Are Planets "Living Super-Organisms"? -A Galaxy Insight

Japan’s Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world’s leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a vast new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth. As he connects the links from astronomy to life sciences, an
outline emerges of an all-encompassing image of entire planets which
appear as living super-organisms.

Shigenori believes that expanding the
study of life sciences to the core of our world and the depths of outer
space will help us find distant relatives of our own Earth — planets
that could also sustain life.

Maruyama is creating a new institute called the Center for Bio-Earth Planetology will be launched in 2009 and fully dedicated to creating a new conception of life in space.He wants to find out if the continents will merge again in 250 million years to form a single super-continent; how meteorites change the chemical composition of the Earth; and what the connection is between the temperature of a planet and its magnetic field, which protects plants and animals from being bombarded with cosmic radiation, which in turn influences the rate of mutations and thus the development of new forms of life.

Maruyama is also provoking controversy in the with his bold hypotheses a new fascinating theory on the lifecycle of the Earth’s crust.

To explain why contintental plates drift on the surface of the Earth’s molten mantle, Maruyama argues that continents actually have life cycles. Old, cold plates on continental fringes sink to "plate graveyards" deep in the Earth's mantle, and then rise again, creating volcanoes fueled by three-dimensional convection movements deep below the surface.

Maruyama is taking the ideas of continental-drift pioneer Alfred Wegener to a new level. Wegener was a German explorer and meteorologist who believed back in 1912 that the continents roamed about on the surface of the Earth — an idea that was ridiculed by even his most supportive research colleagues as a “delirious vision” and “the wonderful dream of a great poet.” It wasn’t until the 1960s that studies of the ocean floor finally provided irrefutable proof that Wegener had been right after all.

Today, we all know that the continents are enormous plates that drift on the Earth’s red-hot mantle like icebergs on the ocean. Yet to this day, the hypothesis still lacks a logical and convincing foundation. Nobody has been able to explain the actual mechanics behind the motor that drives the drifting and breaking-up of the continental plates.

The inner reaches of the Earth remain shrouded in mystery. Even the surface of has been explored more extensively. Because deep drilling comes to a halt after a maximum of 12 kilometers, the remaining 6,300 kilometers to the center of the Earth remain inaccessible.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Maruyama gave the answer: “The continental drift that we observe on the surface of the Earth has its counterpart in the Earth’s mantle. Old, cold plates are pushed down into the Earth’s mantle on the continental edges,” he explains. “At this point they collect large amounts of iron. You can imagine it as something similar to water condensation.”

Weighted down by the iron, the plates sink farther and farther into the hot, molten rock until they reach the inner sanctum of the Earth’s mantle. There, at a depth of 2,900 kilometers, they finally halt their decent and settle into “plate graveyards.” This is presumably the outer edge of the earth’s heavy core, where the temperature is 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,200 degrees Fahrenheit).

Maruyama continues: “But the capsized continents don’t simply rest in their plate graveyards forever.” Rather, they are about to experience a sudden resurrection. Heat and pressure in the depths trigger chemical processes, causing the plates to deposit their load of heavy elements. Once liberated of this burden, they become lighter than their surroundings, causing them to rise like corks in water. The result: Above the old plate graves, on the floor of the Earth’s molten mantle, a mushroom-shaped upwelling of abnormally hot magma called a mantle plume makes its way toward the surface.

Eventually, the rising flow of molten rock reaches the crystallized crust and cuts through it like a welding torch. Volcanoes form, such as those on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Maruyama says the red hot lava that erupts on the volcanic island comes directly from an old plate cemetery 2,900 kilometers below the surface, where the remains of an ancient continent that broke up some 750 million years ago simmer to the surface. Maruyama’s theory postulates the amazing comeback story of this ancient rock from the deep.

The key ingredient for the chemistry of the Earth’s interior is the same one that determines the weather on the surface: water. The sunken ocean plates have old seawater locked in their mineral structure — only a few parts per thousand, but enough to drastically change the characteristics of the rock.

Even minute quantities of water in the ex-floor of the ocean can significantly lower its melting point — and this speeds up its eventual return to the surface. The water helps the rock to lose its load of heavy iron, thereby increasing the buoyancy of this old plate material.

The geophysicist thus paints a three-dimensional picture of the planet Earth where, in addition to the continents drifting on the surface, there is room for “anti-plate tectonics” at the base of the Earth’s mantle. An “anti-crust” deep below reflects to a certain degree events on the surface, with “lakes” and “mountains” and “rivers” of viscous molten rock.

Earthquakes and computing power are the main requirements for researchers looking to piece together an x-ray-like image of the Earth’s interior. The principle is simple enough: When an earthquake strikes, the seismic waves race clear across the Earth’s mantle. It takes a full quarter of an hour for the shockwave to travel from Indonesia to Germany. The duration of this journey reveals a great deal to researchers. The waves are slowed down by viscous and hot regions, like mantle plumes, and accelerated by solid or cold objects.

Earthquakes similar to the one that hit Kobe in 1995 and killed nearly 5,100 Japanese — are Maruyama’s main source of data. The island nation lies directly on the West Pacific crossroads of three huge plates that ram into each other like cars in a highway pile-up: the Pacific, Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

Links:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-531023,00.html

http://www.newser.com/story/17428.html

International Space Station Gets a New "Eye" on the Cosmos

By photographing oblique views with different sun angles, the astronauts can use the Cupola to give scientists a view of the Earth that is not available from satellites. Astronaut photographs of Earth have been used to understand Earth processes such as melting of icebergs, noctilucent clouds, dust storms, and the structure of hurricane eyes.

Julie Robinson, the ISS Program Scientist

The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) is about to get a new “eye-pod.” The Tranquility node headed for the space station early in 2010 will feature a viewing dome unlike any other window ever flown in space. The dome, called the Cupola, is literally studded with windows for observing Earth, space, and the marvelous expanse of the ISS itself.

The Cupola, named after the raised observation deck on a railroad caboose, is designed as an observation platform for operations outside the station–e.g., robotics, spacewalks, and docking spacecraft. Computer workstations inside the dome will give astronauts full control over the space station’s robotic arm and dexterous manipulator, while the windows offer unparalleled views of these devices in action.

“Crews tell us that Earth gazing is important to them,” says Julie Robinson, the ISS Program Scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “The astronauts work hard up there and are away from their families for a long time. Observing the Earth and the stars helps relax and inspire them.”

Until now, space station astronauts have been confined to looking out small portholes or at best the 20-inch window in the US Destiny Laboratory. The Cupola will dramatically expand their view.

“The Cupola’s 80-cm diameter circular top window is the largest window ever built for space,” says Robinson. “Rather than peering through a little porthole, the Cupola will allow a stunning look at the cosmos and unprecedented panoramic views of Earth. Astronauts will share these views with the world through photographs taken through the windows and posted online.”

