More than two months after NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander touched down on the north polar plains of the Red Planet, the pile of circumstantial evidence pointing towards the presence of water was put aside and replaced with the first clear analysis showing that water indeed exists on Mars. In a report published yesterday, the investigation team operating the spacecraft wrote that during a soil analysis carried out earlier this week the TEGA instrument detected the presence of water molecules.As earlier said, most of the evidence indicating the presence of water on Mars was so far indirect. For example, in 2002 NASA's Odyssey orbiter re... [read more >>] As expected, the Gliese 581 system did not disappoint and is now revealing the smallest planet outside our solar system, bringing the total number of planets found orbiting around the red dwarf star to three. When the star was first targeted by astronomers nearly two years ago, only a single planet was detected. The newly found object weighs about 5 times more than Earth, has a rocky surface, and its orbit could allow the existence of liquid water and life."The separation between the planet and its star is just right for having liquid water at its surface. That's why we are a bit excited," says astronomer and team spokesperson Stephane... [read more >>] According to a new study carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, the mass ratio between the electron and the proton remained constant over the past 6 billion years. This comes to contradict the findings of a study conducted nearly two years ago which suggested that the masses of the two particles varied significantly since the Big Bang event which is responsible for the birth of the universe.There are some theories in physics implying that certain physical constants of the universe might have varied in time, including the masses of sub-atomic elementary particles. Finding out whether this is true or not may have signifi... [read more >>] Soil samples returned from the Moon during the Apollo missions were for the first time proven to contain trace amounts of water, although they cannot indicate how much water is currently present there nor can they be used to predict a method through which water could be extracted in the near future. The long expected discovery was made during the analysis of volcanic glass beads brought back from the Moon and may have significant importance regarding the past of Earth's satellite, especially in terms of the process that created it."This really appears to have changed the rules of the game. The assumption has been that the moon is dry,"... [read more >>] What was before this universe is currently anybody's guess, but it is highly likely that it was preceded by a similar universe and therefore time existed before the Big Bang. The evidence to back this theory is said to be found in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation left behind by the light created when the universe was only 400,000 years old and could explain why time seems to move in a single direction, when logic says it should be reversible.The CMB fills the entire space of the universe in all directions and although it is generally relatively smooth, it does contain some temperature fluctuations that are associated with the ... [read more >>] The video footage of what appears to be an extraterrestrial being peeping through the window on an American citizen living in Denver was released yesterday during a news conference organized by the residents of Denver in an effort to convince people that UFO sightings need to be treated much more seriously, and that an "Extraterrestrial Affair Commission" needs to be created in order to analyze the reported alien encounters. Jeff Peckman, the man who organized the petition calling for the establishment of the "Extraterrestrial Affair Commission" hopes to raise 4,000 signatures before initiating a vote regarding this matter. Peckman also bel... [read more >>] On Sunday 16:53 PDT, NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander assisted by a series of spacecrafts in the orbit of the Red Planet successfully touched down on the surface and has since transmitted a series of pictures of the north polar plains, which it will be investigating in the months to come. Initial measurements show that the spacecraft it tilted at only 0.25 degrees from the horizontal, meaning that it has cleared all the boulders in the surrounding area and is in no danger of topping over or of not getting enough sunlight in the harsh Martian arctic atmosphere.Approximately 15 minutes after the landing has been confirmed, Phoenix unfolded its... [read more >>] Phoenix's nine month journey to the Red Planet is set to end tomorrow, May 25, with its landing in the north polar regions of Mars. Whether or not it manages to land remains uncertain until the spacecraft is safely on the ground, especially considering the relatively long list of failed missions to the Red Planet in the last two decades or so. Some say landing on Mars is hard, others however reckon that the spacecrafts were victims of NASA's bad managerial skills.One of the latest and best examples is the Mars Polar Lander, which in 1999 was supposed to land in Mars' south polar region. It was carrying roughly the same experi... [read more >>] What better way to understand the universe than to create your very own? Of course, black holes, supernova explosions and Big Bangs are off limits for laboratories on Earth, but helium-3 cooled to only 17,7 degrees Celsius above absolute zero will do just as good in replicating the processes that took place soon after the Big Bang event, leading to the rapid expansion of the universe in space-time and ultimately to the creation of galaxies, stars, planets and so on.Suppose that Lancaster University researchers created a universe in a volume of space smaller than a marble. The biggest problem in cosmology today is inflation. Nobody can expla... [read more >>] From our understanding of the universe as we see it we can safely say that ordinary matter all things we know are made of can account for only 5 percent of the total mass of the universe. The rest of 95 percent is made of dark energy and dark matter, elusive forms of energy and matter that haven't been yet directly observed. Furthermore, of that 5 percent of ordinary matter more than half is unaccounted for, meaning it should be around us although we cannot see it.According to models, this missing matter is spread into interstellar and intergalactic space in the form of low density gas, connecting stars or galaxies inside clusters like... [read more >>] | 
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