BREAKING! NASA says that it is possible that life may have existed on Mars!

The age-old debate/ inquiry can finally be put to a rest - or so we believe! :


"At a press conference Tuesday, scientists revealed NASA's Curiosity rover has uncovered signs that ancient Mars had the essential elements necessary for supporting life.
A rock sample analyzed by Curiosity in February contained sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and carbon, critical building blocks for a living organism. An ancient streambed, analyzed in September, also contained minerals likely to have formed in the presence of "relatively fresh water," according to a written statement from NASA."

This set of images compares rocks seen by NASA's Opportunity rover (left) and Curiosity rover (right) at two different parts of Mars. The rocks observed by Opportunity were determined to have been uninhabitable due to high acidity, but the rocks observed by Curiosity were likely submerged in a more neutral liquid environment, raising the possibility that they could have once hosted life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "A fundamental question for this mission is whether Mars could have supported a habitable environment," added Michael Meyer, lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program in Washington. "From what we know now, the answer is yes."


This is INCREDIBLE! The implications of such a discovery are marvelous and truly astounding! As said in an earlier post, we could be looking into a crystal ball into the Earth's own past! Still,however, this begs the question of just how complex was Mar's life. We assume that Earth is the "privileged planet" and truly it is...but it's discoveries such as these that make us go waaaait a minute....Could Mars have, in fact, been just as hospitable relative to the life it supported as the Earth to its myriad inhabitants? What sort of catastrophic events led to its becoming the seemingly barren wasteland many of us grew up knowing it to be? Was there once a Martian "Garden of Eden" , teeming with exotic life completely unbeknownst to mankind ? Here's to the Curiosity Rover and its future endeavors!

Alien Moons!?

So we're all quite familiar with the prospect of planets hosting alien life - namely the over 800 discovered exoplanets that have been discovered around other distant stars ( they keep rolling in!) - but very seldom have I herd the consideration that moons can host alien life of some sort! Well, where there's exoplanets...there's bound to be exomoons!

Artist's impression of the view from a hypothetical moon around an exoplanet orbiting a triple star system.

In a recent article posted by Space.com , scientists have discovered that alien moons may actually be easier to photograph than their planetary counterparts!

"
As a moon travels around its planet, the larger body tries to circularize the orbit of the smaller. But if the planet hosts more than one moon, a power struggle may ensue as the smaller bodies tug at one another. The resulting heat radiates from the moon, making it bright enough to show up in a visual image.

Planets emit heat for only a short time after their formation, limiting how long they can be directly imaged. But tidally heated moons would continue to give off heat throughout their lifetimes.
How much heating a moon undergoes would depend on its location. A tighter orbit results in stronger gravitational tugs and a brighter image. But too close would be fatal."

Though we apparently don't need to look much further than our own solar system to see this effect -

" Io, Europa, and Ganymede orbit Jupiter. Their tugs on one another counteract the attempts of the gas giant to circularize their orbit. All three experience some form of tidal heating, with the closest, Io, feeling the strongest effects."

So , in the deformation of Io by way of Jupiter's tidal tug, heat is generated !


 "Warmed by their planet rather than their star, tidally heated moons could also shift the definition of the habitable zone, the region where liquid water could exist on a body, making it ideal for the generation of life. For water to exist, the planet — or moon — must be not too hot and not too cold. Traditionally, the region is defined by the distance from the star, but a tidally heated planet doesn’t rely on its sun."

Of course, this is promising because of more than just the prospect of finding water, but also the creation of an "early atmosphere" for life to thrive!:

 "Like Io and Enceladus, tidally heated exomoons would be more likely to be volcanically active, Peters said. Such volcanism could aid in the creation of an atmosphere on the moon, another helpful ingredient when it comes to the evolution of life."

If a distant moon were larger than Jupiter's tidally heated volcanic moon Io (seen here), it could be large enough to image from Earth, scientists say.
CREDIT: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

 I must say the prospect of extrasolar worlds and life has really been a source of great intrigue for me - perhaps my next few posts will be about expoplanets!

Read the full article here:  http://www.space.com/19610-exomoons-alien-planets-photography.html

Friday Night at the Movies!

Greetings! I do believe it's been too long since we've last chatted, space-intrigued citizens! Long story short, my laptop had a virus on it ,shutting it down all week long! I sincerely apologize for the lull in posting and I certainly never intend to intentionally go that long without posting something!

