Another NASA news conference

[Daisho]

This time it is a conference about an astrobiology discovery.

http://www.nasa.gov/c...ses/2010/M10-110.html

I hope it's not another overhyped announcement, this one seems genuinely interesting.

[NazNomad]

Why isn't WikiLeaks useful when you most need it to be?

[bibblebub]

According to this page

http://www.fayerwayer...fvida-extraterrestre/

the expert panel who will be present at the announcement "...consists of a geobiologist who wrote about life on Mars, an oceanographer who did the same with photosynthesis using arsenic, a biologist program studying Saturn's largest moon..."

[ChuckFickens]

All they need is a retired, slightly jaded, ex marine and they have a team all set to go and destroy any life they've found.

[bibblebub]

one suggestion is that they have found arsenic on Titan

[Davethedog]

Voyager has landed after intercepting a distress call all they can see is eggs.and now its on is way back.

[bibblebub]

Just a reminder that the news conference starts at 7pm (our time).

[DTCwordfan]

the discovery of elements largely making up the Periodic table and a chunk of organic, life form building blocks - not sure if these are proteins or some more basic amino compounds. It came in some atro-meteorite I believe.....there was some debate a few days about this.

[bibblebub]

gizmodo http://gizmodo.com/5704158/ reckons that, in a lake in California, they have found bacteria that have arsenic instead of phosphorus in their DNA.

[DTCwordfan]

well its interesting but not "earth-shattering" in that sense - Nasa researchers have found in some lake that organisms can survive and reproduce in an arsenic environment, which obviously greatly increases the chances for life forms with this chemistry on other planets..............

[naomi24]

The arsenic discovery doesn't surprise me at all, but I am eager to learn more about the astrobiology discovery. How exciting!

[bibblebub]

As far as I can tell, the arsenic discovery is it, there is no other discovery. What was just theory (an organism that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus) has now been shown to exist on Earth, and so there is a greater range of possible environments off of the Earth where the development of life can definitely occur.

[naomi24]

I thought this was something to do with signs of lfe having been discovered on an asteroid.

[DTCwordfan]

all disappointing as in the 'hype' build up it did imply extra -terrestial discoveries, if just.

However, it is an interesting breakthrough, so now they have SOx environments, along with ammonia, arsenic and carbon-oxygen environments for potential life forms.

[naomi24]

In the absence of a link to the outcome of the conference that Daisho is talking about, I'm not sure the result is disappointing yet.

[DTCwordfan]

lets see....the chances are, just based on the zillions of planets they are finding out thre, there should probably be life form by statistical chance, maybe in different forms If advanced) and especially as the chem composition of the universe seems to fit into the Periodic table as we know it.............

[naomi24]

What?

[DTCwordfan]

the elements they are discovering in space are not different to anything yet found on earth.....

I was hoping that they were going to announce the discovery of organic compounds outside the earth - perhaps that is to come shorlty. Now that would be exciting.

[ludwig]

// What? //

That made me laugh :-)