Space and Science

We don't need no stinkin' scientists! We've got Balloon Boy's dad analysing photos of the Mars rovers to prove that there is life on the Red planet. Check this video to see his startling findings:

In the video he asks "Am I nuts? Am I crazy?" I don't think he should be asking that question.

Spotting things in the rocks of Mars has been going on since the days of the Viking landers in the 70s. Remember the Face on Mars? That was a result of the low-resolution of that orbiter's cameras. Here are some high-resolution image of the "face" that you may not have seen. It sure doesn't look much like a face anymore.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists will just say these images are more evidence that the government is trying to supress the truth.

To add fuel to their paranoia, the British government recently made public some classified files that indicate Prime Minister Winston Churchill once covered-up a UFO sighting for fear it would cause public panic.

The truth is out there.

So is time travel even possible or is it just something that science fiction writers invented?

If you ask the scientists, it may indeed be theoretically possible. The problem is, there are different theories as to how it could be done.

Famous physicist Stephen Hawking has been speaking out on the subject recently, no longer afraid of being labelled a crank for his ideas on time travel. In this article, he looks at the idea of linking wormholes in space to travel to the past, but concludes that it is impossible to move backwards in time, but things by accelerating to a very fast speed we'd be able to travel to the future due to the effects of time dilation as you approach the speed of light. Unfortunately, it's a one-way trip.

While Hawking isn't sold on travelling through wormholes, others have not dismissed the idea entirely.

Another line of thinking is the quantum time machine. With such a device, you'd just change the variables in the mathematical equation defining time travel until one of them allowed it to be true. That sounds like a whole lot of theory. Don't ask anyone how that could actually be done.

This article goes explains the idea of quantum time travel in a little more detail, but it still sounds as improbable as journeying through worm holes or accelerating to the speed of light.

Let's just agree that the boffins believe that time travel is possible. It's just a long way from actually happening. For now the only way to travel into the future is to keep on doing what you're doing so that you will get there one minute at a time.

Our galaxy is teeming with Earth-like planets. As a science fiction fan, you probably already figured that was the case, but now there's some real science to prove that it's true.

In recent years, astronomers have been finding all sorts of exoplanets, but they are bizarre, gas giants orbiting close to their suns at tremendous speeds. The new Kepler Space Telescope can spot much smaller worlds and has already identified an amazing 140 candidates for planets that are Earth-like, at least in size.

Whether or not these worlds have atmospheres like ours or water is not known yet, but don't rule out the possibility that life may be there if those elements are not present. There are plenty of scientists who think you don't need water to harbour life.

For those of you who subscribe to the water=life theory, then you may be intrigued to learn that some experts believe that our neighbouring planet, Mars, once had 1/3 of its surface covered by oceans.

Perhaps movie director James Cameron will help us better understand the red planet. He's convinced NASA to let him film the place in 3D on one of their upcoming missions. Forget Avatar, this the Cameron movie I want to see!

Of course, the UFO conspiracists will tell you were wasting our time wondering whether or not life lives elsewhere in the universe. There's already a vast, government conspiracy covering up the UFO fact.

Don't tell me that this headline doesn't sound like the plot of a science fiction story: "Japan plans to build robot moon base by 2020." If you read the story, these aren't just any old robots. They are semi-autonomous, humanoid robots. You know how that story ends, don't you?

Meanwhile, NASA is working on a humanoid robot of its own called Robonaut2 which is slated to fly on one of the last space shuttle missions. It's part of their push to build all sorts of robots, humanoid or otherwise, to explore our solar system.

You and I probably won't be going to the moon any time soon, but if you are interested in lunar science, you might want to give Moon Zoo a look. It's an effort to harness the efforts of volunteers to organize some of the massive quantity of images collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

And speaking of images, here's a nice collection from the ongoing Cassini mission around Saturn. Chesley Bonestell would be proud.

Remember that record that scientists placed on the side of the Voyager 2 space probe as a message to aliens? Well, someone might have received it because the craft is sending back strange messages. Chances are the decades old probe has gone haywire and is sending garbled signals, but it would be nice to think that it was a message from aliens.

Meanwhile, SETI researchers continue to seek alien signals in more traditional ways, but some are starting to think that maybe those ways aren't the best. One idea is to put all of the radio telescope data and offering it to the public in the hopes that an open-source approach will come up with better ways to process the noise and find the alien signals that they hope are in there.

Closer to home, NASA is taking another look at that meteorite that allegedly had fossilized evidence of life on Mars.

If there's no life there, then the next best bet is Titan. It doesn't have any water, but it does have liquid cycle with methane and ethane which could very well be the basis of life for some alien creatures. Hal Clement could write a story showing you how it could be reality.