Posted by Jason McManus…Image Credit: NASA

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/26jun_cupola.htm

Sony Ericsson T715 slider phone in credit card size

The
new Sony Ericsson T715 compact slider phone has come along its way. Now, you
can get connected without comprising on design or any features. At the size of
the credit card this sophisticated slider phone offers you a large keypad and
font size so that you can access your SMS, MMS or emails. It offers you a 3G
network connection support very many Ericsson accessories thus you can get
connected with the internet and get regular updates with your mobile phone and
that too with the stress free browsing.

 It
provides goggle maps and even you access to free three days weather
forecasting, offering you an easy lifestyle. Click it out and get high quality
digital pictures and that too in a dark environment with 3.2 mega pixel digital
camera with the photo light function. It will be available in the market with
two smart colours Galaxy silver and Rouge pink.

Will Earth Become a Planet Without Ice Caps? Leading Expert Says "Yes"

Rising
sea levels will not extinguish humanity, but they will transform life
on planet Earth as we know it according to Peter Ward professor of
biology and earth sciences at the University of Washington. Here are
his predictions in a new book, The Flooded Earth, which will be published this July.

By
2050: Sea levels will rise 0.5 to 1 meter. Well established coastal
cities will battle the rising waters with dikes and levees; other
cities will see their underground infrastructure impaired and face
building collapse.

By 2300: The seas will rise 20 meters
reshaping the world’s geography, forming new rivers and lakes as
Antarctica’s ice melts. Massive icebergs will form in the southern
hemisphere interrupting historic shipping lanes.

2500-3000: the
sea will reach its maximum levels completely wiping out coastal cities
and forcing massive human and animal migration. Greenland and
Antarctica will be transformed into prime farmlands. In southern
regions will face the spread of tropical diseases and the possibility
of mass extinctions.

Image above: Red represents areas where temperatures have increased the most
during the last 50 years, particularly in West Antarctica, while dark
blue represents areas with a lesser degree of warming. Temperature
changes are measured in degrees Celsius. Credit: NASA/GSFC Scientific
Visualization Studio.

Casey Kazan

Related Galaxy Posts:

Is Global Warming Part of Earth’s Natural Cycle: MIT Team Says “Yes” -A Galaxy Insight

Global-Warming Tipping Point: 9 Degrees Temperature Increase Would Devastate Earth’s Population

Source: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming_antarctica.html

Stephen Hawking: "Asteroid Impacts Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life in the Galaxy"

Stephen Hawking believes that one of the major factors in the possible scarcity of intelligent life in our galaxy is the high probability of an asteroid or comet colliding with inhabited planets. We have observed, Hawking points out in Life in the Universe, the collision of a comet, Schumacher-Levi, with Jupiter (below), which produced a series of enormous fireballs, plumes many thousands of kilometers high, hot “bubbles” of gas in the atmosphere, and large dark “scars” on the atmosphere which had lifetimes on the order of weeks. 

It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about 70 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human, would have almost certainly been wiped out.

Through Earth’s history such collisions occur, on the average every one million year. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last 70 million years. Other planets in the galaxy, Hawking believes, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision free period to evolve intelligent beings.

"The threat of the Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly
being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by
humanity," according to Nick Bailey of the University of Southampton’s
School of Engineering Sciences team, who has developed a threat identifying
program.[ Image: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision with Jupiter]

The team used raw data from multiple impact simulations to rank each
country based on the number of times and how severely they would be
affected by each impact. The software, called NEOimpactor (from
NASA’s “NEO” or Near Earth Object program), has been specifically
developed for measuring the impact of ’small’ asteroids under one
kilometer in diameter.

Early results indicate that in terms of population lost, China,
Indonesia, India, Japan and the United States face the greatest overall
threat; while the United States, China, Sweden, Canada and Japan face
the most severe economic effects due to the infrastructure destroyed.

The top ten countries most at risk are China, Indonesia, India,
Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom,
Brazil and Nigeria.

"The consequences for human populations and infrastructure as a
result of an impact are enormous," says Bailey. "Nearly one hundred
years ago a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest
asteroid impact event in living memory when a relatively small object
(approximately 50 meters in diameter) exploded in mid-air. While it
only flattened unpopulated forest, had it exploded over London it could
have devastated everything within the M25. Our results highlight those
countries that face the greatest risk from this most global of natural
hazards and thus indicate which nations need to be involved in
mitigating the threat."

What would happen to the human species and life on Earth in general if an asteroid the size of the one that created the famous K/T Event of 65 million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic Era that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs impacted our planet.

As Stephen Hawking says, the general consensus is that any comet or asteroid greater than 20 kilometers in diameter that strikes the Earth will result in the complete annihilation of complex life - animals and higher plants. (The asteroid Vesta, for example, one of the destinations of the Dawn Mission, is the size of Arizona).

How many times in our galaxy alone has life finally evolved to the equivalent of our planets and animals on some far distant planet, only to be utterly destroyed by an impact? Galactic history suggests it might be a common occurrence.

The first this to understand about the KT event is that is was absolutely enormous: an asteroid (or comet) six to 10 miles in diameter streaked through the Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 miles an hour and struck the Yucatan region of Mexico with the force of 100 megatons -the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb for every person alive on Earth today. Not a pretty scenario!

Recent calculations show that our planet would go into another “Snowball Earth” event like the one that occurred 600 million years ago, when it is believed the oceans froze over (although some scientists dispute this hypothesis -see link below).

While microbial bacteria might readily survive such calamitous impacts, our new understanding from the record of the Earth’s mass extinctions clearly shows that plants and animals are very susceptible to extinction in the wake of an impact.

Impact rates depend on how many comets and asteroids exist in a particular planetary system. In general there is one major impact every million years -a mere blink of the eye in geological time. It also depends on how often those objects are perturbed from safe orbits that parallel the Earth’s orbit to new, Earth-crossing orbits that might, sooner or later, result in a catastrophic K/T or Permian-type mass extinction.

The asteroid that hit Vredefort located in the Free State Province of South Africa is one of the largest to ever impact Earth, estimated at over 10 km (6 miles) wide, although it is believed by many that the original size of the impact structure could have been 250 km in diameter, or possibly larger(though the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, if confirmed to have been the result of an impact event, is even larger at 500 kilometers across). The town of Vredefort is situated in the crater (image).

Dating back 2,023 million years, it is the oldest astrobleme found on earth so far, with a radius of 190km, it is also the most deeply eroded. Vredefort Dome Vredefort bears witness to the world's greatest known single energy release event, which caused devastating global change, including, according to many scientists, major evolutionary changes.

What has kept the Earth “safe” at least the past 65 million years, other than blind luck is the massive gravitational field of Jupiter, our cosmic guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun, which assures a low number of impacts resulting in mass extinctions by sweeping up and scatters away most of the dangerous Earth-orbit-crossing comets and asteroids

Posted by Casey Kazan with Rebecca Sato

Note: This post was adapted from a news release issued by University of Southampton.

