First detection of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet

sea-maid submitted, created time 1 month 2 weeks (www.sciencenews.org)

Moving one step closer to finding the fingerprints of life in a habitable planet beyond the solar system, astronomers have for the first time detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet that orbits a star other than the sun.

The extrasolar planet and its star lie about sixty-three light-years from Earth. A gaseous body slightly bigger than Jupiter, the orb circles its parent star at a proximity that renders it far too hot to support life

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Mars rover makes tracks

sea-maid submitted, created time 4 months 1 week (www.nature.com)

It's now or never for the Opportunity. The Mars rover Opportunity is set to climb out of the Victoria crater a bit ahead of schedule. The original plan had been to allow the rover more time to examine the layers of the Martian crust exposed in the crater's sides, but its operators noticed a spike in the current similar to the one that preceded severe problems with its sister rover, Spirit. If the Opportunity were to lose one of its six wheels now, say scientists, it would make it nearly impossible for it to climb out of the crater and visit other parts of the Martian surface.

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Planets without metal cores may be bad for life

merry submitted, created time 4 months 2 weeks (space.newscientist.com)

Some planets beyond our solar system might be rocky like Earth, but lack its gooey metallic middle, a new study suggests. Such "coreless" terrestrial planets would not have magnetic fields, which would make them inhospitable to life as we know it.

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Space tourism? ...not just yet.

Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 months 2 days (www.nature.com)

The Falcon 1, Space Exploration Technologies' poster rocket, has yet again managed to NOT reach low earth orbit (LEO). Once again, the problem seems to be with the stage separation.

My take on it? Keep trying, guys! The U.S. space program blew plenty of stuff up back in the fifties and sixties. Heck, you're behind on your quota.

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Phoenix lander tastes its first ice

sea-maid submitted, created time 5 months 5 days (www.nature.com)

After a month of difficulty, the Mars Phoenix spacecraft is back in the baked goods business — and even got to put a little icing on top.

On Thursday, mission scientists announced they had managed to scrape some Martian soil up and sprinkle it inside one of the spacecraft’s eight ovens — where they discovered that a tiny bit of ice had tagged along with the soil. It’s the first ice actually sampled by the mission after weeks of fruitless attempts to get more pure ice in the ovens.

A panorama of the Phoenix landing site reveals its dusty environs (NASA/JPL-Caltech/U. Arizona/Texas A&M)

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Extreme Life in the Martian Arctic?

sea-maid submitted, created time 6 months 2 weeks (www.time.com)

Bizarre microbes flourish in the most punishing environments on Earth from the bone-dry Atacama Desert in Chile to the boiling hot springs of Yellowstone National Park to the sunless sea bottom vents in the Pacific. Could such exotic life emerge in the frigid arctic plains of Mars?

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Phoenix Touches Martian Ice

jerry submitted, created time 6 months 2 weeks (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)

NASA's "follow the water" approach to finding life--or evidence of past life--on Mars has finally hit pay dirt. Three weeks into its 90-day mission, the Phoenix lander has scraped a few centimeters down to an irrefutable layer of water ice in the martian arctic. The first robotic contact with water on Mars promises a score of chemical analyses in the next few months that could reveal whether this ice ever melted to liquid water that could have supported living organisms. And the discovery has already revealed some new mysteries beyond the question of life.

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Has Mars lost the fire? Northern ice cap suggests little geothermal activity.

Darkfrog submitted, created time 7 months 4 days (www.sciencemag.org)

I remember learning long ago that Mars once had an atmosphere belched up by its many volcanoes, but that its gravity had been insufficient to keep it from drifting off into space. Once the volcanoes slowed and stopped, the atmosphere began to deplete. New data suggest that Mars today shows little geothermal activity.

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