"Measurements of two mudstones show hundreds of organic detections, making this the most robust organic detection in Jezero crater."
Category: Mistery
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Are Alien Probes Hiding in Our Backyard? A New Study Says We’ve Barely Looked
Even at this early stage in our space faring age, humanity has already begun sending probes that will eventually reach other solar systems, even if that was not their original intention. Five robotic explorers – Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons – are all on escape velocities out of the solar system, and might someday enter another one. They will no longer be operational at that point, but they serve as a proof of concept that spacefaring civilizations do indeed build interstellar probes. Which raises the obvious question – has anyone else sent their own robotic explorers to ours? In a recent paper, published in the Proceedings of the IAU Centenary Symposium, astronomer T. Joseph W. Lazio, points out a painful truth – we still have no idea, and our technology will need to get much better if we plan to find out.
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An ancient piece of the moon found in Africa hints at a long-ago collision that turned the lunar surface molten
A meteorite shows evidence that an ancient crash on the moon 3.5 billion years ago was so powerful, it turned the surface molten.
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The Best Place to Look for Alien Megastructures Might Be Moon Dust
Our search for technosignatures – clear signs of advanced civilizations beyond Earth – takes many forms. Many are driven by the famous Drake equation, which attempts to estimate how many technological civilizations there are in the Milky Way. However, there’s a big fat question mark at the end of that equation in the form of a variable intended to account for the “longevity” of a civilization. And to be clear, that doesn’t mean how long the civilization itself survives. It simply means how long it actively creates a signature that is detectable by our current technology. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv from Oxford astrophysicist Brian C. Lacki, argues that, since the chances of us overlapping in time with any such civilization are miniscule, we’re much more likely to find the ruins of a “dead” civilization – and, surprisingly, the best place to do so might be in our own solar system.
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New Study Assesses Titan's Resources and their Potential Uses
In a recent NASA-supported study, researchers assessed Titan's resource base and how it could be leveraged for ISRU. Compared with other locations under study (the Moon, Mars, etc.), they concluded that there is unrivaled potential for human exploration and settlement.
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Titan's Hidden Blanket
Saturn's moon Titan has long fascinated scientists, it’s a world with rivers, lakes, and a thick atmosphere, all made not of water but of methane. Now, a new study suggests Titan is stranger than first imagined since beneath its surface lies a 9 km thick crust of methane laced ice that acts like a giant thermal blanket, warming the interior in ways nobody expected.