Some fairly recent interesting news/discoveries in astrobiology



  • PlanetQuest News, missions, and more
  • Interview with Frank Drake in Astrobiology Magazine.

  • Astronomers have discovered a fifth planet circling the star 55 Cancri
  • NASA's NEO Program website: "Near-Earth Object Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics." In particular, see the link to Apophis' 2029 and 2036 threat. What is "Apophis"? It is a NEO that ``...in 2004, Apophis was briefly estimated to have a 2.7% chance of impacting the Earth in 2029...''
  • Gliese 581 is an M star with a 5-earth-mass planet in its "habitable zone": ESO Press Release: Astronomers Find First Earth-like Planet in Habitable Zone. An shorter summary from Astrobiology News: Astronomers Find Habitable Earth-Like Planet
  • NASA's Cassini Discovers Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus
  • Opportunity Finds Beachfront Property on Mars The rocks ... "were not just altered and modified by water; they were actually formed in water, perhaps a shallow salty sea, ..." (From Astrobiology Magazine).
  • Martian Salty Sea "...some rocks on Mars probably formed as deposits at the bottom of a body of gently flowing saltwater." (From Astrobiology Magazine).
  • Astrobiology Magazine interview with Michael Brown on the status of Pluto as a non-planet
  • "Xena" or 2003 UB313, a new planet larger than Pluto.
  • TrES-1: a new transiting extrasolar planet
  • First planet found in binary star system
  • An important recent hypothesis about the early Earth's atmosphere: "Organic-Rich Soup-in-the-Ocean" from Astrobiology Magazine.
  • Titan's Liquid Lakes from Astrobiology Magazine: "Cassini scientists think there are liquid-filled lakes on Titan. Rather than water, these lakes on Saturn's largest moon are made of liquid methane. These lakes are the strongest evidence yet that Titan's surface and atmosphere have an active hydrological cycle."
  • Hours to Impact! "For a few hours on January 13, 2004, astronomers thought a 30-meter wide asteroid might hit the Earth. The asteroid AL00667 seemed to be on a direct course for the Northern Hemisphere, due to strike in less than two days...." From Astrobiology Magazine.
  • Press release about recently discovered extrasolar planet "Periodic Dimming of Bright Starlight Reveals Distant Planet" from National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
  • "First discovery of a planet around a star using gravitational microlensing" (April 2004)
  • Dr. Jill Tarter, director of the SETI Institute, was selected by the editors of TIME magazine as one of the world's 100 most "influential and powerful people." Link to article at Astrobiology Magazine.
  • "...Wednesday morning, Toutatis, a 5,500 million pound asteroid measuring 5 kilometers in length passed very close to Earth. An asteroid two to three times that diameter is credited with causing the extinction of 85 percent of the world's species, including the dinosaurs, when it hit our planet 65 million years ago. Luckily for us, Toutatis will only come within 1.5 million kilometers of Earth, or four times the Earth-moon distance. Toutatis is the largest asteroid to come that close in more than a century." (Adapted from Astrobiology Magazine's article on Toutatis). More on Toutatis from Astrobiology Magazine.
  • Discovery of planet around mu Arae only 14 times more massive than Earth (from Astrobiology Magazine)
  • The Cassini-Huygens Mission to Saturn (NASA/JPL)
  • The MER mission (NASA/JPL)
  • President Bush Announces New Vision for Space Exploration Program from the White House.
  • A fairly recent (2002) summary of the "Wow"signal by Seth Shostak.