Source: http://www.rationalvedanta.net/node/131

Related Galaxy Posts:

The Dawn Mission -NASA’s Journey to the Beginning of the Solar System

The End of the World -A Video (the most terrifying short film ever!)

Past as Prelude -Asteroids & the Origin of LIfe (Includes “Impact Map of the World”)

A Future KT Impact Event -Would the Human Species Survive

Dr Strangelove Two? -Cambridge Astrophysicts gives Earthlings a 50/50 Chance of Survival by End of Century
 

The "NEO Code" -Stephen Hawking Sees Asteroid Impacts As Biggest Threat to Intelligent Life in the Galaxy

Stephen Hawking believes that one of the major factors in the possible scarcity of intelligent life in our galaxy is the high probability of an asteroid or comet colliding with inhabited planets. We have observed, Hawking points out in Life in the Universe, the collision of a comet, Schumacher-Levi, with Jupiter (below), which produced a series of enormous fireballs, plumes many thousands of kilometers high, hot “bubbles” of gas in the atmosphere, and large dark “scars” on the atmosphere which had lifetimes on the order of weeks. 

It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about 70 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human, would have almost certainly been wiped out.

Through Earth’s history such collisions occur, on the average every one million year. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last 70 million years. Other planets in the galaxy, Hawking believes, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision free period to evolve intelligent beings.

"The threat of the Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly
being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by
humanity," according to Nick Bailey of the University of Southampton’s
School of Engineering Sciences team, who developed who has developed an identifying
program.[ Image: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collision with Jupiter]

The team used raw data from multiple impact simulations to rank each
country based on the number of times and how severely they would be
affected by each impact. The software, called NEOimpactor (from
NASA’s “NEO” or Near Earth Object program), has been specifically
developed for measuring the impact of ’small’ asteroids under one
kilometer in diameter.

Early results indicate that in terms of population lost, China,
Indonesia, India, Japan and the United States face the greatest overall
threat; while the United States, China, Sweden, Canada and Japan face
the most severe economic effects due to the infrastructure destroyed.

The top ten countries most at risk are China, Indonesia, India,
Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom,
Brazil and Nigeria.

"The consequences for human populations and infrastructure as a
result of an impact are enormous," says Bailey. "Nearly one hundred
years ago a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest
asteroid impact event in living memory when a relatively small object
(approximately 50 meters in diameter) exploded in mid-air. While it
only flattened unpopulated forest, had it exploded over London it could
have devastated everything within the M25. Our results highlight those
countries that face the greatest risk from this most global of natural
hazards and thus indicate which nations need to be involved in
mitigating the threat."

What would happen to the human species and life on Earth in general if an asteroid the size of the one that created the famous K/T Event of 65 million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic Era that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs impacted our planet.

As Stephen Hawking says, the general consensus is that any comet or asteroid greater than 20 kilometers in diameter that strikes the Earth will result in the complete annihilation of complex life - animals and higher plants. (The asteroid Vesta, for example, one of the destinations of the Dawn Mission, is the size of Arizona).

How many times in our galaxy alone has life finally evolved to the equivalent of our planets and animals on some far distant planet, only to be utterly destroyed by an impact? Galactic history suggests it might be a common occurrence.

The first this to understand about the KT event is that is was absolutely enormous: an asteroid (or comet) six to 10 miles in diameter streaked through the Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 miles an hour and struck the Yucatan region of Mexico with the force of 100 megatons -the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb for every person alive on Earth today. Not a pretty scenario!

Recent calculations show that our planet would go into another “Snowball Earth” event like the one that occurred 600 million years ago, when it is believed the oceans froze over (although some scientists dispute this hypothesis -see link below).

While microbial bacteria might readily survive such calamitous impacts, our new understanding from the record of the Earth’s mass extinctions clearly shows that plants and animals are very susceptible to extinction in the wake of an impact.

Impact rates depend on how many comets and asteroids exist in a particular planetary system. In general there is one major impact every million years -a mere blink of the eye in geological time. It also depends on how often those objects are perturbed from safe orbits that parallel the Earth’s orbit to new, Earth-crossing orbits that might, sooner or later, result in a catastrophic K/T or Permian-type mass extinction.

The asteroid that hit Vredefort located in the Free State Province of South Africa is one of the largest to ever impact Earth, estimated at over 10 km (6 miles) wide, although it is believed by many that the original size of the impact structure could have been 250 km in diameter, or possibly larger(though the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, if confirmed to have been the result of an impact event, is even larger at 500 kilometers across). The town of Vredefort is situated in the crater (image).

Dating back 2,023 million years, it is the oldest astrobleme found on earth so far, with a radius of 190km, it is also the most deeply eroded. Vredefort Dome Vredefort bears witness to the world's greatest known single energy release event, which caused devastating global change, including, according to many scientists, major evolutionary changes.

What has kept the Earth “safe” at least the past 65 million years, other than blind luck is the massive gravitational field of Jupiter, our cosmic guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun, which assures a low number of impacts resulting in mass extinctions by sweeping up and scatters away most of the dangerous Earth-orbit-crossing comets and asteroids

Posted by Casey Kazan with Rebecca Sato

Note: This post was adapted from a news release issued by University of Southampton.

Source: http://www.rationalvedanta.net/node/131

Related Galaxy Posts:

The Dawn Mission -NASA’s Journey to the Beginning of the Solar System

The End of the World -A Video (the most terrifying short film ever!)

Past as Prelude -Asteroids & the Origin of LIfe (Includes “Impact Map of the World”)

A Future KT Impact Event -Would the Human Species Survive

Dr Strangelove Two? -Cambridge Astrophysicts gives Earthlings a 50/50 Chance of Survival by End of Century
 

NASA Space Shuttle Solves Mystery of Earth's Greatest Explosion: The 1908 Tunguska Event in Siberia

The mysterious 1908 Tunguska explosion that leveled 830 square miles of Siberian forest was almost certainly caused by a comet entering Earth’s atmosphere, says new Cornell research. The conclusion is supported by an unlikely source: the exhaust plume from the NASA space shuttle launched a century later.

The Tunguska Event, a massive explosion near the Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, at around 7:14 a.m.on June 30, 1908, has been the focus of intense speculation. Theories such as a natural H-bomb, a black hole, an antimatter explosion and even the crash of a UFO the size of Tokyo, have kept the buzz alive for the past hundred years .

The Cornell research supports the findings of a British astronomer who suggested in 1930 that the blast may have been caused by a small comet, composed specifically of ice and dust, thus leaving no recognizable trace of its presence. One theory proposes that the Tunguska object was a fragment of Comet Encke. This ball of ice and dust is responsible for a meteor shower called the Beta Taurids, which cascade into Earth’s atmosphere in late June and July - the time of the Tunguska event.

