The sophisticated and new representative of the humanity has arrived in Mars: the NASA’s polar spacecraft Mars Phoenix Lander, with sophisticated scientific instruments to analyze the terrain of the mysterious north pole of Mars.
The spacecraft, which has already sent wonderful (and amazingly familiar) images of the Red Planet’s landscape, also has a mini DVD (made of silicon) where there are the names of 250000 people.
The idea of sending such a disk was planned by The Planetary Society, a civil and nonprofit organization created by the astronomer Carl Sagan who participated in space investigations. The multimedia content is called “Visions of Mars” and includes a literature collection on Mars with the H. G. Wells book (”The war of the worlds”), the radio version by Orson Welles, the maps made by Percival Lowell with the Canals of Mars, The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and Green Mars By Kim Stanley Robinson.
It also contains messages for future explorers and settlers of Mars on behalf of Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke.
DNA of old human feces found in a cave in Oregon (United States) contributes to the biological verification of people who lived 14000 years ago in North America, scientists said on Thursday.
The discovery, published in the journal Science, is added to the proofs for the existence of people living in America, before the date usually accepted by most of the researchers (13000 years ago), based on bones of the so-called Clovis culture in the Southwest of United States.
“The dates of the coprolites are more than 1,000 years earlier than currently accepted dates for the Clovis-complex”, the scientists wrote.
Dennis Jenkins, archaeologist of the University of Oregon, found the dry samples in caves known as Paisley Caves, about 350 kilometers to the southeast of Eugene, Oregon.
On Friday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the discovery of evidences of past life on Mars, after some exploration on the red planet.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), located in California, found evidences of salt deposits on Mars that suggest the presence of water in the past and, therefore, the probability of past martian life.
“These deposits show where water was once abundant and may also provide evidence for the existence of former Martian life”, the scientists said.
NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter would have found up to 200 places with evidence of old salt deposits, according to a laboratory statement. The deposits range in area from about one square kilometer to about 25 square kilometers.
The American missile impacted the spy satellite with toxic fuel and reduced it to ball-sized chunks, but the Pentagon said that there is not a 100% guarantee the fuel tank has been destroyed, an official spokesman said Thursday.
“Thus far, we have seen nothing larger than a football”, James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared during a press conference.
“We also have a high degree of confidence that we also got the tank… we are working our way throughout that, we will not be at a point where we can say for sure”, he said.
A missile launched from a US Navy ship hit the old American spy satellite that was drifting toward the Earth. According to the Government, the operation was executed to avoid problems with a satellite falling to Earth with potentially hazardous fuel.
The expansion of crops to produce biofuels results in vast amounts of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and it doesn’t contribute to stopping climate change or global warming, according to the first thorough scientific audit of a biofuel’s carbon budget.
Scientists have produced evidence that suggests that biofuels could be one of the biggest environmental lies, because they could worsen global warming by increasing the emissions of carbon dioxide that are supposed to decrease.
Two separate studies, published in the journal Science, show that the crops to produce “green” alternatives to oil-based fossil fuels emit much more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and all these emissions cannot be absorbed by the plants.
The scientists discovered that, in the case of some crops, it would take several centuries to pay off the “carbon debt” that is generated. These environmental costs don’t take into account other damages to the environment, for example the loss of biodiversity that is caused when a forest area is used for biofuels production.
DNA of old human feces found in a cave in Oregon (United States) contributes to the biological verification of people who lived 14000 years ago in North America, scientists said on Thursday.
On Friday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced the discovery of evidences of past life on Mars, after some exploration on the red planet.
The expansion of crops to produce biofuels results in vast amounts of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and it doesn’t contribute to stopping climate change or global warming, according to the first thorough scientific audit of a biofuel’s carbon budget.
