Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 27, 2009 in
Science
The good news is that Peter Smith who led NASA’s Phoenix Mars Mission predicts that within ten years we’ll find life on other planets — but the bad news for us fanboys with hopes of hanging out with Vulcans and Klingons is that E.T. may be a clump of lowly microbes sitting underneath a rock on Mars. Smith made this prediction during his recent “Journey of the Phoenix” presentation at the University of Delaware which included images from the Phoenix which touched down on the Martian arctic last year. Read more…
Tags: Astronomy, extraterrestrials, Mars, NASA
Posted by Michael Pinto on Apr 16, 2009 in
Hobbies and Collections
Speck and Spock is a conjoined alien created by Lindsey Banker — I really love the sense of humor in her work, I’d love to see these creatures turned into puppets. Her store on Etsy is called Adopt An Alien, and each of Lindsey’s critters comes with a birth certificate: Read more…
Tags: Aliens, Etsy, extraterrestrials, Science Fiction
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 16, 2009 in
Science
It was only less than a few weeks ago that we reported that Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan had boldly calculated that there are about 40,000 planets that would support intelligent life — well like a free nerd upgrade Dr. Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science now claims that our galaxy could have billions of earth-like planets! Boss’s thinking is that each Sun-like star has on average one “Earth-like” planet, although sadly he wouldn’t go on the record like Forgan and take his math to the next level to make predictions about intelligent life. In fact on the negative side (or positive?) Boss feels that many of these planets are in primitive states and are populated by less advanced life forms like bacteria. But up on the up side Dr. Boss thinks that NASA’s Kepler mission might begin to spot earth-like planets in just a few years.
Tags: Astronomy, Exoplanet, extraterrestrials
Posted by Michael Pinto on Feb 6, 2009 in
Science
Our galaxy is big, really big — so the odds are in our favor that Earth is not a fluke. Of course this thinking is old news at this point, however what’s new is that astrophysicists are starting to crunch numbers on the subject based upon what we currently know from the field of astronomy. Once such fellow is Astrophysicist Duncan Forgan who has been crunching the numbers based on what we know about the currently discovered 330 known exoplanets. His estimate took into account factors like temperature, availability of water (so yes it’s “life as we know it”) and the size of the Milky Way. Read more…
Tags: Astronomy, Exoplanet, extraterrestrials
Posted by Michael Pinto on Nov 26, 2008 in
Science
Astronomers have just found a region of our galaxy where the sugar module Glycolaldehyde which is linked to the origin of life is available. This is great news in the search for extraterrestrials as it may help scientists discover the location of earth like planets that support life:
Sweet molecule could lead us to alien life Read more…
Tags: Aliens, extraterrestrials, Glycolaldehyde