Possible the greatest factoid from the Tunguska Event however, is that if it had taken place a mere 4 hours and 47 minutes later, due to the Earth's rotation, St. Petersburg would have been completely obliterated.

“It’s almost like putting together a 100-year-old murder mystery,” said Michael Kelley, the James A. Friend Family Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Cornell, who led the research team. “The evidence is pretty strong that the Earth was hit by a comet in 1908.”

The research connects the two events by what followed each about a day later: brilliant, night-visible clouds, or noctilucent clouds, that are made up of ice particles and only form at very high altitudes and in extremely cold temperatures.

The researchers contend that the massive amount of water vapor spewed into the atmosphere by the comet’s icy nucleus was caught up in swirling eddies with tremendous energy by a process called two-dimensional turbulence, which explains why the noctilucent clouds formed a day later many thousands of miles away.

Noctilucent clouds are the Earth’s highest clouds, forming naturally in the mesosphere at about 55 miles over the polar regions during the summer months when the mesosphere is around minus 180 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 117 degrees Celsius).

The space shuttle exhaust plume, the researchers say, resembled the water vapor from the comet. A single space shuttle flight injects 300 metric tons of water vapor into the Earth’s thermosphere, and the water particles have been found to travel to the Arctic and Antarctic regions, where they form the clouds after settling into the mesosphere. The thermosphere is the layer of the atmosphere above the mesosphere.

Kelley and collaborators saw the noctilucent cloud phenomenon days after the space shuttle Endeavour (STS-118) launched on Aug. 8, 2007. Similar cloud formations had been observed following launches in 1997 and 2003.

Following the 1908 explosion, known as the Tunguska Event, the night skies shone brightly for several days across Europe, particularly Great Britain — more than 3,000 miles away. Kelley said he became intrigued by the historical eyewitness accounts of the aftermath, and concluded that the bright skies must have been the result of noctilucent clouds. The comet would have started to break up at about the same altitude as the release of the exhaust plume from the space shuttle following launch. In both cases, water vapor was injected into the atmosphere.

The scientists have attempted to answer how this water vapor traveled so far without scattering and diffusing, as conventional physics would predict. “There is a mean transport of this material for tens of thousands of kilometers in a very short time, and there is no model that predicts that,” Kelley said. “It’s totally new and unexpected physics.”

This “new” physics, the researchers contend, is tied up in counter-rotating eddies with extreme energy. Once the water vapor got caught up in these eddies, the water traveled very quickly — close to 300 feet per second.

Posted by Casey Kazan from materials provided by Cornell University.

Image Credits: M.J. Taylor and C.D. Burton/Utah State University; shows Noctilucent clouds observed from Donnelley Dome near Fairbanks, Alaska, resulting from a post-space shuttle plume in August 2007.    

The paper is available at: http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/papersinpress.shtml.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/June09/TunguskaComet.html

Hunt for Life Heats Up on Saturn's Moons -New Findings Hint at a Large Ocean Hidden on Enceladus

New discoveries on two of Saturn’s 60 moons could fill the storyline for a full season of a SciFi Channel series on the hunt for extraterrestrial life. Natural electrical activity was discovered last fall on Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons followed by yesterday’s announcement that scientists working on NASA’s Cassini mission have detected sodium salts in ice grains of Saturn’s outermost ring. Detecting salty ice indicates that Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which primarily replenishes the ring with material from discharging jets, could harbor a reservoir of liquid water — perhaps an ocean — beneath its surface. And, where’s there’s an ocean, there’s a higher probability of finding some form of life.

“The original picture of the plumes as violently erupting Yellowstone-like geysers is changing,” said Frank Postberg, Cassini scientist for the cosmic dust analyzer at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. “They seem more like steady jets of vapor and ice fed by a large water reservoir. However, we cannot decide yet if the water is currently ‘trapped’ within huge pockets in Enceladus’ thick ice crust or still connected to a large ocean in contact with the rocky core.”

Cassini discovered the water-ice jets in 2005 on Enceladus. These jets expel tiny ice grains and vapor, some of which escape the moon’s gravity and form Saturn’s outermost ring. Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer has examined the composition of those grains and found salt within them. Cassini was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in 1997 and has been orbiting Saturn since July 2004.

“We believe that the salty minerals deep inside Enceladus washed out from rock at the bottom of a liquid layer,” said Postberg.

Scientists on Cassini’s cosmic dust detector team conclude that liquid water must be present because it is the only way to dissolve the significant amounts of minerals that would account for the levels of salt detected. The process of sublimation, the mechanism by which vapor is released directly from solid ice in the crust, cannot account for the presence of salt.

“Potential plume sources on Enceladus are an active area of research with evidence continuing to converge on a possible salt water ocean,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini deputy project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Our next opportunity to gather data on Enceladus will come during two flybys in November.”

The makeup of the outermost ring grains, determined when thousands of high-speed particle hits were registered by Cassini, provides indirect information about the composition of the plume material and what is inside Enceladus. The outermost ring particles are almost pure water ice, but nearly every time the dust analyzer has checked for the composition, it has found at least some sodium within the particles.

“Our measurements imply that besides table salt, the grains also contain carbonates like soda. Both components are in concentrations that match the predicted composition of an Enceladus ocean,” Postberg said. “The carbonates also provide a slightly alkaline pH value. If the liquid source is an ocean, it could provide a suitable environment on Enceladus for the formation of life precursors when coupled with the heat measured near the moon’s south pole and the organic compounds found within the plumes.”

However, in another study published in Nature, researchers doing ground-based observations did not see sodium, an important salt component. That team notes that the amount of sodium being expelled from Enceladus is actually less than observed around many other planetary bodies. These scientists were looking for sodium in the plume vapor and could not see it in the expelled ice grains. They argue that if the plume vapor does come from ocean water, the evaporation must happen slowly deep underground, rather than as a violent geyser erupting into space.

“Finding salt in the plume gives evidence for liquid water below the surface,” said Sascha Kempf, also a Cassini scientist for the cosmic dust analyzer from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics. “The lack of detection of sodium vapor in the plume gives hints about what the water reservoir might look like.”

Determining the nature and origin of the plume material is a top priority for Cassini during its extended tour, called the Cassini Equinox Mission.

Scientists at Jet Propulsion Lab in California, the University of Colorado and the University of Central Florida in Orlando teamed up to analyze the plumes of water vapor and ice particles spewing from Saturn’s Moon, Enceladus. They used data collected by the Cassini spacecraft’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS).

The team, including, found that the source of plumes may be vents on the moon that channel water vapor from a warm, probably liquid source to the surface at supersonic speeds.

“There are only three places in the solar system we know or suspect to have liquid water near the surface,” said UCF Assistant Professor Joshua Colwell. “Earth, Jupiter’s moon Europa and now Saturn’s Enceladus. Water is a basic ingredient for life, and there are certainly implications there. If we find that the tidal heating that we believe causes these geysers is a common planetary systems phenomenon, then it gets really interesting.”

