Hasta La Gadget!

You know this week’s to-do about the discovery of extra terrestrial that was supposed to be announced at today’s press conference? Well, after a build up, disappointment was really inevitable, right?

NASA sent out a note to the press yesterday announcing that it would,

[H]old a news conference at 11 a.m. PST on Thursday, Dec. 2, 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.

Naturally, the press ran with it, declaring that the organization had finally discovered alien life. The real announcement, however, was decidedly less sexy than that. The organization was actually referring to life right here on earth.

Scientists managed to “train” bacteria from California’s alkaline Mono Lake to subsist on arsenic, eventually trading its phosphorus atoms for that material. So, how does this relate to, you know, space?

Says astronomer Dimitar Sasselov of the discovery,

There is basic mystery, when you look at life. Nature only uses a restrictive set of molecules and chemical reactions out of many thousands available. This is our first glimmer that maybe there are other options.

Options like delicious arsenic, apparently. 

Did NASA find alien life? Well, no, not exactly. Don’t pay any attention those blown out of proportion headlines. Not yet, at least. The space agency is holding a press conference today will, at the very least, explore the possibility,

NASA will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. PST on Thursday, Dec. 2, 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.

What will they be discussing? The speculation at this point is just that–everything from evidence for life on Mars discovered by The Exploration Rover Spirit to the discovery of “a chemical model for life based on something other than oxygen and water,” according to the smart people that Yahoo spoke to.

The Incas and the Aztecs worshiped it. Ancient Europeans erected megaliths to it. Several civilizations based their calendars around it. Until now, however, no one has ever owned the sun.

Back in September, one Angeles Duran of Galicia, Spain took bold steps to change that. Following in the footsteps of an American man who claims to now own the moon, the 49-year-old Salvaterra do Mino resident registered ownership of the life-giving star at a notary public in her area.

The notarized document states that Duran is now the “owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers.”

Duran plans to charge for use of the sun. She won’t take all of the money herself, though. According to AFP, half of the money will go to Spain’s government, 20 percent will go to the country’s pension fund, 10 percent to research, 10 percent to world hunger. The other 10 she’ll keep for herself. 

A lady’s gotta make a living, after all.

On Gearlog, you’ll find a lot of coverage of the latest in the world of science and technology. But too often we neglect to cover the wide world of pseudo-science: power crystals, Yeti sightings, newest theories on the plane-eating aqua monsters who control the Bermuda Triangle.

Our bad.

So, in order to help correct this inherent bias towards logic and reason, here’s a video which incorporates audio from the popular radio program, Creation Moments. It’s like American Top 40 for home-school kids and rural hermits.

In this clip, the host brings up the point that astronomers–unexpectedly–found higher concentrations of light gases in the planet Jupiter than expected. 

Now, we could wait for Satan’s science nerds to go through their process of hypothesizing and testing to explain this allocation of gases in the solar system. But that would be boring. And it would be just as easy to find some bible passage that mentions words like “sun” or “star” and stretch its context and meaning beyond all recognition. And we have one! First Corinthians 15:41-49: “There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and
another glory of the stars: for one star differs from another star in
glory.”

Bam! So, now that the bible has been proven literally true, there’s no way we could have descended from a common ancestor to monkeys. Theory of Evolution, consider yourself pwned.

To most, that may seem like a desperate logical jump to support the literal truth of the translation of a 2,000-year-old text. But it’s what a frighteningly large minority takes as their basis for reality. 

Scientists have discovered around 500 planets thus far. Until now, however, all have originated within the Milky Way galaxy. For the first time ever, scientist discovered a planet from another galaxy. It’s not really that straightforward, however–while the planet and its star originated in another galaxy, it was subsequently cannibalized by our own.

The star, called HIP 13044, is roughly 2,000 light years away. It is part of the Helmi stream, a dwarf galaxy that was cannibalized by the Milky six to nine billion years ago. The planet–the first discovered that originated in another galaxy–is 20 percent larger than Jupiter.

HIP 13044 is actually a dead star, having used up all of the hydrogen in its core. It expanded to a massive size and has subsequently conctracted. It’s a rare instance of a planet surviving the death of its host store.