Peter Ward, an investigator for the NASA Astrobiology Institute, discussed his new book Life as We Do Not Know It(1), which ponders the possible existence of alien life. Ward believes that scientists need to expand their classifications of what constitutes "life" and include such forms as viruses.He also argued that scientists should be open to the possibility that silicon or carbon-silicon bonds can generate lifeforms.
Ward reviewed the likeliest places for life in our solar system: Marsâ€"could likely have bacterial life but doubtful whether plants or higher forms are there. Venus-- might have a type of sulphuric acid-based life in its clouds. Jupiter's moon Europaâ€"An exciting target, with its 100 mile deep ocean. Saturn's moon Titanâ€"Contains lakes of methane that could foster carbon-silicon bonds which seem to work better at colder temperatures.Life on Titan would be the most alien imaginable, said Ward, who advocated for manned missions to explore there even though it would take seven years for a crew to arrive. Visualizing what form alien life might take, he described single celled entities that could aggregate together to form huge spheres. Ward also touched on the efforts to synthesize alien life in various NASA labs. So far, microbial life has been created that from a chemical standpoint is unlike anything on our planet, he noted.

1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670034584/ctoc

Black Holes: Lost & Found

Chinese scientists have gathered evidence(1) that indicates an enormous object in the center of the Milky Way known as Sagittarius A (pictured) is actually a super-massive black hole. The object, long thought to exist at this location, is estimated to be 93 million miles in width (the same distance as Earth is from the Sun).
Meanwhile, UCLA astronomers recently discovered a neutron star where they had expected to find a black hole. Their discovery suggests that nature may have a more difficult time producing black holes than was previously suspected. View images(2) from the Chandra Observatory.

1. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article324378.ece
2. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2005/wd1/

Bumper Music

Bumper music from Thursday November 03, 2005