The team’s findings support a theory that the plumes observed are caused by a water source deep inside Enceladus. This is not a foreign concept. On earth, liquid water exists beneath the 15-million year-old ice at Lake Vostok, in Antarctica.

Scientists suggest that in Enceladus's case, the ice grains would condense from the vapor escaping from the water source and stream through the cracks in the ice crust before heading into space. That's likely what Cassini's instruments detected in 2005 and 2007, the basis for the team's investigation.

The team’s work also suggests that another hypothesis is unlikely. That theory predicts that the plumes of gas and dust observed are caused by evaporation of volatile ice freshly exposed to space when Saturn's tidal forces open vents in the south pole. But the team found more water vapor coming from the vents in 2007 at a time when the theory predicted there should have been less.

“Our observations do not agree with the predicted timing of the faults opening and closing due to tidal tension and compression,” said Candice Hansen, the lead author on the project. “We don't rule it out entirely . . . but we also definitely do not substantiate this hypothesis.”

Instead, their results suggest that the behavior of the geysers supports a mathematical model that treats the vents as nozzles that channel water vapor from a liquid reservoir to the surface of the moon. By observing the flickering light of a star as the geysers blocked it out, the team found that the water vapor forms narrow jets. The authors theorize that only high temperatures close to the melting point of water ice could account for the high speed of the water vapor jets.

Although there is no solid conclusion yet, there may be one soon. Enceladus is a prime target of Cassini during its extended Equinox Mission, underway now through September 2010.

“We still have a lot to discover and learn about how this all works on Enceladus,” Colwell said. “But this is a good step in figuring it all out.”

Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon except for the identification of water ice on its surface. The Voyager missions showed that Enceladus is only 500 km in diameter and reflects almost 100% of the sunlight that strikes it. Voyager 1 found that Enceladus orbited in the densest part of Saturn’s diffuse E ring, indicating a possible link between the two, while Voyager 2 revealed that despite the moon’s small size, it had a wide range of terrains ranging from ancient, heavily cratered surfaces to young, tectonically deformed terrain, with some regions with surface ages as young as 100 million years old.

The Cassini spacecraft performed several close flybys of Enceladus in 2005, revealing the moon’s surface and environment in greater detail. In particular, the probe discovered a water-rich plume venting from the moon’s south polar region. This discovery, along with the presence of escaping internal heat and very few (if any) impact craters in the south polar region, shows that Enceladus is geologically active today.

Given the level of tectonic resurfacing found on Enceladus, a critical factor in the evolution of life on Earth, has been an important driver of geology on this small moon. Enceladus the fourth body in the solar system to have confirmed volcanic activity, along with Earth, Neptune’s Triton, and Jupiter’s Io.

There are three ecosystems discovered on Earth that could mirror possible lifeforms on Enceladus. Two are based on methanogens, which belong to an ancient group related to bacteria, called the archaea — the hardy survivalists of bacteria that thrive in harsh environments without oxygen. Deep volcanic rocks along the Columbia River and in Idaho Falls host two of these ecosystems, which pull their energy from the chemical interaction of different rocks. The third ecosystem is powered by the energy produced in the radioactive decay in rocks, and was found deep below the surface in a mine in South Africa.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft discovered a surprising organic brew erupting in geyser-like fashion from Saturn’s moon Enceladus during a close flyby on March 12, 2008. Scientists were stunned that this tiny moon is so active, “hot” and teeming with water vapor and organic chemicals.

“Enceladus has got warmth, water and organic chemicals, some of the essential building blocks needed for life,” said Dennis Matson, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We have quite a recipe for life on our hands, but we have yet to find the final ingredient, liquid water, but Enceladus is only whetting our appetites for more.”

“A completely unexpected surprise is that the chemistry of Enceladus, what’s coming out from inside, resembles that of a comet,” said Hunter Waite, principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “To have primordial material coming out from inside a Saturn moon raises many questions on the formation of the Saturn system.”

“Enceladus is by no means a comet. Comets have tails and orbit the sun, and Enceladus’ activity is powered by internal heat while comet activity is powered by sunlight. Enceladus’ brew is like carbonated water with an essence of natural gas,” said Waite.

The Casssini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer saw a much higher density of volatile gases, water vapor, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, as well as organic materials, some 20 times denser than expected. This dramatic increase in density was evident as the spacecraft flew over the area of the plumes.

New high-resolution heat maps of the south pole by Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer show that the so-called tiger stripes, giant fissures that are the source of the geysers, are warm along almost their entire lengths, and reveal other warm fissures nearby. The warmest regions along the tiger stripes correspond to two of the jet locations seen in Cassini images.

“These spectacular new data will really help us understand what powers the geysers. The surprisingly high temperatures make it more likely that there’s liquid water not far below the surface,” said John Spencer, Cassini scientist on the Composite Infrared Spectrometer team at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Previous ultraviolet observations showed four jet sources, matching the locations of the plumes seen in previous images. This indicates that gas in the plume blasts off the surface into space, blending to form the larger plume.

At closest approach, Cassini was only 30 miles from Enceladus. When it flew through the plumes it was 120 miles from the moon’s surface. Cassini’s next flyby of Enceladus is in August.

The first step toward answering the question of whether life exists inside the subsurface aquifer of Enceladus is to analyze the organic compounds in the plume.  Cassini’s March 12 passage through the plume provided some measurements that help us move toward an answer, and preliminary plans call for Cassini to fly through the plume again for more measurements in the future.  Ultimately, another mission in the future could conceivably land near the plume or even return plume material to Earth for laboratory analysis.

Organic chemicals were part of the raw material from which Enceladus and Saturn’s other moons formed. The origin of Enceladus’ heat is less clear, but there are several possibilities that could have given Enceladus a layer of liquid water that persists today. Early on, it could have been heated by decay of short-lived radioactivity in rocks, with the heating prolonged by tidal influences.

Or perhaps an earlier oblong orbit could have brought more tidal heating than exists there today. A past tidal relationship with another moon could have caused the heat. Another theory says the heat could have been produced from a process called serpentization, where chemical binding of water and silicate rock could occur at the upper layer of the moon’s core. This increases the volume of the rock and creates energy in the form of heat.

Any of these heating mechanisms might have created a liquid subsurface aquifer solution rich in organics, allowing Enceladus to serve up a suitable prebiotic soup.

The deep sea vent theory for the origin of life on Earth might apply to Enceladus as well. In this scenario, life on Earth began at the interface where chemically rich fluids, heated by tidal or other mechanisms, emerge from below the sea floor. Chemical energy is derived from the reduced gases, such as hydrogen-sulfide and hydrogen coming out from the vent in contact with a suitable oxidant, such as carbon dioxide. Hot spots on an Enceladus sea floor could be locales for this type of process.

