By Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer
The latest planets turned up by NASA's Kepler telescope are - like the kids in Lake Wobegone - gratifyingly above average.
These new worlds offer both promise and insights, because they've got traits that are both appealing and mildly disconcerting.
FROM - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
by Nadia Drake, Science Writer
Amazing as the discoveries of planets, comets, and asteroid belts around other stars are, it’s their potential to shed light on our Solar System’s origins that is exciting astronomers.
FROM JILL TARTER
Scientists report on identification of clays and carbonate that formed on early Mars in a liquid water environment near a large impact basin. Coordinated analyses using multiple datasets were used to characterize the composition and stratigraphy of the region. A paper published online in April 2013 in the Journal of Geophysical Research highlights new mineralogic and geologic observations at a site called Libya Montes just south of the Isidis Basin on Mars.
Want to say hello to an ET? SETI scientists are here to help.
People in Seattle and other parts of the Northwest recently weighed in on what they would want to say to intelligent creatures from another planet.
