SPACE
& SCIENCE NEWS: October 2003
home > space
& science news > space & science news: October 2003
Row over life-genesis vents
(Oct. 30, 2003)
The earliest seafloor hydrothermal vents – supposedly more than
three billion years old – may be nothing more than deposits
from underground springs active in the last few thousand years. That
is the claim of two US geologists who carried out a new analysis of
rocks from South Africa which were previously dated to the Archaean
period – when life first began to diversify. The findings could
have important implications for our understanding of the early Earth
and the microbial life forms that lived there. But one authority on
the geology of the Barberton greenstone belt – where the rocks
are found – launched a vigorous defence of evidence that they
contain ancient hydrothermal vents.
Read
more. Source: BBC |
Dark energy confirmed
(Oct. 28, 2003)
Astronomers have compiled the largest, most detailed map of the Universe
so far and believe that it shows beyond doubt the presence of an all-pervading
"dark energy" throughout the cosmos. The three-dimensional map contains
200,000 galaxies and covers six per cent of the sky. The furthest
galaxies in the map are two billion light years away. Such maps are
invaluable because the large-scale structure of the Universe reveals
the interplay of cosmic forces during the last 13 billion years. The
new map comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), an international
collaboration of over 200 astronomers at 13 institutes around the
world.
Read
more. Source: New Scientist |
Methane lakes may await Huygens on Titan
(Oct. 5, 2003)
The Huygens probe,
scheduled to parachute down through the thick atmosphere of Titan
in 2005, may be heading for a splashdown not a hard landing. That's
the conclusion of a series of 25 radar observations, made using by
the giant Arecibo telescope
when Saturn came relatively
close to Earth in 2001 and 2002. A portion of the radar echoes received
from Titan showed that some parts of the big satellite were only reflecting
about 2 percent of the radio waves falling on them – a low reflectivity
that is characteristic of liquid hydrocarbons. The most likely substance
involved is methane–
normally a gas on Earth, but likely to be found as a liquid under
the extremely low temperatures on Titan. The reflecting surfaces detected
in the study are anywhere from a few tens to a few hundreds of kilometers
across, suggesting they are methane lakes lying within large impact
craters. In the event that Huygens splashes down rather than lands
on a frozen part of the Moon, it will still be able to function for
a while and send back data from the surface: ESA mission designers
thoughtfully equipped the probe to float. For the Cornell press release
on which this story is based, go here.
|
BACK TO TOP
|
You
are here:
Home
> Space & Science news
> October 2003
Other news sections
Latest science news
Archeo news
Eco news
Health news
Living world news
Paleo news
Strange news
Tech news
Also on this site:
Encyclopedia of Science
Encyclopedia of Alternative Energy
and Sustainable Living
News archive
Bookshop
Contact
|