We don’t know how long it takes for life to start when the ingredients are there and the environment is suitable, but it appears to have happened quickly on Earth. So maybe it was possible that on Enceladus, life started in a “warm little pond” below the icy surface occurring over the last few tens of millions of years.

For life to persist once it has been established requires an environment of liquid water, the essential elements and nutrients, and an energy source. On Enceladus, there is evidence for liquid water, but we don’t know its origin. The March 12 close flyby indicates there are some complex organic chemicals, as well. An energy source of some sort is producing geysers. As Cassini’s exploration continues, NASA is seeking to bring together more pieces of this intriguing puzzle.

Edited and posted by Casey Kazan from materials provided by NASA.

Related Galaxy posts:

Links:

For images and more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/cassini or http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/ .
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080420122601.htm

Source: http://news.ucf.edu/UCFnews/index?page=article&id=00240041e030fdf011daaca44450078d1.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20090624.html

Is Saturn's Titan a Key to Life Throughout the Milky Way?

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft buzzed Titan last year, coming close
enough to taste the Saturnian moon’s atmosphere.  The data acquired has
implications for our understanding of life throughout the galaxy, as
well as Earth’s own past.

The second largest moon in the solar system, Titan has long been of
interest for hopeful exobioligists.  As the only other body we know of
with surface bodies of liquid, complete with nitrogen, methane and
complete seasonal weather weather patterns (similar to Earth’s).  It
even has beaches, though you’ll need a little more than a swimsuit to
visit.  Vast bodies of chemicals constantly stirred by wind and wave,
heated over a gentle sunlight heat with the occasional dash of articles
from Saturn’s magnetosphere for spice - a perfect recipe for life.
Just like a certain planet you might be familiar with (look down if you
forget).

Of course there a few minor differences from our own blue-green globe.
There’s no oxygen for one thing, but if you think that’s a problem then
you’re guilty of “aerobic respiration prejudice” (don’t worry, most
multicellular organisms are).  It’s also really quite amazingly cold -
so cold that it has awesomely-named “cryovolcanoes”, where boiled (or
even just melted) water is enough to set off seismic-level explosions.
Again, that’s a barrier that’s been overcome by homegrown Earth
bacteria, so there’s no reason it couldn’t be managed elsewhere.

Cassini’s onboard instruments have detected hydrocarbons containing up
to seven carbon atoms.  How important is that for life?  Here’s a hint:
molecules with carbon in them are called organic, and those without are
inorganic.  Carbon is kind of a big deal, and the more (and more
complicated) carbon compounds present the further towards the great
cosmic chemical cocktail that is “life” you are.  Some scientists
believe that the Titanian interior, with its greater temperature, could
already host microbial life - but it’ll be a while before we can check
that (unless we get real lucky, and some alien cells get real unlucky,
with a cryovolcano eruption).  One thing’s for sure - the craft is only
on the sixth of forty-five planned flybys so we can expect to hear a
lot more about this real soon.

PS: Yes, it is ironic that we’re expecting Titanic lifeforms to be single celled.

Posted by Luke McKinney. Photo Credit: James Estrin/New York Times.

Related Galaxy posts:

“The Earth Strain” -Spreading Life To The Stars (whether we want to or not)
MIT Asks: How Would Extraterrestrial Astronomers Study Earth?
“The Great Silence” -A Galaxy Insight
Harvard-Smithsonian Scientists Zero In On Key Sign of Habitable Worlds
Cruising the Goldilocks Zone -The Search for Super Earths
Dead Zones in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
  Non-Carbon Lifeforms -Why We May Overlook  

Source links:

Cassini flyby http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=16737
The Cassini Mission Home http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

Genesis in a Lab -The "Origin of Life" Beta

The origin of life is one of the ultimate questions: it combines all our scientific knowledge, our innate curiosity, and our important human egos in one creation conundrum.  When we find the answer it’ll inform our attitudes of everything from evolution to existence (which works out well, as those who think they already have the answers written down by dead people aren’t interested in evolution anyway).  And we’re getting closer all the time.

A research trio, Drs Szotack, Bartel and Luisi, posed the ultimate chicken-and-egg question when they asked “Which came first - the genetics or the cell?” and came up with an unconventional solution: both.  The cell isn’t much use without the genetic cargo constructing the next generation, while without the shielding cell wall a complex DNA molecule won’t survive long.

Members of the team have gone on to show how simple proto-cells could have formed:  simple fatty acids naturally form double-layered spherical shells, a kind of Cell Beta, which automatically take up suitable chemicals from the environment and even divide into smaller spheres.  The simplistic “cell” walls also act as a size filter meaning that small nucleotides can enter but the larger compound constructions inside can’t leak out - but they can divide.

Of course, reality isn’t quite so storybook simple and there are still a bunch of issues to iron out (the fatty shells and genetic cargo may be able to divide, but they haven’t done both together in the lab just yet), but we’re making excellent progress.  It took Earth a couple billion years to get it going the first time - adding a decade to the remake isn’t exactly shattering the timeline.

Luke McKinney.

Hints Of The Origin Of Life

Is DNA Inevitable as the Code of Life for the Universe? Neil deGrasse Tyson Says "Maybe"

Neil deGrasse Tyson believes that BIG question of the 21st century is will we discover life somewhere other than on Earth? He views it as an “unimpeachable first goal” in our exploration of the cosmos.

And what most fascinating is the question of whether that life has DNA. It’s  fascinating, Tyson says, because either DNA is inevitable as the foundation for the coding of life, or life started with DNA in only one place in the solar system and then spread among the livable habitats through panspermia. Microbial life can land on and seed another planet, thereby not requiring that you have to create life from scratch multiple times and in multiple places.

Another totally intriguing possibility, one of many that deGrasse Tyson Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History and host PBS’s NOVA scienceNOW., describes in Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, is that there is life that has encoding that has nothing to do with DNA.

It is the relentless shifting and mutating of DNA, says Dennis Overbye in a brilliant essay in The New York Times, that generates the raw material for evolution to act on and ensures the success of life on Earth (and perhaps beyond). Dr.Paul Davies co-director of the Arizona State University Cosmology Initiative said that he had been encouraged by the discovery a few years ago “that some sections of junk DNA seem to be markedly resistant to change, and have remained identical in humans, rats, mice, chickens and dogs for at least 300 million years.”

But Dr. Gill Bejerano, Assistant Professor of Developmental Biology and of Computer
Science at Stanford, one of the discoverers of these "ultraconserved" strings of the genome, said that many of them had turned out to be playing important command and control functions.

"Why they need to be so conserved remains a mystery," Berjerano said, noting that even regular genes with known functions undergo more change over time. Most junk bits of DNA that neither help nor annoy an organism mutate even more rapidly, Overbye points out.

