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Subscribe to RSSRumors and speculation are swirling on the Internet about the subject of a news conference to be carried live at 2 p.m. ET Thursday on NASA TV "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life."
"Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe," NASA explains in its advisory. And that's about as much as the space agency is saying about the discovery right now. However, the advisory includes a list of the speakers for the briefing. That's what led to the online guessing game.
Among those speakers is Felisa Wolfe-Simon, a researcher at the U.S. Geological Survey who says she's concentrating on "arsenic biogeochemistry, cyanobacteria, novel uses for as yet undescribed metalloenzymes and of course, arsenic-based life!"
Other speakers include NASA astrobiologist Pamela Conrad, who specializes in planetary habitability assessment; Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, who studies the chemical foundations of biology; and Arizona State University's James Elser, who focuses on life in extreme environments.
Blogger Jason Kottke put all those pieces together and speculated that Thursday's announcement would be about the discovery of life on Saturn's moon Titan. But that suggestion was shot down as false in a Twitter post from The Atlantic Monthly's senior editor and science blogger Alexis Madrigal.
Will the secret survive until Thursday? Back in August, NASA let information slip out an hour before the embargo lifted on a report in the journal Science about the discovery of two giant planets in constantly changing orbits. In that instance, NASA made its news release and other information about the discovery publicly available. Going even further back, to 1996, there's the famous case of the Mars meteorite study that leaked out in advance of publication in Science.
What do you think has been found? Feel free to weigh in with your comment, but please respect any information known to be under embargo.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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The T.S.A and Homeland Security must be aiding scientific research since they are experimenting with radiating the masses then trying to find all lifes secrets in our pants. If there is intelligent life out there...they are probably watching us and laughing their posteriors off!
It's still hard for me to understand why people can't accept that aliens exist. Dinosaurs existed before man... which means that ET is real, just not as intelligent as we would have hoped... not yet, at least.
From what arrogance did you make the assumption people don’t want to admit aliens exist?
Science adamant life in other planets exists. But if you are talking about the UFO phenomenon, that’s a whole different issue. As far as things go, there is still no solid evidence that aliens are visiting our planet.
I think they will report a probe has discovered the potential of intelligent life on planet Earth but then admit it is highly unlikely based on the monitoring of electronic emissions called "reality shows"
They've discovered something which will be infinitely underwhelming to begin with, and debunked by other 'experts' who are either envious THEY didn't discover it first, or paid to oppose it by conservative/religious organizations who feel threatened by every scientific advance. Their announcement will be accompanied by qualifications and neverending caveats with promises to publish and have the discovery peer reviewed. Those peers will never agree and twenty years from now, it will mean nothing just like the martian meteorite.
Fact is, life is everywhere. The first Taikonaut to dig a shovel into the Martian soil will discover active organisms. I don't need some BS announcement to know it because I have common sense. If you wanna make a big announcement, make it big. Otherwise you're just the boy who cried wolf and people stop paying attention.
It looks like you don’t understand how the peer-review in science works for you to make that assumption. That there will be scientist opposing a new find does happen but it is because of peer-review that has allowed to confirm a new find when supported with empirical evidence. I don't know where you get that "those peer will never agree and in twenty years from now, it will mean nothing". The martian meteorite was inconclusive because the scientist failed to take into account some factors that could have given a false positive of bacteria in that rock. Last thing I heard is that their may be some surprising results.
By the way, I don’t agree with some religious or conservative ideas but your comment has made me defend them. Religious or conservatives don’t have a peer-review system, they only have opinions.
Given that water was recently discovered on Saturn's moon Rhea, I can't help but speculate if there was some form of hydro-carbon signature in their water readings there. Beyond that, the next best guess for me would be one of the Mars rovers found something, but since they've been on Mars for years now and nothing related to life has come from that (yet), I'm not so sure that's the real excitement at the moment.
Still, it will be interesting to see what happens on Thursday.
We haven heard anything new from the Kepler mission for a while,so just maybe another earth like planet,this one even more like earth.
Wake up you sheeple. It's just Santa on his annual run.
Carl Sagan would be ashamed of most of you!
Pluto is now a planet. Back to nine again.
I think they found some former Soviet Astronaut's underwear floating out there someplace, and using all there fabulous toys, have discovered life in it.
Much to do about nothing!
Planet X.
sorry, but this is all it is. interesting, but not news conference worthy IMO:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334628/Astrobiology-findings-Alien-bacteria-lives-arsenic-Californian-lake-opens-search-life-planets.html
That headline is horrible, nothing in NASA's comment about the upcoming announcement suggests they fount any type of Extra Terrestrial. They talk about a "finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." To me that, along with the people doing the announcement, says that they discovered some form of life on earth previously thought to be impossible or improbable and now they will have to adjust searches for life to account for that. Other than that maybe they discovered evidence of another form of bacterial life within our solar system and haven't confirmed it yet but they intend to adust previous search parameters to try and confirm it. It shouldn't be anything groundbreaking but at best it may provide further proof that life is by far more common that anyone previously estimated. That would make the chance of inteligent life developing (while previously high even considering only life as we know it and the unbelievable size of the universe) probably much higher than previously thought of as well.
common sense - you live up to your handle once again!
i do hope you found E.T. out thare. But i would be verry quiet about it thers no telling how the fundamentel aspect of our planet will handle it.
I don't think we as a civelised planet can handle such news that would shachk the foundations of our many religious beliefs.
tred softly i think ther are more who would curse the news then cheer it
It's fun to speculate but I'm trying not to get too excited. I'm sure it's going to be something more mundane. The posters who think it will have to do with the discovery of arsenic based life here on Earth have probably got it right.
While that's a very significant discovery, it is a little disappointing after all the exciting speculation.
Like many others, I believe we will discover methane and arsenic based life forms at some point and be astounded by the diversity in the universe.
But it would certainly be cool if the announcement were about arsenic based life on Mars or a comet or one of the moons of Saturn.
Only a less than blockbusting announcement would be able to be held top-secret until Thursday. If they discovered life on another planet (that wasn't accidentally dropped there by one of our rovers or satellites), someone will leak it to the press prior to the announcement for $$$$.
show me! otherwise yer a liar!
The finding is that we can make really great vodka from some of those alcohol-based nebulas!
Sweet!!!
If it is something at all, it would be secret. Just send them the money
....um Steve Jobs is an alien and he's gonna i-everything over the world?
lol the mars rocks found in the arctic didnt work out very well so heres nasa's next ploy to get ppl ro raise hell with the govt to raise funding for nasa
Watch shows such as "the event" - This is the way the infiltrators get the word out on the issues that the government is hiding. Like said in "Men in Black" the tabloids speak truth but we have been so conditioned to think that this is baloney that the truth can be spoken without us even realizing it.
Let me guess... you believe in Superman?
It may be possible to narrow the possibilities. It is unlikely to be just a proposal for novel biology; without data, such modeling warrants a journal article, not a press conference. The data from Titan are unlikely to be of sufficient quality and quantity to support anything other than novel and speculative theories of biological activity at Titan.
Best guess is the Mars methane mystery. Finding nonbiological explanations for the generation of methane and then its rapid seasonal disappearance is difficult. Might merit a presser, if they have new data analysis and a consistent model.
YAWN...........
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1334628/Astrobiology-findings-Alien-bacteria-lives-arsenic-Californian-lake-opens-search-life-planets.html
I wonder if someone should tell them that we already knew this... like, A DECADE AGO! There are extremophiles that live in lake Vostok 2,000 feet beneath the polar ice cap. NASA is completely useless and has resorted to shock-value press conferences in the hopes of securing program funding.