The ExoMars programme comprises two missions: the first – the Trace Gas Orbiter – launched in 2016 while the second, comprising a rover and surface platform, is planned for 2022. Together they will address the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars. This is a joint program between the European Space Agency (ESA)…
I came across this article in Discover, written in 2000. I thought it’d be interesting to see what they got right and where they missed the mark. Here’s their list: We’ve come a long way from 2000, but it’s not the future yet …
An ancient drawing of a demon blamed for epileptic seizures has been discovered on a 2,700-year-old Assyrian clay tablet. The tablet came from the library of a family of exorcists who lived in about 650 B.C. in the city of Assur, now in northern Iraq. But it’s likely it was copied from a much older text.…
The world of the teeny-tiny may have a favorite flavor. Before you go imagining itsy-bitsy chocolate bars, understand that the world of quantum particles is split into 3 camps, called “flavors” (don’t ask why). The electrons represent one flavor, and the muon and tau particles are the other two. Science has long believed that all…
If we discovered alien life, would we even recognize it? It might be so different that we wouldn’t even realize it was life. Scott Gaudi of Nasa’s Advisory Council has said: “One thing I am quite sure of, now having spent more than 20 years in this field of exoplanets … expect the unexpected.” But is that…
Scientists have discovered evidence in South Carolina that seems to point to an extraterrestrial event which caused the extinction of many large animals and a possible decline in human population nearly 13,000 years ago. A controversial theory that an extraterrestrial body crashing to earth caused another widespread extinction event is gaining traction due to such…
Astronomers may have found the solar system’s smallest dwarf planet, even smaller than Ceres. Using ESO’s SPHERE instrument at the Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered that the asteroid Hygiea has all four requirements to be classified as a dwarf planet. 1) It orbits the sun. 2) It is not a moon. 3) Unlike a…
Astronomers feel that ocean worlds like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus may be our best hope for finding life outside of our own planet. Both are icy with a subsurface ocean. The discovery of complex organic molecules that rise in plumes from Enceladus’ ocean further suggests the moon could support life as we know…
Astronomers have discovered what might be an exomoon – a moon outside our solar system. This would be the first such ever found. The moon, estimated to be about the size of our planet Neptune, was found in orbit around a gigantic gas planet 8,000 light-years from Earth. Although moons are common in our system…
Although we bid farewell to several historic space missions recently (Keppler’s nine-year planet hunting mission, Dawn’s 11-year mission to the asteroid belt, and Opportunity’s nearly 15-year exploration of Mars), we’ve had a few ground-breaking new ones to take over the skies. TESS, a planet-hunting satellite, launched in April, 2018, and is NASA’s next mission in…