What your quess: Is the DNA the cosmic code for life in the universe, or is it possible that there’s are alien, unknown foundations? At the Galaxy, we place our chips on DNA.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/origins/tyson.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/science/26DNA.html?_r=2&oref=login&oref=login

Image Credit: Copyright Jimmy Turrell

Global-Warming Tipping Point: 9 Degrees Temperature Increase Would Devastate Earth's Population

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam
Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, says that if the
buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global
temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today — well below the
upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global
warming — Earth's population would be devastated.

"In a very cynical way, it's a triumph for science because at last
we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying
capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people.”

Schellenhuber’s comments at the COP 15 Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change underscore that, given high rates of observed
emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories are unfolding. For many key parameters, the climate system is
already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which
our society and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters
include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, ocean and ice
sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. There
is a significant risk that many of the trends will accelerate, leading
to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.

Recent observations show
that societies are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate
change, with poor nations and communities particularly at risk.
Temperature rises above 2°C will be very difficult for contemporary
societies to cope with, and will increase the level of climate
disruption through the rest of the century.

It is important for people to understand that the warming the IPCC
talks about is not hypothetical. Eleven of the last 12 years
(1995-2006) rank among the warmest years in global surface temperature
since 1850. Glaciers and snow cover have declined, and ice sheets from
Greenland and parts of Antarctica are melting. The ocean has been
absorbing more than 80% of the heat added to the climate system, yet
the average temperature of the ocean has increased up to a depth of
3,000 meters, causing seawater to expand and contributing to sea level
rise.

Schellnhuber, citing his own research, said that at certain "tipping
points," higher temperatures could cause areas of the ocean to become
deoxygenated, resulting in what he calls "oxygen holes" between 600 and
2,400 feet deep. These are areas so depleted of the gas that they would
badly disrupt the food chain.

Unabated warming would also lead to "disruption of the monsoon,
collapse of the Amazon rain forest and the Greenland ice sheet will
meltdown," he said.

Scientists must make clear the disastrous effects of climate change so
the world takes action now to cut carbon emissions, leading economist
Nicholas Stern said on told the gathering of
2,000 scientists.

“You have to tell people very clearly and strongly just how difficult
(a temperature rise of) four, five, six or seven degrees Celsius is,”
he said.

“Billions of people would have to move and there would be very severe
conflict,” said Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics
and a former British Treasury economist.

“That’s a story that must be told to persuade people it’s a very bad
idea to go anywhere near five degrees. This is not a black swan, this
is a big probability of a devastating outcome,” he

Posted by Casey Kazan

Sources:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/scientist-warming-could-cut-population-to-1-billion/
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/dai/Schellnhuber-PNAS-2008.pdf
http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/get-informed/news/scientists-deliver-politicians-key-messages-for-copenhagen-climate-talks.html
http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/get-informed/news/clear-and-present-danger-a-conversation-with-nobel-laureate-steve-chu-on-the-risks-of-climate-change.html
http://in.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idINTRE52B37Q20090312?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

Global Warming Clock Unveiled in NYC: CO2 Highest in 800,000 Years

Deutsche Bank has erected a seven-story sign in the heart of New York City outside Madison Square Garden that displays the tons of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. Designed by scientists at MIT hanging outside Madison Square Garden, the giant counter shows that the amount of carbon dioxide in earth's atmosphere is at 3.64 trillion metric tons, the highest level in 800,000 years.

Numbers ticking on the counter show that CO2 is being added to the atmosphere at the rate of 800 tons per second.

Unveiling the sign, Deutsche Bank officials said it was designed to highlight the crisis of global warming and the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions.

Source

Little Ice Age: "Coming Soon" -Says Contrarian Expert

Evidence has mounted that global warming began in the last century
and that humans are, at least in part, responsible. The concern is that
the warming of our climate will greatly affect its habitability for
many species, including humans. Both the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences concur
that this is the case. But some argue that this thinking is too
limited. They say that too many scientists are either ignoring, or
don't understand, the well-established fact that Earth's climate has
changed rapidly in the past and could change rapidly in the future—in
either direction.

Evidence for abrupt climate change is readily found in ice cores taken
from Greenland and Antarctica. One of the best known examples of such
an event is the Younger Dryas cooling of about 12,000 years ago, named
after the arctic wildflower found in northern European sediments. This
event began and ended rather abruptly, and for its entire 1000 year
duration the North Atlantic region was about 5°C colder. Could
something like this happen again? It could, and because the
changes can happen all within one decade—we might not even see it
coming.

The Younger Dryas occurred at a time when orbital forcing should have
continued to drive climate to the present warm state. The unexplained
phenomenon has been the topic of much intense scientific debate, as
well as other millennial scale events.

An 11-year low in Sunspot activity has raised fears among a small
number of scientists that rather than getting warmer, the Earth could
possibly be about to return to another cooling period. The idea is
especially intriguing considering that most of the world is in
preparation for global warming. Could we be preparing for the wrong
scenario?

A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than the rest and
therefore appears darker. One theory is that a strong solar magnetic
field, which causes plenty of sunspot activity, protects the earth from
cosmic rays, but that when the field is weak - during low sunspot
activity - the rays can penetrate into the lower atmosphere and cloud
cover increases, which in turn leads to a cooler surface.

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut
with NASA, notes that pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He
believes this is the reason why the world cooled rapidly between
January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and
it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Dr Chapman wrote in The
Australian. “If the temperature does not soon recover, we will
have to conclude that global warming is over.”

However, scientists from the US National Center for Atmospheric
Research published a report in 2006 that claims the Sun likely has a
negligible effect on climate change. Another study, recently published
study in the Institute of Physics’ Environmental Research Letters, by
researchers from Lancaster and Durham Universities found that there was
no strong correlation between cosmic rays and the production of low
cloud cover. If that is correct, it would mean the lack of sunspots is
not necessarily an indicator of higher cloud cover and subsequent
future cooling.

While it's true that some world regions have experienced record colds
recently, other areas do seem to be warming up. In Australia, The
Bureau of Meteorology says that temperatures there have been warmer
than the 1960-90 average since the late 1970s. Even though there have
been some cooler years mixed in, overall they are now 0.3C higher than
the long-term average. Other countries are experiencing similar upward
trends. On the other hand, since widespread temperature records have
only been kept for a relatively short period of the Earth's history,
it's hard to know exactly what these increases mean from a long-term
perspective.

Cooling, or "Little Ice Age" proponents like Chapman, say that it could
still swing either way. He proposes preventive measures to slow any
potential cooling, such as bulldozing Siberian and Canadian snow to
make it dirty and less reflective. “My guess is that the odds are now
at least 50:50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming
in coming decades.”

Canadian scientist Kenneth Tapping of the National Research Council has
noted that solar activity has entered into an unusually inactive
phase, but what that means—if anything—is still anyone's guess. Another
scientist, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural
Sciences agrees with Chapman. Sorokhtin believes that, in spite of the
results of certain recent studies, lack of sunspots does indicate a
coming cooling period. In fact, he calls manmade climate change “a drop
in the bucket” compared to the cold brought on by inactive solar phases.