As for today's post, I thought I'd share something that I plan to do every friday ( or maybe every other..?)  It'll be called "Friday Night at the Movies"! Essentially, every friday I'll show a movie ( as opposed to just text and pictures) about a space topic! So for our premier Friday Night at the Movie showing...:

Watch this intense solar flare that was recently caught by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory!:

"The surface of the sun erupted in a solar flare early today (Jan. 11), unleashing a blast of super-heated plasma into space.
A huge sunspot known as AR1654 produced the M1-class flare at 4:11 a.m. EST (0911 GMT), officials with NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory said in a description of the event. The SDO spacecraft is one of several sun-watching space telescopes keeping tabs on solar flares and other sun weather events."
 More at : http://www.space.com/19237-solar-flare-big-sunspot.html

And heck, since I love you all so much and have missed you all dearly this week, I'll throw in a second video, this time, about a record-setting asteroid flyby you can expect to see int he night-sky this month!

Groundwater-fed lake on Mars?

Mars! The red-planet that has always intrigued humanity since humanity knew of its home planet's distant cousin, has always been rumored for as long as I can remember to harbor or have harbored water. Frozen water has certainly been found on its polar extremities and so with this discovery has since provoked the question of whether or not more water exists on this planet- where could the water to freeze the ice caps have come from to begin with? Of course, this relentless hunt for water is due to the relentless hunt for extraterrestrial life -- simply because water seems to be a necessary precursor for biologos.

Well, it seems as though, a major advance has been made as of recent in the quest for Martian life!

 The new information comes from researchers analyzing data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater!

This view of layered rocks on the floor of McLaughlin Crater shows sedimentary rocks that contain spectroscopic evidence for minerals formed through interaction with water. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded the image. // Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

"A NASA spacecraft is providing new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars that adds to an increasingly complex picture of the Red Planet’s early evolution.

The new information comes from researchers analyzing spectrometer data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which looked down on the floor of McLaughlin Crater. The martian crater is 57 miles (92 kilometers) in diameter and 1.4 miles (2.2km) deep. McLaughlin’s depth apparently once allowed underground water, which otherwise would have stayed hidden, to flow into the crater’s interior."

As if the precision with which they were able to derive the crater's dimensions isn't impressive enough, data has been collected informing us the mineralogical composition of the crater!

" Layered, flat rocks at the bottom of the crater contain carbonate and clay minerals that form in the presence of water. McLaughlin lacks large inflow channels, and small channels originating within the crater wall end near a level that could have marked the surface of a lake.

Together, these new observations suggest the formation of the carbonates and clay in a groundwater-fed lake within the closed basin of the crater. Some researchers propose the crater interior catching the water and the underground zone contributing the water could have been wet environments and potential habitats."

And of course, all of this begs the implication of...dare I say it...martian life!!

 “This new report and others are continuing to reveal a more complex Mars than previously appreciated, with at least some areas more likely to reveal signs of ancient life than others,” said Rich Zurek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Mars is so intriguing not just because of the existence of water on its rusty, dusty surface but because of the the possibility that it could be a mirror of Earth's own past. Is Mars what Earth looked like at its cosmic conception? Will Mars eventually move in the direction of Earth and become a planet teeming with many life forms? Will Mars once become habitable by humans and other terrestrial life-forms , should we develop the technology to travel there? Did Mars once have an ocean - what's even feeding these underground streams , which are in turn feeding these crater-lakes? Certainly the paradox of astronomical science is the more answers you arrive at, the more questions surely will arise!

Read the full article here: http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2013/01/Martian%20crater%20may%20once%20have%20held%20groundwater-fed%20lake.aspx?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ASY_News_NonSub_130125_Final&utm_content=

Welcome to Legacy Space Blog!

Hello Earth-dwellers!

      
Welcome to the Legacy Space Blog - this blog ins devoted to all things related to our wondrous, awe-inspiring, mysterious universe! From nebulae , supernovae, and constellations to exoplanets, Solar System happenings, and black holes, this blog will function as a potpourri of space news and just random postings about various astronomical science topics! I certainly hope you all enjoy this- whether it be for intrigue or intellectual edification, I am sure you will find this blog to be of immense value - come explore with me the heavens!