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| Image credit: USC |
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| Could Martian Life Fool Us? |
| Dec 12, 2003 - Follow the water. That's the mantra astrobiologists have been chanting about the search for life on Mars. But even if they do follow the water, will they recognize Martian life when they're looking right at it? Some believe that the current search for life is very Earth-centric - our knowledge of life's limits on our own planet sets our expectations for what we might find in the rest of the Solar System. But life on other planets could exist at such extreme conditions, that many areas on Mars could be worth searching. |
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| Image credit: NASA |
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| Shuttle's Wings Will Detect When They're Damaged |
| Dec 12, 2003 - NASA is planning to embed special sensors into the wings of the space shuttle fleet that will detect when they've been damaged - it was a foam strike like this that led to the destruction of Columbia nearly a year ago. A member of the safety oversight panel said that the sensors would be able to detect a hit, but not the extent of the damage, so astronauts would still need to spacewalk outside the shuttle to inspect it. Installing these sensors isn't a requirement for the shuttle's return to flight, but NASA believes it can have the work done by September 2004 - when the first shuttle is expected to lift off again. |
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| Image credit: ESA |
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| Why Titan is Important in the Search for Life |
| Dec 12, 2003 - Scientists think that Saturn's moon Titan holds many answers to the early evolution of life in our Solar System. When NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrives at the Ringed Planet, it will release the ESA's Huygens probe which will help analyze the primordial soup of material on Titan's surface. The spacecraft will help determine which organic molecules and their quantities are present in moon's atmosphere. The conditions on Titan have long since passed on Earth; by gathering data there, scientists can help build up a better understanding of what happened during our planet's early history. |
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| Image credit: ESA |
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| New Doubts Over Dark Energy |
| Dec 12, 2003 - It was only a few years ago that astronomers shook up current models of the Universe with the theory of dark energy; which says that the expansion of the Universe is actually accelerating. But new evidence gathered by the ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has cast some doubt on the theory. By looking at distant galaxy clusters - up to 10 billion light-years away - the ESA astronomers found they contained more concentrated matter than the theory of dark energy would predict. If matter was so concentrated, the Universe can't be 70% dark energy. |
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