From DATELINE ZERO – Actually, they made an announcement that some big announcement is coming. What could the coming announcement could be? We’ll have to wait ’til 2 p.m. EST, on Dec. 2 for the press conference.
In the meantime, there’s all manner of speculation floating all over that series of tubes call the inter-webs. Two of the biggest topics of speculation include a possible confirmation of the mysterious Planet X, and — naturally — extraterrestrials.
NASA may soon confirm planet “X”
Our sun may have a companion that disturbs comets from the edge of the solar system — a giant planet with up to four times the mass of Jupiter, researchers suggest.
A NASA space telescope launched last year may soon detect such a stealth companion to our sun, if it actually exists, in the distant icy realm of the comet-birthing Oort cloud, which surrounds our solar system with billions of icy objects.
The potential jumbo Jupiter would likely be a world so frigid it is difficult to spot, researchers said. It could be found up to 30,000 astronomical units from the sun.
– Space.com
NASA creates buzz with ‘extraterrestrial’ announcement
The US space agency has created a buzz with its announcement of a press conference Thursday to discuss a scientific finding that relates to the hunt for life beyond the planet Earth.
“NASA will hold a news conference at 2 pm EST (1900 GMT) on Thursday, December 2, to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life,” it said on its website.
Space enthusiasts and believers in alien life took to the blogosphere in a flurry of speculation over the potential meaning of the announcement, though NASA declined to elaborate further.
–Raw Story
Rumor Roundup: Has NASA Discovered Alien Life?
The concept of NASA discussing alien life has everyone a-Twitter. Gawker, PC World, New Scientist and others have all speculated about the news — even suggesting that the space agency may reveal that E.T. has finally arrived.
The reality may be less dramatic, though still intriguing: Based on the background of the four conference participants NASA cites, the announcement will probably concern lifeforms that live off of poisonous arsenic. Popular blogger Jason Kottke and others have concluded that the announcement will tie into the quest for life on Saturn’s moon Titan.
“I’d say that they’ve discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis,” Kottke theorizes, a hypothesis short of actually confirming alien life.
He notes that geobiologist Pamela Conrad was the primary author of a 2009 paper on geology and life on Mars, while oceanographer Felisa Wolfe-Simon has written extensively on photosynthesis using arsenic. Biologist Steven Benner is on the “Titan Team” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory; they’re looking at Saturn’s largest moon as an early-Earth-like chemical
environment. And ecologist James Elser is involved with a NASA-funded astrobiology program called Follow the Elements, which studies the chemistry of environments where life evolves, not just water, carbon or oxygen.Despite the hype and rumors, Phil Plait of Discover Magazine urged rational calm, noting that an announcement of the discovery of extraterrestrial life “seems really unlikely.” Plait called overreactions par for the course, citing a June press release about the lack of acetlyne in Titan’s atmosphere “that sparked vast speculation.”
“Even though the press release was clear enough, it was misleadingly reported as NASA finding sings of life on Titan,” Plait wrote.
Forbes blogger Brian Caulfield agreed, noting that “Thursday’s news is probably a big deal” but “probably just not that big a deal.”
–FOX News
