http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists once thought that life could originate only within a solar system's "habitable zone," where a planet would be neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on its surface. But according to planetary scientist Francis Nimmo, evidence from recent NASA missions suggests that conditions necessary for life may exist on the icy satellites of Saturn and Jupiter. http://www.physorg.com/news180112635.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:55:19 EST news180112635 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team of NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) scientists is looking for clues about life on Mars in an earthy clay mineral found only in Aberdeenshire in Scotland. http://www.physorg.com/news179652861.html Space & Earth Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:10:01 EST news179652861 (PhysOrg.com) -- MIT planetary scientist Sara Seager has been studying exoplanets - planets circling stars other than the sun - for many years. http://www.physorg.com/news178220229.html Space & Earth Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:20:02 EST news178220229 Scientists with NASA`s IceBite project are heading this week for University Valley, a hanging valley perched more than 1600 feet (more than 1 mile) above sea level in Antarctica`s McMurdo Dry Valleys. Their objective: to test a set of ice-penetrating drills and select one for use on a future mission to the martian polar north, the same region of the planet that NASA`s Phoenix lander investigated in 2008. http://www.physorg.com/news177613575.html Space & Earth Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:07:23 EST news177613575 Once upon a time - roughly four billion years ago - Mars was warm and wet, much like Earth. Liquid water flowed on the Martian surface in long rivers that emptied into shallow seas. A thick atmosphere blanketed the planet and kept it warm. Living microbes might have even arisen, some scientists believe, starting Mars down the path toward becoming a second life-filled planet next door to our own. http://www.physorg.com/news177179617.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:34:12 EST news177179617 New research suggests that there is plenty of oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms with greater oxygen demands than microorganisms. http://www.physorg.com/news174918239.html Space & Earth Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:24:45 EST news174918239 The recent discovery of plumes containing water vapor erupting from the south pole of the frigid Saturnian moon Enceladus set off a firestorm of debate. http://www.physorg.com/news174236314.html Space & Earth Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:59:48 EST news174236314 (PhysOrg.com) -- The widespread idea that Mars is red due to rocks being rusted by the water that once flooded the red planet may be wrong. Recent laboratory studies show that the red dust may be formed by ongoing grinding of surface rocks and liquid water need not have played any significant role in the red dust formation process. These findings, which open up the debate about the history of water on Mars and whether it has ever been habitable, have been presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by Dr Jonathan Merrison. http://www.physorg.com/news172481192.html Space & Earth Fri, 18 Sep 2009 08:26:56 EST news172481192 (PhysOrg.com) -- There are so many stars in our galaxy that even if planets with complex life (animals and plants) are rare - say one for every billion stars - there could still be dozens here in the Milky Way. But we are just beginning to learn about worlds beyond our solar system, called exoplanets, so we really don't have a good idea of what the chances are for advanced life. That's where NASA's Kepler mission comes in. http://www.physorg.com/news172242543.html Space & Earth Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:30:01 EST news172242543 (PhysOrg.com) -- Since the launch of the NASA Kepler Mission earlier this year, astronomers have been keenly awaiting the first detection of an Earth-like planet around another star. Now, in an echo of science fiction movies a team of scientists led by Dr David Kipping of University College London thinks that they may even find habitable ‘exomoons` too. The new results will appear in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. http://www.physorg.com/news171189203.html Space & Earth Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:34:04 EST news171189203 Comets contained vast oceans of liquid water in their interiors during the first million years of their formation, a new study claims. http://www.physorg.com/news168179623.html Space & Earth Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:34:46 EST news168179623 (PhysOrg.com) -- Plumes spewing from a tiny moon of Saturn - a moon roughly the width of Arizona - are filled with molecules that suggest that the moon, Enceladus, is likely another place in the solar system to look for life, Cassini scientist Jonathan Lunine of The University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory said. http://www.physorg.com/news167498118.html Space & Earth Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:16:49 EST news167498118 (PhysOrg.com) -- Most of us, when we take our first science classes, learn that when things cool down, they shrink. (When they heat up, we learn, they usually expand.) However, water seems to be the exception to the rule. Instead of shrinking as it