Big Moons And Life

Scientists have held our big moon is crucial to life on Earth because its gravity helps stabilize the Earth's axial tilt, thus producing stable climates over long periods.

A new study based on computer simulations, however, suggests planets like Earth would be relatively stable even without a big moon.  That's good news in the quest to find life elsewhere.

Columbia

Yesterday marked the eleventh anniversary of the morning space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry.  It not only cost seven lives, but it also marked the beginning of the end of the shuttle era.

Today, we are on the verge of the commercial era of manned spaceflight.  That era will begin with suborbital flights, perhaps later this year, but companies are already looking at orbital excursions to space hotels, and even at trips to the Moon.

H2 Aliens

H2, the History Channel's sister network, seems to run lots of UFO and space alien programming.

While there may be a very few stories in that area that merit further scrutiny, the demands of television to put something on regularly has led H2 to air lots of silly stuff.  Doing so finally weakens whatever legitimate case for the alien visitation of Earth that there may be.

Really Ancient Aliens

A new scientific paper suggests life could have arisen as early as 15 million years after the Big Bang.

At that time, the paper notes, the temperature of the cooling universe would have been about what it is on Earth today,  So, if any rocky worlds existed at that time-- a big if-- they would have been at the right temperature to support liquid water on their surfaces, and therefore, possibly, life.

Virgin Galactic's New Rocket

Virgin Galactic, along with its suborbital space tourism business, is also developing the capability to put small satellites into low Earth orbit.

VG successfully test fired the engines of its Newton two-stage rocket recently.  Newtons will be carried aloft by a WhiteKnightTwo aircraft, released, and fire the first stage.  The first flight could be in 2016.

Amino Acids And Life

Only 20 amino acids make up the proteins in all life on Earth, but scientists see no reason that has to be, let alone why it would be on other worlds.

Using a new computer model, scientists have found thousands of amino acids that could possibly serve as the building blocks of life, thus making alien life even more possible.

Where Were You?

We all remember where we were when we heard about certain events.  Often, the events are tragic-- the assassination of John Kennedy, the attempt on Ronald Reagan, or 9/11.

Today is the 28th anniversary of another such event, the explosion of space shuttle Challenger 73 seconds after liftoff.  It marked the first time American astronauts were lost during an actual mission.

Where were you?