Free Republic

Scientists just announced that they’ve located signs of methane on Mars, a gas that does not necessarily indicate biological life, but rather points them in the right direction. It’s an interesting discovery, despite the fact that none of us will probably be alive to really see where it leads. We earthlings have been obsessed with finding life on Mars for decades.We’re excited to see methane gas on a different planet and liken it to life, yet in American courtrooms, statehouses, and our nation's capital, lawyers and politicians are squinting at ultrasound pictures, proclaiming... maybe?Ever since human beings turned dreams of space...

"Our results support the idea that methane release on Mars might be characterized by small, transient geological events," researcher Frank Daerden said. The European Space Agency's Mars Express probe measured methane in the Martian atmosphere a day after NASA's Curiosity rover detected the gas in Gale Crater. Photo by ESA ============================================================= April 2 (UPI) -- Some 15 years ago, a European probe measured traces of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Now, NASA's Curiosity rover and the European Space Agency's Mars Express have confirmed the gas' presence in the air above Gale Crater. "The presence of methane could enhance habitability and...

Curiosity rover mission recently determined that background levels of methane in Mars' atmosphere cycle seasonally, peaking in the northern summer. The six-wheeled robot has also detected two surges to date of the gas inside the Red Planet's 96-mile-wide (154 kilometers) Gale Crater — once in June 2013, and then again in late 2013 through early 2014. These finds have intrigued astrobiologists, because methane is a possible biosignature. Though the gas can be produced by a variety of geological processes, the vast majority of methane in Earth's air is pumped out by microbes and other living creatures. Some answers may soon...

Waring's claims are not backed up by scientific evidence – space boffins have not found any clues that there is, or ever was, intelligent life on Mars. Alien expert Nigel Watson, author of 'UFOs of the First World War, said Waring's claims were little more than fairy tale. "It is a stretch of the imagination to see this rock as representing the head of Socrates," Watson told The Sun. "Certainly Mars has not been habitable for human existence for a very long time, so it is impossible that he could have lived there or had a statue made of him...

Tests show that dormant herpes viruses reactivate in more than half the astronauts who travel on the Space Shuttle and International Space station, according to new NASA research - a phenomenon the space agency says could pose problems for deep space missions. ..."In keeping with this, we find that astronaut's immune cells - particularly those that normally suppress and eliminate viruses - become less effective during spaceflight and sometimes for up to 60 days after."

"NASA astronauts endure weeks or even months exposed to microgravity and cosmic radiation—not to mention the extreme G forces of take-off and re-entry," says senior author Dr. Satish K. Mehta of KBR Wyle at the Johnson Space Center. "This physical challenge is compounded by more familiar stressors like social separation, confinement and an altered sleep-wake cycle." "During spaceflight there is a rise in secretion of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, which are known to suppress the immune system. In keeping with this, we find that astronaut's immune cells—particularly those that normally suppress and eliminate viruses—become less effective during spaceflight...

Posted on March 14, 2019March 14, 2019 by Evan Gough This is the Final Photograph from Opportunity Sad.But beautiful.NASA has shared Opportunity’s final photograph from the surface of Mars. The rover’s final resting place is in Endeavour Crater, and barring any statistically unlikely event, it will sit there for centuries, millennia, or even longer. And instead of a tombstone, we have this final image. The image is a panorama, captured at the end-point of Opportunity’s 15-year, marathon-plus journey. Opportunity’s odometer is now stopped at 28 miles, or 45 kilometers, and its chronometer at 5,111 sols.354 individual images make up...

People on Earth who've gotten sunburns are familiar with the sun's powerful rays — but the moon suffers from sunburn, too. Some regions of the lunar surface exhibit a distinctive pattern of darker and lighter swirls. Using NASA's ARTEMIS mission — which stands for Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon's Interaction with the Sun — astronomers have revealed new clues about the origin of these swirls. The sun releases a constant flow of charged particles known as solar wind into space. While Earth's natural magnetic field deflects solar-wind particles, the moon has a weaker magnetic field, leaving some areas of...

SpaceX's Mars ships won't be ferrying just the super rich to and from the Red Planet, if everything goes according to Elon Musk's plan.The price of a seat aboard SpaceX's Starship interplanetary vehicle will eventually drop enough to be accessible to a large chunk of the industrialized world's population, the billionaire entrepreneur predicted over the weekend. "Very dependent on volume, but I'm confident moving to Mars (return ticket is free) will one day cost less than $500k & maybe even below $100k. Low enough that most people in advanced economies could sell their home on Earth & move to Mars if...