But while Sorokhtin is advising people to “stock up on fur coats”, the
vast majority of prominent scientists believe the bulk of evidence
points towards an overall warming trend, and that anomalies and
exceptions to the rule do not make a significant dent in this consensus.

The Daily Galaxy asked climate expert Thomas Reichler, what he has to
say about it. According to him, anyone claiming that the Earth isn't
getting warmer, or that it's perhaps even getting colder, simply isn't
looking at the actual data.

"There is absolutely no doubt that the world is in a warming phase,"
Reichler told the Daily Galaxy, "and that conclusion is supported by
99% of all serious scientists, so I'm certainly not alone in that
certainty."

Reichler is probably right, but it wouldn't be the first time if the
fringe opinion turned out to be onto something. But from a broader
perspective, does it really matter who's "right" as far as preparations
go? Whether the climate gets cooler or warmer, or does nothing at all,
people will still need massive amounts of energy. Even if we were to
take the reverse approach and intentionally increase greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere in order to stave off cooling, it would likely have
little effect other than to further pollute the environment with
standard energy consumption's many toxic byproducts

Solar Cycle 24 began in early 2008 , but has shown minimal
activity through early 2009. The small changes in solar
irradiance that occur during the solar cycle exert a small influence on
Earth's climate, with periods of intense magnetic activity producing
slightly higher temperatures, and solar minimum periods such as that
seen in 2008 and early 2009 likely to have the opposite effect.

Skeptics have been saying that global temperature rises might be due
to changes in the sun, pretty much the ultimate “it wasn’t us, a big
boy did it,” with a giant fusion reactor as the elusive culprit.  
Researchers have shown that this isn’t the case and unlike the original
claim, their work involves advanced computer models, a distinct lack of
the word “might”, and has been published in Science.

Carnegie
Mellon University’s Peter Adams along with Jeff Pierce from Dalhousie
University in Halifax, Canada, have developed a model to test the
controversial hypothesis that says changes solar activity are causing
global warming.

The hypothesis they tested was that increased
solar activity reduces cloudiness by variations in cosmic rays. So,
when clouds decrease, more sunlight is let in, causing the earth to
warm. Some climate change skeptics have tried to use this hypothesis to
suggest that greenhouse gases may not be the global warming culprits
that most scientists agree they are. They found that changes in the
concentration of particles that affect clouds are 100 times too small
to affect the climate.

Professors Peter Adams and Jeff Pierce did a bunch of things that those throwing around the solar excuse didn’t:

a)  They did detailed work analyzing the actual effects of such activity
b)  They actually understood what such effects would really even be
c) 
They rigorously applied scientific procedures to this research,
constructed computer models, and would have reported the results either
away
d)  They spent many, many years earning PhDs in scientific research and the title of “Professor.”

We have to say, d) is our favorite.

The
simulations show that the effects of cosmic rays from the sun are
barely 1% of what they’d have to be to explain what we’ve seen.  The
scientists are even one step ahead of the “maybe-sorta” game, admitting
their simulations can’t account for everything that exists, because
nothing could ever do that (including their opponents’ arguments), but
pointing out that nothing omitted or missed could skew the results
enough to appreciably alter the results.

Posted by Luke McKinney with Rebecca Sato and Casey Kazan.

Changes in the Sun are not causing Global Warming, Study Says

Related Galaxy posts:

Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises
Cosmic Rays -The Cause of Global Warming?
The Milky Way Enigma -How Galactic Forces May Control Life on Earth
Are Global Warming Models Accurately Predicting Our Future? New Study Reveals the Answer—A Galaxy Interview
As Temperatures Hit Record Lows, Global Warming Takes a Punch to the Gut

"Multi or Rare" Earths? Are We the Sole Intelligent Life in the Milky Way?

The “Rare Earth” hypothesis is the idea that life is a staggeringly unlikely event, and that the reason we haven’t seen hide nor hair (nor scale nor weird gel-layer) of aliens is that there aren’t any.  It’s had some time in the spotlight, it makes us sound very important, and it’s utterly wrong.

The Rare Earth argument ignores a number of essential factors, the first being how staggeringly huge the numbers involved are.  Even the Milky Way has trillions of stars, and it’s only one of a hundred billion in the observable universe, and there have been billions of years for things to happen.  Countering “it’s really unlikely” with “but there are lots of things!” might sound weak, but it’s the Rare Earthers who are taking the burden of proof - claiming that nothing happens anywhere else ever.  The more places there are, the worse their argument gets.

Claims that there aren’t many suitable planets over all these stars are like hiding in a closet and claiming there’s no such thing as coffee tables - we’re now detecting planets at an ever-increasing rate, because now we have technology actually capable of detecting planets.  Almost as soon as we try any new planet-detecting technique it detects a whole bunch of the things.  We’re even edging into the ability to find Earth-size planets, and what do you know?  There they are!  And some even have water!

The second slip-up is ignoring the suitability of the laws of physics to life - or rather, the suitability of our form of life to the laws of physics. The idea of someone sitting in pre-existence limbo and tuning the weak nuclear force in order to create bald monkeys is patently ridiculous, as is the idea that only a tiny range of values could give rise to any repeating pattern - our pattern, DNA, is just the one that happened to work for the collection of constants we call reality.

Once life is possible in a universe, expecting it to occur in one place only is like leaving a loaf of bread and expecting exactly one slice to go moldy.  Life just happens here - thermodynamic math has shown that amino acids simply will be built anywhere their components can be found.  Since those components are on the periodic table, the literal “this is what happens in this universe” list, they’re going to be all over.  Assuming aliens don’t come up with another pattern anyway (increasing the odds again).

Claiming that we’re the only life in existence is a combination of ignorance, self-importance and depression that should have a livejournal, not a scientific journal.  The important work is getting ourselves out there and seeing who and/or what we can find.

The “Rare Earth” Delusion

Posted by Luke McKinney

Related Galaxy posts:

MIT Asks: How Would Extraterrestrial Astronomers Study Earth?
“The Great Silence” -A Galaxy Insight
Harvard-Smithsonian Scientists Zero In On Key Sign of Habitable Worlds
Cruising the Goldilocks Zone -The Search for Super Earths
Dead Zones in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
GAIA -Mapping the Family Tree of the Milky Way
The “Hubble Effect” -A Galaxy Insight
James Cameron & Arthur C Clarke on 2001 A Space Odyssey
Eyes on the Cosmos -European Space Agency’s Hawk 1 & Hubble’s Successor
New Phoenix Mission Technology to Search for Life
Non-Carbon Lifeforms -Why We May Overlook
The Milky Way Enigma -How Galactic Forces May Control Life on Earth
Astro-Engineering Artifacts as Evidence of Extraterrestrial  Life
The Biological Universe -A New Copernican Revolution 
Jupiter’s Europa & the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Earth’s Twin Habitable?