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking thinks its perfectly sensible to believe that there are intelligent aliens somewhere out there in the universe. He does warn us that we should not actually try to seek them out and announce our presence because he figures it would be a replay of when European colonists first arrived in North America and we're the Indians.

If aliens do show up and you happen to be the very first person they contact, then here are some first contact rules to consider. I don't think I like the part about getting killed, though.

Hawking does have some interesting theories and I don't think there's a microphone that he won't pass by to share those ideas with the world. Another of his recent statements is that human beings have entered a new phase of evolution that transcends natural selection. He believes that our capacity to manipulate our own genes means that mankind will be able to control its own evolutionary destiny.

National Geographic looked at human evolution and sees four other ways that our species can evolve and none of them involve genetic maniuplation. The four ways are 1) we've stopped evolving 2) natural selection will continue 3) we'll transform into electronic beings or 4) humans will expand outwards into space and will evolve into different species on different planets. I like that last one best, but I think that the more likely theory that will hold true is natural selection will continue.

U.S. President Barack Obama's original announcement that he was turning over the transport of astronauts to the private sector has changed somewhat. He's now vowing a renewed space program. Maybe astronauts will land on Mars in my lifetime after all, but I doubt it.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if private companies developed space travel as a profitable enterprise because they seem to be confident that they can.

The private-space transport scheme is essentially meant to be a way to ferry astronauts to the space station without American tax payers having to shell out a fortune to develop and maintain a replacement for the soon to be retired space shuttle.

If you've ever wondered what it's like to fly the space shuttle, here's a fascinating article written by a private pilot who was given some time on the same simulator used by the shuttle's real pilots. Talk about the ultimate video game.

For a slightly more challenging simulation, how about giving this software a go? It simulates the on-board guidance computers of the Apollo spacecraft. Now that's old-school.

It seems that a large segment of the world's population can't distinguish between science fiction and reality. A recent poll reveals that about one in five people around the world believe that aliens live among us. The number jumps to an astounding 45% of respondents in India and not far behind are the Chinese at 42%. Several European nations are a bit more sensible where only 8% believe such nonsense.

If aliens are here, though, there's already a website set up where they are encourage to email us in order to make contact. I can't say I ever remember reading any first contact stories where email was the prime method of communication between intergalactic species meeting for the first time.

If that many people believe that aliens are already here, how many must believe that they exist beyond our solar system? One UFO expert thinks that the subject of flying saucers should be a legitimate university subject. If you thought a degree in art history was a sure-fire ticket to a career at McDonald's, then I don't know what you could do with a bachelor's degree in UFOlogy.

If you want to get metaphysical for a moment and consider the chances of finding alien civilizations in our universe, this report may have increased the odds even more. Some scientists believe that every black hole in our universe is a gateway into another universe. Imagine the possibilities ...

Somehow it seems fitting on this day, Good Friday, to talk about being raised from the dead. I don't mean resurrection in the Biblical sense, but rather in the manner of a science fiction story, specifically being revived after cryogenic suspension.

No one has ever been brought back to life after having their body preserved, but that hasn't stopped people from having their remains frozen. Some have argued that if you plan things correctly, you'll wake up wealthy because you can bequeath your life insurance to yourself and collect it once you come back.

Needless to say, if anyone ever did collect, that would pretty much be the end of the life insurance business.

More likely than cryogenically preserving a dead person and reviving him is the idea of placing a living person in suspended animation and reviving them at a future date. One expert believes that the technology to do that is within our grasp.

Science fiction is filled with concepts like those which seem plausible and may one day be true. Human cloning is an example. Scientists have successfully cloned several animals, but no one has officially cloned a human yet, although many people have claimed to do it or claim to know how.

Moving away from biotechnology for a moment, another sci-fi trope is the idea of destroying or moving an asteroid in order to avoid a catastrophic collision with Earth. Move over Bruce Willis, one Russian scientist things we should not wait around for such an eventuality to happen, but actually go ahead and build a spaceship that will save us from disaster.

Scientists have been scanning the heavens for signs of alien life for 50 years now and there's no sign that anyone is out there. Some are starting to wonder if it is a waste of time while supporters say we've only begun to search a tiny fraction of the universe.

The guy who started it all, Frank Drake, is still around and has ambitious plans to continue his mission to seek out new life and civilizations, no matter how quixotic it might seem.

Drake, and others, say that one of the reasons we may not be detecting any radio signals and why no one may detect ours is that we're gradually switching over to digital forms of communication which don't propagate into outer space.

Our best bet for finding life, albeit not of the intelligent variety, remains in our own solar system. The usual suspects for such discoveries are Mars, Titan and Europa, but a new candidate is getting some attention and that's Saturn's moon Enceladus. Sounds like a world that's ready for the Ben Bova treatment!