11 hours ago
Mars could hold the secrets to the origin of life
https://iai.tv/articles/mars-could-hold-..._auid=2020
INTRO: After a Nature paper provided possible indications of past life on Mars, neuroscientist and philosopher Erik Hoel makes the case that Mars could act as a planetary museum for life’s origins. For example, Mars has no plate tectonics to bury the possible signs of life captured by NASA, no foundations laid over it, no footsteps trampling it… and so the so-called “leopard spots” suggesting mineral leftovers of long-dead microbes are effectively untouched and frozen in time. Hoel argues we must go to Mars to investigate; not only as a scientific pursuit, but as an existential one. (MORE - detaisl)
Mysterious decagon unexpectedly appeared around Saturn’s south pole.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180989449/
EXCERPTS: In a study published in Science Advances, researchers describe the discovery of a decagon—a ten-sided polygon—wrapped around Saturn’s south pole. It appears to be a huge, evolving atmospheric wave within one of the planet’s jet streams. Scientists don’t know what caused its sudden appearance, and they’re not sure how long it might stick around.
“The discovery of the wave really did come as a surprise, as neither earlier images of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope nor those captured by the Cassini spacecraft whilst orbiting the planet between 2004 and 2017 had shown it,” Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, lead author of the study and a planetary scientist at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, tells Science Alert’s Michelle Starr.
[...] While the decagon seems to be a relatively new structure, Saturn’s experience with polygons goes back much further. More than 40 years ago, the two Voyager spacecraft discovered another regular-sided feature on the planet: a hexagonal jet stream around its north pole that’s still around today. The study demonstrates that “the ‘unique’ hexagon is not as extraordinary as we thought,” Sánchez-Lavega tells the Associated Press’ Marcia Dunn.
Still, there are several differences between the two shapes. ... As is often the case with scientific mysteries, the answer lies in collecting additional data and conducting further analysis. (MORE - missing details)
https://youtu.be/8P5gI9JERDs
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8P5gI9JERDs
https://iai.tv/articles/mars-could-hold-..._auid=2020
INTRO: After a Nature paper provided possible indications of past life on Mars, neuroscientist and philosopher Erik Hoel makes the case that Mars could act as a planetary museum for life’s origins. For example, Mars has no plate tectonics to bury the possible signs of life captured by NASA, no foundations laid over it, no footsteps trampling it… and so the so-called “leopard spots” suggesting mineral leftovers of long-dead microbes are effectively untouched and frozen in time. Hoel argues we must go to Mars to investigate; not only as a scientific pursuit, but as an existential one. (MORE - detaisl)
Mysterious decagon unexpectedly appeared around Saturn’s south pole.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180989449/
EXCERPTS: In a study published in Science Advances, researchers describe the discovery of a decagon—a ten-sided polygon—wrapped around Saturn’s south pole. It appears to be a huge, evolving atmospheric wave within one of the planet’s jet streams. Scientists don’t know what caused its sudden appearance, and they’re not sure how long it might stick around.
“The discovery of the wave really did come as a surprise, as neither earlier images of Saturn taken by the Hubble Space Telescope nor those captured by the Cassini spacecraft whilst orbiting the planet between 2004 and 2017 had shown it,” Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, lead author of the study and a planetary scientist at the University of the Basque Country in Spain, tells Science Alert’s Michelle Starr.
[...] While the decagon seems to be a relatively new structure, Saturn’s experience with polygons goes back much further. More than 40 years ago, the two Voyager spacecraft discovered another regular-sided feature on the planet: a hexagonal jet stream around its north pole that’s still around today. The study demonstrates that “the ‘unique’ hexagon is not as extraordinary as we thought,” Sánchez-Lavega tells the Associated Press’ Marcia Dunn.
Still, there are several differences between the two shapes. ... As is often the case with scientific mysteries, the answer lies in collecting additional data and conducting further analysis. (MORE - missing details)
https://youtu.be/8P5gI9JERDs