The Moon As We Know It

credit: Roscosmos

As our closest cosmic neighbor, and the Earth’s only natural satellite, the moon has long been a symbol of mystery and intrigue. Spacecraft have been studying the moon for nearly 50 years, and lunar exploration has been an important benchmark in our nation’s history. But, there is still much to learn, and many more questions to answer. Currently, NASA’s only active mission at the moon is the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which launched in June 2009.  From Space.com, this slideshow gives us a look at the moon as we know it : click here for slideshow.

Scientists Find Building Blocks of Life in Meteorite

In what appears to be seriously big news from a team of NASA-funded researchers, scientists have found evidence that some building blocks of DNA–including two of the four nucleobases that make up our genetic code–found in meteorites were created in space, lending credence to the idea that life is not homegrown but was seeded here by asteroids, meteorites, or comets sometime in Earth’s early lifetime.

Scientists have been extracting fragments of DNA from meteorites for decades now, but there was never really hard proof that those pieces of biological molecules were native to the extraterrestrial object rather than terrestrial contamination that occurred when the object slammed into Earth. So while the idea of DNA riding aboard extraterrestrial objects has been floated before, this is the first time we’ve been presented real evidence backing that notion.

Read more here

Scientists Discover Planet Darker Than Coal

A Jupiter-sized gas planet is being described by Astronomers as the darkest known extrasolar planet (exoplanet).
Known as TrES-2b, astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) have concluded that the gas giant reflects less than one percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it blacker than coal or any planet or moon in our solar system. Read more here

Scientists Find Evidence of Flowing Water on Martian Land

Scientists have found evidence of flowing salt water on mars, which has again sparked the debate of possible alien life on the red planet. The images that were sent from NASA’s orbiter show briny salt water falling from rocky slopes.

“NASA’s Mars Exploration Program keeps bringing us closer to determining whether the Red Planet could harbor life in some form … and it reaffirms Mars as an important future destination for human exploration,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

Massive Solar Storms Could Disrupt Worldwide Satellite Communication

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has recently predicted that a massive solar storm could create global disruptions in power grids, satellite communication, airline communication and even in GPS systems.

With Solar activity expected to peak at around 2013, the sun is entering a very active time, and these solar flares previously described will be common in the next couple of years. Read more here

Second Moon Orbited Earth Before Colliding with Bigger Moon

According to scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Bern in Switzerland, two moons merged in a very slow collision more than 4 billion years ago to create the one that lights up the night sky.

The theory says a collision would explain the vast differences in the lunar landscape. The moon’s far side has mountainous highlands while the side facing Earth is low and flat. Though one prevailing idea is that gravitational tidal forces are to blame for the moon’s lopsided outer layer, commenters on Nature’s website suggested that debris caused many of the moon’s craters on its far side. Read more here