 13 issue of the journal Science.

"The surface can tell us a lot about what's happening inside the Moon, but until now mapping has been very limited," Shum said. "For instance, with this new high-resolution map, we can confirm that there is very little water on the Moon today, even deep in the interior. And we can use that information to think about water on other planets, including Mars."

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How Astronomers Search for Ice Age Aliens

Some astrobiologists think plants on other worlds could have
purple, not green, chlorophyll. FNC/NASA

From FOX News/Space:

Could an alien astronomer have detected life on Earth during an ice age?

Recent work has calculated how past climate extremes affected the light reflected from vegetation out into space. The results could give hope to our own search for life on distant worlds.

From far away, our planet is a single faint speck of light in the sky. Although we have sent radio messages out to potential extraterrestrial listeners, none of these signals have traveled more than a few tens of light years.

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Galaxy Has 'Billions Of Earths'

From The BBC:

There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.

Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.

Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter; and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.

But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.

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Top 5 Most Extreme Exoplanets

From Wired Science:

Searching for planets beyond our solar system is a bit like playing Goldilocks — we keep looking for that one that will be just right to host life. While astronomers haven't found a perfect fit yet, they have found plenty that are too big, too hot, too cold, too dense, too close to their star, or too distant.

The first exoplanet discovery was in 1988, though it was controversial at the time and wasn't officially confirmed until 2003. Over the years, more than 330 extrasolar planets have been found, nearly all of them using indirect methods such as detecting the wobble of a star due to the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet or the slight dimming of the star's light as a planet passes in front of it.

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Intelligent Life Could Be Thriving On 40,000 Planets

This planet, located near the centre of the Milky Way about 20,000 light years from us, is just one of the 40,000 which could be harbouring intelligent life

From Daily Mail:

Science’s quest to discover life on Mars has so far failed to find even one little green man.

But not to worry. Aliens could be alive and well on almost 40,000 other planets.

Researchers have calculated that up to 37,964 worlds in our galaxy are hospitable enough to be home to creatures at least as intelligent as ourselves.

Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan created a computer programme that collated all the data on the 330 or so planets known to man and worked out what proportion would have conditions suitable for life.

The estimate, which took into account factors such as temperature and availability of water and minerals, was then extrapolated across the Milky Way.

Three scenarios of how life could develop were also taken into account.

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If There IS Life On Mars, This Is Where It Lives

Plumes of up to 19,000 tons of methane, pictured red,
were detected in Mars' northern hemisphere

From The Daily Mail:

If there is life on Mars as NASA scientists claim, this is where it lives.

This extraordinarily detailed picture shows exactly where the most methane, taken as an indication of life, can be found.

Appropriately enough for the sphere dubbed the Red Planet , the scarlet areas are the places where scientists have detected the most of the gas.

The picture was released by NASA just days after the U.S. space agency confirmed the presence of methane on Mars.

It is the first 'definitive proof' of plumes of the gas seeping from the planet's northern hemisphere.

And it is the strongest hint yet that alien microbes could be thriving deep below the red, dusty surface.

On Earth, 90 per cent of the methane produced is released by living organisms far beneath the soil.

'It might be possible for similar organisms to survive for billions of years below the permafrost layer on Mars, where water is liquid, radiation supplies energy, and carbon dioxide provides carbon,' said NASA scientist Professor Michael Mumma.

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