HOME |
RSS | 
Didn’t Starship Troopers feature aliens hitting the Earth with rocks? Well, I’m sure that it’s nothing. Anyway, we’re getting hit by meteorites of Martian origin:
Scientists are confirming that 15 pounds of rock collected recently in Morocco fell to Earth from Mars during a meteorite shower last July.
This is only the fifth time in history scientists have chemically confirmed Martian meteorites that people witnessed falling. The fireball was spotted in the sky six months ago, but the rocks weren’t discovered on the ground in North Africa until the end of December. [...]
Astronomers think millions of years ago something big smashed into Mars and sent rocks hurtling through the solar system. After a long journey through space, one of those rocks plunged through Earth’s atmosphere, breaking into smaller pieces.
Most other Martian meteorite samples sat around on Earth for millions of years — or at the very least, decades — before they were discovered, which makes them tainted with Earth materials and life. These new rocks, while still probably contaminated because they have been on Earth for months, are purer.
The last time a Martian meteorite fell and was found fresh was in 1962. All the known Martian rocks on Earth add up to less than 240 pounds.
Link -via io9 | Photo: Darryl Pitt
Could the building blocks of life been first delivered to Earth from outer space? That is what some research may be suggesting.
“People have been finding nucleobases in meteorites for about 50 years now, and have been trying to figure out if they are of biological origin or not,” study co-author Jim Cleaves, a chemist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, told SPACE.com.
To help confirm if any nucleobases seen in meteorites were of extraterrestrial origin, scientists used the latest scientific analysis techniques on samples from a dozen meteorites — 11 organic-rich meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites and one ureilite, a very rare type of meteorite with a different chemical composition. This was the first time all but two of these meteorites had been analyzed for nucleobases.
The analytical techniques probed the mass and other features of the molecules to identify the presence of extraterrestrial nucleobases and see that they apparently did not come from the surrounding area.
Two of the carbonaceous chondrites contained a diverse array of nucleobases and structurally similar compounds known as nucleobase analogs. Intriguingly, three of these nucleobase analogs are very rare in Earth biology, and were not found in soil and ice samples from the areas near where the meteorites were collected at the parts-per-billion limits of their detection techniques.
“Finding nucleobase compounds not typically found in Earth’s biochemistry strongly supports an extraterrestrial origin,” Cleaves said
Comments Off
In the 50s and 60s, scientists were already thinking about what a space station in Earth orbit might need, what it might look like. Surprisingly, many of the concepts were not that far off from reality, including a design concept that was made back in 1869. This was an Earth-based research/fantasy concept called "BRICK MOON" which was designed to be a self-contained habitat that featured many of the same requirements of a space station. Pictured is MOL, just one of nine space station concepts in this article.
This is a concept depiction of a orbiting space station that the USAF (United States Air Force) was considering in the 1960s. The intent was that a two-person crew would spend a month aboard the station before being rotated out and brought back to Earth. The orbiting station was to be called “MOL”, the Manned Orbiting Laboratory.was on the mind of men decades ago, with some surprising similarities to today’s space platforms these visionaries seemed to predict the future. A future that they could not an have possibly understood or fathomed. Ultimately, we will need a new fleet of space shuttles to get there.”
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Comments Off 
