September 2009 Top Stories
»» AMASE 2009 blog: Studying the composition of Martian rocks: building and testing a new concept of Raman spectroscopy
[Saturday, September 5, 2009] One of the worth mentioning analytical techniques that are being tested during AMASE 2009 is a Raman spectrometer.
»» NASA Astrobiology Institute Research Reveals Major Insight into Evolution of Life on Earth
[Sunday, September 6, 2009] Humans might not be walking on Earth today if not for the ancient fusing of two microscopic, single-celled organisms called prokaryotes, NASA-funded research has found.
»» Spot Discovered on Dwarf Planet Haumea Shows Up Red and Rich With Organics and Minerals
[Wednesday, September 16, 2009] A dark red area discovered on dwarf planet Haumea appears to be richer in minerals and organic compounds than the surrounding icy surface.
»» New Drake Equation to Quantify Habitability?
[Wednesday, September 16, 2009] Researchers are laying the groundwork for a new equation that could mathematically quantify a habitat's potential for hosting life, similar to how the Drake equation estimates the number of intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way.
»» NASA Researchers Make First Discovery of Life's Building Block in Comet
[Saturday, September 19, 2009] NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.
»» Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon 2010) First Announcement
[Saturday, September 19, 2009] The Astrobiology Science Conference 2010 will be held at the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) April 26-29, 2010.
»» Radar Map of Buried Mars Layers Matches Climate Cycles
[Tuesday, September 22, 2009] New, three-dimensional imaging of Martian north-polar ice layers by a radar instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is consistent with theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years.
»» Three Separate Spacecraft Have Detected Significant Water On the Moon: Why Has NASA Waited So Long To Say So?
[Wednesday, September 23, 2009] Three articles will appear in Science Magazine tomorrow. Three different spacecraft - three different instruments - all saying the same thing about the presence of water and other materials on the Moon.
»» NASA Spacecraft Sees Ice on Mars Exposed by Meteor Impacts
[Thursday, September 24, 2009] NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed frozen water hiding just below the surface of mid-latitude Mars. The spacecraft's observations were obtained from orbit after meteorites excavated fresh craters on the Red Planet.
»» Antarctic meteorites offer insights into history of early solar system
[Friday, September 25, 2009] Field researchers in Antarctica have returned with more than 17,500 meteorites over the 30-plus years that the extraterrestrial material has been collected from the frozen continent.
»» Twin 10-meter Telescopes Spot Double Dust Cloud
[Saturday, September 26, 2009] Linking the twin, 10-meter telescopes in Hawaii, astronomers at the W. M. Keck Observatory discovered an extended, double-layered dust disk orbiting 51 Ophiuchi, a star that is 410 light-years from Earth.
