A report released last weekend at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society suggests that meteors landing on Earth during the early bombardment phase introduced large quantities of amino acids. The unique excess of left-handed amino acids on Earth are said to be due to neutron star polarized light destroying right-handed amino acids as the acid-carrying meteors headed towards Earth.Once on Earth, the amino acids interact with desert-like heat, and small amounts of water, passing on the left-handedness (chirality) to other amino acids, producing components possibly used in the forming of early life.While there is still no clear link between simple amino acids and RNA/DNA required for life, the fact that components of life being transported by meteors is extremely interesting. As meteors are very common in our galaxy, there is a chance that the processes which occurred on Earth could occur on other planets hosting small amounts of water.(from http://www.physorg.com/news126694357.html)
Comments Off
Just this past week, two important events related to life in the universe have been announced.
First, NASA has discovered trace amounts of methane on an extrasolar gas giant 63 light years away. The planet, known as HD 189733b, is extremely hot (with surface temperatures of around 1000 K) and would probably not support life, but the discovery’s spectroscopic techniques have now been officially proven to work and will be applied to other, more habitable exoplanets. (From http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/03/exoplanet)
The second discovery is much closer to home - data collected by the Cassini spacecraft has been provided evidence for an ocean beneath Titan’s surface. This ocean may consist of water and ammonia, and was found by examining surface features which had shifted over 30km in a fairly short period of time.
Titan is already considered one of the most likely members of our solar system to support life - it’s dense atmosphere has significant amounts of organic compounds - and liquid water will only strengthen the case for further analysis and the search for life.
While one of humanity’s overarching goals is to search for other life in the universe, the study of destructive forces is just as important. For if we, living on a tiny rock in a tiny corner of the known universe could easily be destroyed, the chances of this happening on a greater scale are certainly significant.
8000 light years away, an unstable star named Wolf-Rayet in the constellation Sagittarius is set to explode in a massive supernova. The alignment of this star shows potential for an enormous ray of gamma radiation to be fired outward from the binary system’s poles. Unluckily for us, Earth appears to be in the perfect location for the gamma radiation to hit.
What might happen if the Earth were to be hit? Researchers say that the radiation-atmosphere interaction could potentially strip away the ozone layer and cause massive extinctions. A similar event could have led to a mass extinction over 440 million years ago, in which 60% of life on Earth was wiped out.
Thankfully, even if we are in the perfect location, Earth’s inhabitants have a few hundred thousand years to come up with a survival plan.
A team of scientists have just left for Antarctica to examine Lake Untersee for life. What makes this exploration so unique is the fact that the lake is so alkaline, it has a pH that of strong Clorox bleach.
Methane levels are also higher than any other natural body of water, possibly indicating that any extremophiles living within can survive on the deadly gas. The lake’s cold temperatures make it a perfect source of data for the search for extraterrestrial life - cold, methane-rich locations are found in various locations throughout our solar system, and the high pH levels could further expand the recorded limits of extremophile life in our universe.
January 31st, 1958, Explorer 1 became the first U.S. satellite to reach orbit - just four months after the Soviet Union launched the world changing Sputnik.
50 years later, just how far has humanity advanced with respect to space exploration, learning about ourselves, and the universe in which we live? We have done many incredible things - land a man on the moon, send a satellite out of our solar system, and explore other worlds remotely, with manned missions to follow. But what is in store for the next 50 years?
Although drastic funding cuts endanger NASA and other space agencies, countries such as India and China will soon become major players in the space game. The first words spoken on Mars may very well be in a language other than English, and a new flag may fly on the Moon before an American returns.
The next 50 years will certainly be interesting times spent exploring our universe.
Satellite USA 193, widely presumed to be an American spy satellite, has apparently lost power and will hit the Earth within a few weeks. Ground based photography of the satellite in orbit has observed that the satellite has no solar array - it must, therefore, be nuclear powered.
The thought of a small nuclear reactor crash landing somewhere on the planet is rather unnerving, but theoretically only two things could happen: the satellite could disintegrate during re-entry, diffusing the radioactive material into the atmosphere with little to no effect, or the reactor could survive and crash land somewhere on Earth, where a NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team) would deploy and contain the nuclear core.
At least we have greater than a 70% chance that the satellite will land in an ocean!
Forty-six years ago, John F. Kennedy convinced the American public that space exploration was possible, and that the Americans were to be the first nation to do it. His words say it best:
“Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, “Because it is there.”
Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”
(From http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1962_0912_kennedy )
Over the past few decades, NASA’s funding has been repeatedly slashed, projects put on hold or cancelled, and little effort has been made to bring back the intrigue of space flight as was so common thirty to forty years ago. The media is not helping, emphasizing the extravagant cost of each shuttle or satellite launch over the benefits of the mission.
Were the space programs of many countries not so resilient, however, there is little chance we would today have technologies so integral to our daily lives: GPS, weather forecasting and imagery, and global telecommunication networks to name a few. If funding for such technologies continues to diminish, we will undoubtedly miss out on life changing technologies and experiences, up to and including finding life in our universe.
NASA’s plans to establish a lunar base starting in 2020 may be changing - top U.S. scientists and NASA officials are planning to gather in February to discuss a reallocation of resources toward asteroid landing missions. Their findings will be presented to next U.S. President as an alternative to President Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration”, as some believe that a moon base will not provide us with as much information as an exploration of multiple asteroids.
Most asteroids are older than both the Earth and our moon; they are, therefore, a way of examining the oldest portions of our galaxy and provide us with information as to how it and the planets formed. According to some theories, asteroids are also a component of the formation of life here on Earth. Many contain compounds consisting of carbon and other elements crucial to the formation of life, and impacts with the primordial Earth could have transferred these elements, forming life.
I believe that this change is a step in the right direction - although I would love to see a moon base in the next few decades, a series of asteroid examination missions would provide more information for the scientific community at large. We would learn more about our solar system, our galaxy, assess impact risks for Near Earth Objects, and possibly get to Mars more quickly. Asteroid mining could also provide us with the raw materials to create infrastructure in space, at a lower resource cost than building on Earth.
Finding traces of life on these asteroids could also forever answer the question, “are we alone in the universe?”
Source: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0801/18avweek/