NASA has given the new, expensive Mars probe a reprieve from the budget ax. Will the new administration allow the probe to continue on schedule, or will it be considered too expensive in this time of economic stress? I have often thought about this question, should space exploration be continued in hard times? I have come to the conclusion that canceling exploration to other planets doesn't really save us money in the long term. I say this because space exploration has accounted for so many new things on planet earth and because of this when we cancel a project we are really canceling a couple of new inventions and maybe even the chance to find new sources of energy and places for the human race to expand to, thus relieving some of the pressure on this planet. The big problem for the probe will be when NASA goes before the congress and asks for additional funding. NASA is keeping closed mouth about how much more it needs. I say make them use the money that has been set aside for the International Space Station for the Mars mission. As I have said in the past that is just a waste of money anyway.

An incredible discovery has been made regarding life. A gold mine in South Africa has yielded a lot more than just gold. A bacteria has been found in the mine that not only lives in the dark, but completely without oxygen. Why is this discovery so important, you might ask? The reason is that it opens the door to finding life on other planets that was thought to be impossible for life to exist on. There could even be life on the moon. If a microbe can live without oxygen, what is to stop it from living on places like moons? Possibly only the temperature and even that might not be a problem. Life on earth is known to exist in extreme temperature shifts. Look at the life in the ocean that lives near heat vents of boiling water and yet survives, or the life that lives in the poles of this planet in extreme cold. There is just no accounting for where life might spring up. The life in the mine was discovered a mile and three quarters under the earth. It was living in 140 degree heat. One scientist stated, "Early Earth and other planets didn't have a lot of oxygen on them, so life has evolved to use oxygen in order to get its energy. You know, if we ever discover life on other planets, it may very well be that they live without oxygen and instead potentially use chemicals like sulphate to get their energy."

It seems that scientists are getting obsessed with trying to find an earth like planet. Why this fervor for such a project? There is probably a couple of reasons. I would imagine that the first reason would be to prove that earth is not a fluke. Some scientists still think that the odds for the coming together of all the elements that made the earth what it is, are astronomical. If this is true, we would not expect to see very many earth like planets, or even any at all. On the other hand if we find one, that will show that we are not as rare as we think, which opens the door to many other possibilities. That brings us to the next point. If we find earth like planets, will we find earth like life? Could some or all of these earth like planets be inhabited? As I said above, life is tough and on earth seems to spring up everywhere. If the same is true for earth like planets, then they should be teeming with life and if we ever go to visit these planets we have to be very careful that we don't bring anything back with us, even microscopic life, because it could upset the balance of life on earth.

The Lawrenny based HMS Beagle Trust wants to build a modern day version of Darwin's famous ship, the Beagle. The idea is to link the ship with the International Space Station and use its observations along with any find the ship makes. This way they hope to make discoveries that will rival those of Darwin. They claim that using the detailed pictures from the space station of places that the ship will visit will be a great help to the ship. All observations made by the ship's crew will be instantly available in classrooms, thanks to instant communications. I bet Darwin himself would have loved this if he were around. The construction of the ship is expected to start next year. Chevron has offered financial assistance and it has been accepted.

A discovery was made that has surprised the scientific community. We thought that we knew most of the creatures in the fossil record, but a new one has been found. Not only is this a new find, but it is a very important one because this creature is now thought to have ruled the seas from the Permian to the Iron Age. The discovery was of a prehistoric platypus-ohannonornithorhynchus gianatinus. It was huge. It was said that this is such an important discovery because we now have to re-evaluate all we thought we knew about life on this planet. It is one thing to find a new species, but another to find one that was so dominant for so long. This has to change our thinking about life on this planet. So how big was this creature? Are you sitting down? A scientist has said that the creature was over 9 miles long. Is it no wonder that we have to rethink everything? I find this very hard to accept as I am sure much of the scientific community will. I would need a second find to verify it. If this find is substantiated then this may turn out to be the biggest creature that ever inhabited the earth. It is hard to imagine a creature of this enormous size.

Usually carbon dioxide is thought of as a pesky thing, something that you certainly don't want too much of on your planet, but recently scientists were all excited about carbon dioxide. It had been found on a newly discovered planet. The planet I am talking about is a gas giant and it is not the type of planet that scientists think of when looking for life. The reason that scientists are so excited about this, is that it means that they can now probe the atmospheres of distant planets to see what their atmospheres are made of.

In an unexpected discovery, scientists have found huge glaciers on Mars. This helps to partially answer the question of “where did all the water go?” The glaciers are covered with debris and located in the equatorial region of Mars. Scientists feel that the glaciers represent the largest deposit of water on the planet, that is not in the polar caps. One scientist stated, "Just one of the features we examined is three times larger than the city of Los Angeles and up to one-half-mile thick. And there are many more. In addition to their scientific value, they could be a source of water to support future exploration of Mars." Mars doesn't have a large moon like earth to keep it stable, so it shifts on its axis, which is believed to redistribute heat which moves the poles around, thus creating the glaciers.