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Alien Life Discovered in Earth’s Stratosphere?

Researchers in the UK believe they found proof of extraterrestrial life in the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere.

Researchers in the UK believe they found proof of extraterrestrial life in the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere. The alien discovery was made when a team from the University of Sheffield and the University of Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology launched a balloon high into the stratosphere during the 2013 Perseid meteor shower.

The balloon was equipped with sterile collection plates designed to capture living particulate matter:

During the trip one of the slides caught an organism, around 10microns in size, which Professor Milton Wainwright says is a structure ‘colloquially called ‘the dragon particle’ which scientific analysis shows is made of carbon and oxygen and is therefore not a piece of cosmic or volcanic dust.’

In an interview with the Daily Express, Wainwight explained that it was unclear whether the organism was a single life-form or was made up of a number of smaller microbes.

He was also unequivocal that the biological entity was “like nothing found on earth”.

Additional organisms captured were covered with cosmic dust and seem to corroborate an earlier discovery of organic particles on the exterior of the the International Space Station (ISS).

As evidence of the mystery alien particles mounts, some scientists are now considering the possibility that the origins of life on Earth may have rained down from space and continues to do so.

[via The Independent]

Mystery Island Floating on Titan’s Alien Sea

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been monitoring the evolution of a mysterious island that appears to be floating on the alien sea of Saturn’s moon Titan.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been monitoring the evolution of a mysterious island that appears to be floating in the alien sea of Saturn’s moon Titan. The unidentified feature covers an area as large as Washington D.C. and has risen and sunk into the hydrocarbon sea at least twice since it was first spotted in July 2013.

Scientists believe the “magic island” could most likely be caused by massive gas bubbles, giant surface waves, or the formation of solid “land” that is dependent on Titan’s seasons, but they have not ruled out that “perhaps something more exotic” could be at work.

Titan is considered one of the most “earth-like” worlds discovered, and some scientists believe that the sea comprised of methane and ethane could sustain early forms of life.However, “There’s no reason to suspect this is a signal for biology,” Jason Hofgartner, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and one of the researchers involved in the mission, told NBC News. “But in general, more energetic processes may enhance the suitability for life on Titan.”

New Photo Shows Powerful Jets on Mars-Bound Comet C/2013 A1

NASA recently released images of comet C/2013 A1 that will pass within 84,000 miles of Mars — less than half the distance between Earth and our moon – on October 19, 2014.

The image on the left, captured March 11 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, shows the comet at a distance of 353 million miles from Earth.

Hubble can’t see C/2013 A1’s icy nucleus because of its small size, and the nucleus is surrounded by a glowing dust cloud that measures roughly 12,000 miles across. The left image is the comet as it appears to Hubble, and the right image has been processed to show see through the comet’s coma, revealing two jets of dust being blasted off the surface.

The comet was observed as Earth was crossing through it’s path around the Sun. This positioning of the two bodies allowed astronomers to determine the speed of the dust coming off the nucleus.

“This is critical information that we need to determine whether, and to what degree, dust grains in the coma of the comet will impact Mars and spacecraft in the vicinity of Mars,” said Jian-Yang Li of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona.

Discovered in January 2013 by Robert H. McNaught at Siding Spring Observatory, the comet is falling toward the sun along a roughly 1 million year orbit and is now within the radius of Jupiter’s orbit. The comet will make its closest approach to our sun on Oct. 25, at a distance of 130 million miles – well outside of Earth’s orbit. The comet is not expected to become bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.

More: National Geographic

HR 5171 A: The Largest Yellow Star Ever Discovered

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has discovered the largest known yellow hypergiant star – HR 5171 A. It is one of the 10 largest stars now know, measuring 1200 times the diameter of the Sun and one million times brighter.

HR 5171 A yellow hypergiant star — via ESO

As another point of comparison, it is 50% larger than the famous red supergiant Betelgeuse.

HR 5171 A starfield showing the largest yellow supergiant start — via ESO

Located 12,000 light years form Earth, the star HR 5171 A is part of an unusual double star system. Its binary partner is so close to it that the two stars actually touch. Together, the system resembles the shape of a peanut.

Yellow hypergiant stars like HR 5171 A are very rare, with only about 12 known to exist in our Milky way galaxy. Their instability means that they expel materials outwards, forming a glowing atmosphere around the core star.

Astronomers Discover Oldest Star in the Universe

Astronomers at the Australian National University have discovered the oldest known star in the universe. The star, called SMSS J031300.362670839.3, is 13.8 billion years old, having formed only several hundred million years after the Big Bang. Located in our own Milky Way galaxy, the star is 6,000 light-years from Earth.

Astronomers at the Australian National University have discovered the oldest star in the universe. The star, called SMSS J031300.362670839.3, is 13.8 billion years old, having formed only several hundred million years after the Big Bang. Located in our own Milky Way galaxy, the star is 6,000 light-years from Earth.

The star was formed from the remnants of a low-energy supernova. That supernova resulted from a primordial star 60 times more massive than the Sun.

According to lead scientist Stefan Keller, of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the lack of any detectable level of iron in the spectrum of light emerging from the star was a major indicator of its age. Because iron is formed within stars themselves, the destruction and successive rebirth of stars enriches them with more and more iron content. The lower the iron content in a star’s light spectrum, the older it is.

Keller and his team found SMSS J031300.362670839.3 by using the ANU SkyMapper telescope. SkyMapper is surveying the sky at the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia to produce the first-ever digital map of the sky in the Southern Hemisphere. They confirmed their observations using the Magellan telescope in Chile.

The full results are detailed in the journal Nature.

Source: Space.com

Want to feel small? Check out this incredible view of Earth from the surface of Mars, 99 million miles away!

NASA’s Curiosity rover has shared its first picture of Earth taken from the surface of Mars.

The photo was taken by the left eye camera of Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) about 80 minutes after sunset on the 529th Martian day of the rover’s mission on Mars (Jan. 31, 2014 on Earth). This being 2014, the rover of course tweeted the photo to the world with the accompanying caption: “Look Back in Wonder… My 1st picture of Earth from the surface of Mars.”

picture of Earth from Mars — courtesy of NASA

NASA’s Curiosity rover has shared its first picture of Earth taken from the surface of Mars.

The distance between Earth and Mars when Curiosity took the photo was about 99 million miles (160 million kilometers). The image was processed to remove the effects of cosmic rays.

picture of the Earth and Moon from Mars — courtesy of NASA

According to NASA, “A human observer with normal vision, if standing on Mars, could easily see Earth and the moon as two distinct, bright ‘evening stars.” This second annotated photo from Curiosity makes Earth’s lunar companion a bit easier to spot.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed and built the project’s Curiosity rover. Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, built and operates the rover’s Mastcam.

Category: Space