Apr 2, 2018 07:36 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 2, 2018 07:39 PM by C C.)
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/lif...s-of-mars/
EXCERPT: A complex interplay of gravity, volcanoes and planetary wobble could pin down the age of oceans on Mars [...] For many geoscientists, some of the most compelling evidence of those old, old watery bodies comes from the topographic and mineralogical signs of ancient shorelines. [...] But these wiggly contact lines are not without controversy. [...] a new work by Citron, Manga, & Hemingway in *Nature* [...] propose[s] a solution...
MORE: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/lif...s-of-mars/
Possible life adrift in Venus’ clouds?
http://earthsky.org/space/new-study-pond...nus-clouds
EXCERPT: . . . Living earthly microbes inhabit virtually every nook and cranny of our world, including extremely harsh environments [...] Neighboring Venus is a hostile world. [...] But a series of space probes – launched between 1962 and 1978 – showed that temperatures and pressures at comparable heights in Venus’ atmosphere (25 miles or 40 km up) don’t preclude the possibility of microbial life. Now an international team of researchers has laid out a case for the atmosphere of Venus as a possible niche for extraterrestrial microbial life.
[...] Planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye at the University of Wisconsin led the new study. He’s no stranger to the idea of possible microbial life in Venus’ clouds [...] Limaye pointed out that questions about the possible habitability of Venus’ clouds were first raised in 1967 [...] But, Limaye said, his recent study was partly inspired by:
MORE: http://earthsky.org/space/new-study-pond...nus-clouds
EXCERPT: A complex interplay of gravity, volcanoes and planetary wobble could pin down the age of oceans on Mars [...] For many geoscientists, some of the most compelling evidence of those old, old watery bodies comes from the topographic and mineralogical signs of ancient shorelines. [...] But these wiggly contact lines are not without controversy. [...] a new work by Citron, Manga, & Hemingway in *Nature* [...] propose[s] a solution...
MORE: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/lif...s-of-mars/
Possible life adrift in Venus’ clouds?
http://earthsky.org/space/new-study-pond...nus-clouds
EXCERPT: . . . Living earthly microbes inhabit virtually every nook and cranny of our world, including extremely harsh environments [...] Neighboring Venus is a hostile world. [...] But a series of space probes – launched between 1962 and 1978 – showed that temperatures and pressures at comparable heights in Venus’ atmosphere (25 miles or 40 km up) don’t preclude the possibility of microbial life. Now an international team of researchers has laid out a case for the atmosphere of Venus as a possible niche for extraterrestrial microbial life.
[...] Planetary scientist Sanjay Limaye at the University of Wisconsin led the new study. He’s no stranger to the idea of possible microbial life in Venus’ clouds [...] Limaye pointed out that questions about the possible habitability of Venus’ clouds were first raised in 1967 [...] But, Limaye said, his recent study was partly inspired by:
… a chance meeting with paper co-author Grzegorz Slowik of Poland’s University of Zielona Góra. Slowik made him aware of bacteria on Earth with light-absorbing properties similar to those of unidentified particles that make up unexplained dark patches observed in the clouds of Venus. Spectroscopic observations, particularly in the ultraviolet, show that the dark patches are composed of concentrated sulfuric acid and other unknown light-absorbing particles. Those dark patches have been a mystery since they were first observed by ground-based telescopes nearly a century ago … They were studied in more detail by subsequent probes to the planet.
The particles that make up the dark patches have almost the same dimensions as some bacteria on Earth, although the instruments that have sampled Venus’ atmosphere to date are incapable of distinguishing between materials of an organic or inorganic nature. These scientists think it’s possible the patches could be something akin to the algae blooms that occur routinely in the lakes and oceans of Earth....MORE: http://earthsky.org/space/new-study-pond...nus-clouds