cools, this common liquid actually expands. In order to explain this phenomenon, some scientists have adopted the `mixture` model, which purports that low-density, ice-like components dominate due to cooling. Masakazu Matsumoto, at the Nagoya University Research Center for Materials Science in Japan, has a different idea. He describes his findings in Physical Review Letters: "Why Does Water Expand When It Cools?" http://www.physorg.com/news167040410.html Physics Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:07:34 EST news167040410 From literature to the Big Screen, the fascination with the planet Mars has taken many forms. In the geology department at Mercyhurst College, that attraction currently surrounds three of the planet's oldest and most explosive volcanoes known as highland paterae. These distinctive landforms will be studied extensively by a team of faculty and student researchers this summer, thanks to a $137,000 NASA grant awarded to Dr. Nicholas Lang, first-year assistant professor of geology at Mercyhurst. http://www.physorg.com/news166703932.html Space & Earth Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:39:12 EST news166703932 Mars gets as far as 250 million miles away, but many parts of it closely resemble places on Earth, including its landscape, history of water, soil and even its weather, says a Texas A&M University researcher in the current issue of "Science" magazine. http://www.physorg.com/news165763556.html Space & Earth Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:10:01 EST news165763556 (PhysOrg.com) -- Below 0 °C, water turns to ice. But beyond that, or below about -75 °C, the ice may turn back into liquid water. While scientists have previously predicted this phase transition with computer simulations, recent experiments may have finally demonstrated the existence of this ultra-cold water. http://www.physorg.com/news165084657.html Chemistry Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:51:25 EST news165084657 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new NASA study provides further evidence that Martian minerals dissolved in water could have kept that water from freezing, even on a cold, early Mars. http://www.physorg.com/news163091515.html Space & Earth Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:12:27 EST news163091515 (PhysOrg.com) -- Since the early 1990s astronomers have discovered more than 300 planets orbiting stars other than our sun, nearly all of them gas giants like Jupiter. Powerful space telescopes, such as the one that is central to NASA's recently launched Kepler Mission, will make it easier to spot much smaller rocky extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, more similar to Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news162541543.html Space & Earth Tue, 26 May 2009 07:26:30 EST news162541543 (PhysOrg.com) -- Salty, liquid water has been detected on a leg of the Mars Phoenix Lander and therefore could be present at other locations on the planet, according to analysis by a group of mission scientists led by a University of Michigan professor. This is the first time liquid water has been detected and photographed outside the Earth. http://www.physorg.com/news156526578.html Space & Earth Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:36:48 EST news156526578 (AP) -- Did NASA's Phoenix Mars lander find evidence of liquid water before it froze to death? http://www.physorg.com/news155990881.html Space & Earth Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:59:16 EST news155990881 NASA's Kepler spacecraft is on its way to the launch pad and will soon begin a journey to search for worlds that could potentially host life. http://www.physorg.com/news154281121.html Space & Earth Thu, 19 Feb 2009 15:52:42 EST news154281121 University of Arkansas researchers have used chemistry and geology to create a model that may explain the mystery of how modern-day gullies form on the surface of Mars. http://www.physorg.com/news153416239.html Space & Earth Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:37:58 EST news153416239 (PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed a new category of minerals spread across large regions of Mars. This discovery suggests that liquid water remained on the planet's surface a billion years later than scientists believed, and it played an important role in shaping the planet's surface and possibly hosting life. http://www.physorg.com/news144420918.html Space & Earth Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:55:18 EST news144420918 (PhysOrg.com) -- A new study suggests that ancient features on the surface of Mars called valley networks were carved by recurrent floods during a long period when the martian climate may have been much like that of some arid or semiarid regions on Earth. An alternative theory that the valleys were carved by catastrophic flooding over a relatively short time is not supported by the new results. http://www.physorg.com/news140102834.html Space & Earth Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:27:14 EST news140102834 The traditional picture of how liquid water behaves on a molecular level is wrong, according to new experimental evidence collected by a collaboration of researchers from the Department of Energy's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California, RIKEN SPring-8 synchrotron and Hiroshima University in Japan and Stockholm University in Sweden. http://www.physorg.com/news134058290.html Physics Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:24:50 EST news134058290