astronomy

NASA's Cassini probe found pools of liquid water -- the key ingredient for the formation of life -- on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

Spewing out of Enceladus's south pole is a geyser, a fizzling spray of what looks like ice-crystals ejected from a big liquid reservoir. The presence of liquid water indicates a heat source (it's 330 degrees below zero on most of Enceladus's surface, so something must be heating the area), as well as the possibility that life exists in a form we might recognize. As far as scientists can tell, the water has been there for hundreds of millions of years, more than enough time to give the warm primordial slurry a chance to breed some microbes, and possibly more complex life. Is the geyser spraying freeze-dried fish into orbit around Enceladus?

Will changes in sunspot activity wreak havoc on earth?

With the advent of Solar Cycle 24, many scientists expect a massive spike in solar activity that will have the potential to disrupt satellites, cell phones, and air traffic in 2012. 

But the real concern is Solar Cycle 25. Around 2022, a catastrophic drop in sun activity—the lowest in  centuries, according to NASA—may cause temperatures on earth to plunge, inaugurating an extended period of cold. In other words, a new ice age.

What seems to have escaped many reporters’ grasps—at Popular Mechanics, most recently—is that this dire scenario doesn’t square with the facts. The only evidence its proponents present is the seeming correlation between the “Little Ice Age” of the 17th and 18th centuries and a concurrent period of solar slump. But as everyone would do well to remember, climate is far more complicated than that.

As one of the most chaotic and multi-variable systems humans study, it is easy to see why debates over climate change often degenerate into battles over orthodoxy and political wrangling to fend off any one of many dire eschatologies. 

Eyes wide open, please

Sometime in 2027, you'll remember reading this post.  Maybe sooner.

Asteroid 2007 TU24 passed by the Earth harmlessly yesterday, a mere 334,000 miles from where you're sitting right now.  That's slightly farther away than the Moon, but closer than any known asteroid will come until 2027.  Had it hit, the 500-meter-across mass of iron could have caused a catastrophe -- probably not a Deep Impact-style planetary extinction, but something big. MORE