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WASHINGTON, D.C. – What are the limits of organic life in planetary systems? It’s a heady question that, if answered, may reveal just how crowded the cosmos could be with alien biology. A study arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council (NRC), has pulled together a task group of specialists to tackle the issue of alternative life forms -- a.k.a. "weird life". To get things rolling, a workshop on the prospects for finding life on other worlds is being held here May 10-11. The meeting is a joint activity of the NRC’s Space Studies Board's Task...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 September 19 Galileo's Europa Credit: Galileo Project, Univ. Arizona, JPL, NASA Explanation: Launched in 1989 and looping through the jovian system since late 1995, the voyage of NASA's Galileo spacecraft will soon come to an end. The spacecraft has been targeted to plunge directly into Jupiter this Sunday, September 21st, at about 30 miles per second. Its components will be vaporized in the gas giant's outer atmosphere....

Europa's ice crust probed By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor The ice shell of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, is probably about 25 kilometres (15 miles) thick, according to scientists. The icy skin may hide an ocean Researchers created a profile of Cilix crater near Europa's equator, and taking into account the elastic properties of ice, estimated the thickness of the icy crust. Beneath this crust there is probably an ocean of water kept liquid by heat from Europa's interior, and protected by the ice shield for tens of millions of years at least. Many scientists believe...

Scientists Eye Jupiter’s Moon By Jove, Water on Europa? (abc news mention hoagland for europa discoveries) The ridges and fractures on Europa’s surface almost look like intersecting freeways. This image, taken by Galileo Feb. 20, 1997, also shows the dome-like bumps that could be caused by warmer ice pushing up from below. (JPL/NASA) By Kenneth Chang ABCNEWS.com By Kenneth Chang ABCNEWS.com Beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, something appears to be flowing. And if that something is liquid water, could there be any extraterrestrial fish swimming in there? Science writer Richard Hoagland first suggested the idea of oceans...

alien chasersRichard Hoagland When a friendly journalist leaked to Richard Hoagland details of the plot of the upcoming film Mission to Mars, he was simultaneously ecstatic and suspicious. The film apparently depicts the discovery of an immense artificial structure on the martian surface that resembles a face — a touch eerily evocative of Hoagland's belief that the Viking I probe photo from 1976 depicts precisely such a structure in the Cydonia region of Mars' northern hemisphere. But that unrecognized nod to his theories only gave him pause; he notes that his longtime adversary, NASA — whose officials have sought to...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 November 1 Europa's Freckles Credit: R. Pappalardo (U. Colorado) et al., Galileo Project, JPL, NASA Explanation: Europa, one of Jupiter's large Galilean moons, may well posses an ocean of liquid water hidden beneath its icy surface -- and so holds the tantalizing possibility of life. In this image, constructed with data recorded in 1996 and 1997 by the Galileo spacecraft, Europa's characteristic surface ridges and cracks are...

Vostok: The Lake of ShadowsCover Story FATE Magazine 2002-06-01 00:00:00 by Scott Corrales “Doubt of the real facts, as I must reveal them, is inevitable; yet if I suppressed what will seem extravagant and incredible there would be nothing left.” —H. P. Lovecraft, “At the Mountains of Madness” The inspiration for this article began in the summer of 1996, when a series of email messages began to appear suggesting the possibility that “someone” or “something” was surreptitiously removing all recent maps of Antarctica. The notion was so outrageous that even die-hard conspiracy theorists found themselves having to clarify the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 2 Cracks and Ridges on Europa Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA Explanation: Which way to the interstate? What appears to be a caricature of a complex highway system on Earth is actually a system of ridges and cracks on the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. The distance between parallel ridges in the above photograph is typically about 1 kilometer. The complexity of the cracks and...

Humans on Europa: A Plan for Colonies on the Icy Moon By Don Lipper Special to SPACE.com posted: 07:00 am ET 06 June 2001 Forewarned is forearmed in science fact and science fiction when it comes to Jupiter's icy moon Europa. Frigid and ice-covered, Europa is believed to harbor a giant liquid ocean beneath its crusty arctic surface, a primordial sea whose tidal motions are driven by Jovian gravity and warmed by intense radiation given off by the giant planet. Yet despite the planet's fearsome environment, members of the Artemis Society, a private venture dedicated establishing a permanent, self-supporting community...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 April 13 Pwyll: Icy Crater of Europa Credit: PIRL, Galileo Project, NASA Explanation: The impact crater Pwyll (a name from Celtic Mythology) is thought to represent one of the youngest features on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. A combination of color and high resolution black and white data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft was used to produce this view looking down on the crater with the sun...