SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: June 2002
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& science news > space & science news: June 2002
Evidence of ancient Martian flood
(Jun. 21, 2002)
One of the longest valley systems on Mars, called Ma'adim Vallis (Hebrew
for "Mars") was carved by water that flooded through a breach in the
wall of a large lake, some 3.5 billion years ago. The 860-km-long
valley, in the southern highlands of the Red Planet, was inundated
by 160,000 million cubic km of water that poured out of a 450-km-wide
basin to the north. This extraordinary new claim is simply the latest
addition to the body of evidence that suggests that Mars was covered
extensively by liquid water between 3 and 4 billion years ago.
For more on this, go here. |
A dozen more planets, including a second
extrasolar Jupiter
(Jun. 18, 2002)
European astronomers have announced the discovery 12 more extrasolar
worlds, in addition to the batch unveiled by the California-Carnegie
group a few days ago. What's more, this new assortment, found by a
team at the Geneva Observatory, includes another Jupiter-like world
in a Jupiter-like location. This is great news for those who feared
that well-placed jovians (from the point of view of life on inner,
terrestrial worlds) might be few and far between. It's now starting
to look as if gas giants in wide, near-circular orbits, which would
help deflect a potential deluge of cometary and asteroidal impactors
away from the "life zone" at Earth-like distances, may occur pretty
routinely. The new Jupiter orbits HD190360A (a.k.a. Gliese 777A),
a relative neighbor of the Sun's at a distance of 52 light-years from
the Earth.
For more, go here
(spaceref.com). |
New planets have a familiar look
(Jun. 13, 2002)
A planet in a Jupiter-like orbit and a planet only 40 times more massive
than Earth are among the lastest batch of 13 extrasolar planets whose
discovery was announced today (June 13) by Geoff Marcy, of the University
of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues. 55 Cancri (top left bright
star in the photo), 41 light-years away, was already known to have
one world, circling in a very tight circular orbit; now a second has
been added, in a 13-year orbit similar to that of Jupiter. The new
lightweight record has been smashed by a planet in the HD49674 system
in Auriga. These are exciting breakthroughs for the astrobiologist.
They suggest we are on the verge of finding more and more planetary
systems that resemble our own and that might be the homes of life.
It is only now that extrasolar planet searches are reaching the point
where they have run long enough to pick up "normal" gas giants in
wide, reasonably circular orbits. It will be some time yet before
instruments become available that can pick up worlds as small as the
Earth. But that there are plenty of other Earths out there seems virtually
certain.
For more, go here
(California and Carnegie Planet Search) and here
(BBC). |
Europan life: The good news and the bad
(Jun. 5, 2002)
While all the recent news from Mars concerning the possibility of
life there has been positive, the latest reports on Europa come as
a mixed bag. The good news comes Elisabetta Pierazzo, currently at
the Planetary Science Institute, and Chris Chyba of the SETI Institute.
Critical to hopes of finding at least microbial life on Europa is
the presence of sufficient biogenic material-elements and organics
that provide the buildings blocks and a suitable chemical energy source
for a viable ecosystem. Pierazzo and Chyba conclude that impacting
comets have provided the Jovian moon with plenty of the "right stuff."
The trouble is, even if there is life in that sub-ice ocean on Europa,
we may have the dickens of a time getting to have a look at it. The
only method available, short of a manned mission with drilling gear,
is a probe with a heated tip-a cryobot-that can melt its way down
through the ice. But for that to work the ice can't be too thick.
And here's the snag: according to research published recently in Nature,
based on the depth of the moon's largest craters, Europa may have
an ice layer at least 19 km (13 miles) thick. For more, on this, go
here (BBC). |
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