When Curiosity attempted to come back online after an inactive period — a process it’s completed more than 30 times previously, according to the post — a glitch triggered a “protective safe mode.” Scientists back on Earth are working to forensically reconstruct what happened during the hiccup by downloading a snapshot of its memory. They’re also taking a hiatus from its scientific work — which is frustrating for researchers, Space.com pointed out, because they’d been about to drill an “intriguing rock” about 650 feet from the rover’s current location. “In the short term, we are limiting commands to the vehicle...

NASA's Opportunity rover, the third robotic wanderer to land on Mars, changed our understanding of the Martian landscape, geology, atmosphere and history. On Wednesday, NASA announced its mission complete and with it, the rover's life officially over. The plucky robot roamed the Martian surface for approximately 5,515 Earth days, just over 15 years. During a press conference, NASA said that Opportunity hadn't responded to a last-ditch effort Tuesday to establish contact. A planet-encircling dust storm cut off communications with Opportunity on June 10, 2018, preventing its solar panels from storing power. Since then, over 830 rescue commands had been beamed...

Cool image time! The south polar cap of Mars is a strange place. It is largely ice, with a seasonal cap of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Because the dry ice sublimates away during the summer months, the cap undergoes regular changes that reshape it, producing alien features that are not seen on Earth. The image on the right is another example of these alien features. I found it in the February image release from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. I have merely cropped the full image to focus at full resolution on its primary feature,...

Cool image time! The picture on the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was part of the January image release from the high resolution camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows an area in the Martian southern highlands where the surface suddenly gets darker, for no obvious reason. The uncaptioned release image is titled “Dark-Toned Ridge at Junction with Dark-Toned Plain.” From the image itself it is hard to understand this title. In the full image the darkest terrain is a strip in the center, with slightly lighter dark terrain on either side, and the lightest terrain to...

On the night of the new moon itself, observers in midnorthern latitudes will see the classic winter constellations of Orion, Taurus, Gemini and Canis Major for most of the night. All of these constellations will be above the horizon by 7 p.m. local time. Orion's distinctive belt of three stars — Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka — will be at an altitude of about 40 degrees in the south-southeast, while Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, will be about 21 degrees high. Looking just to the east and south of Orion (to the right and upward in the northern hemisphere),...

The robotic drone is performing classified duties during the program’s fifth flight. The current mission — known as Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-5) — was rocketed into Earth orbit on Sept. 7, 2017, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida. [The X-37B X-37B missions are carried out under the auspices of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, and mission control for OTV flights is handled by the 3rd Space ... gathering information on objects high above Earth and carrying out other intelligence-gathering duties. And that may be a signal as...

Refiners in the United States are stocking up on heavy crude, pushing prices higher, as the Trump administration prepares to slam more punitive measures on Caracas after the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as president of Venezuela for a second term after elections considered illegitimate by Washington. Reuters reports that officials from the presidential administration met with oil industry executives to discuss the measures on the table, including the suspension ofrefined product exports to Venezuela or Venezuelan crude oil imports into the United States. Gulf Coast refiners have a limited choice of supplier when it comes to heavy crude. Besides local...

Engineers haven't heard from the beleaguered robot since June 10, 2018, shortly before a global dust storm developed on Mars. The Opportunity rover, which is solar-powered, has ignored hundreds of calls from Earth since it first fell silent, which made team members worry that its mission has come to an end. As the silence stretched on over the summer, mission members hoped that the storm had simply dropped dust on the solar panels that power Opportunity and that a natural seasonal weather phenomenon on Mars could clear that dust away, letting the rover recharge.... That hope led the team to...

Updates on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, diamonds inside a planet, the Environmental Defense Fund is up to no good (again), and cleaning up Caves...

Full Title: "Fresh blow for Mars missions as researchers find long-duration space travel causes crippling back pain that can last for up to four YEARS" The changes in muscle composition are still present up to four years after long-duration spaceflight, according to the new research by Katelyn Burkhart, MS, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and colleagues. They write, 'Spaceflight-induced changes in paraspinal muscle morphology may contribute to back pain commonly reported in astronauts.' The researchers analyzed computed tomography (CT) scans of the lumbar (lower) spine in 17 astronauts and cosmonauts who flew missions on the International Space Station. Scans obtained...