Update on Gliese 581g

You may recall that earlier this month a team of US researchers led by astronomer Steven Vogt of the University of California, Santa Cruz, announced that they had discovered a fifth planet in a system orbiting a Red Dwarf (Gliese581) located around 20 light years from earth. More importantly, the planet (officially designated Gliese 581g) was believed to be orbiting it's parent star in it's so called habitable or "Goldilocks" zone, and was therefore deemed capable of sustaining life and dubbed the "most Earth-like" exoplanet ever discovered.

Lead astronomer Steven Vogt took his own his own speculations about the planet even further, publicly stating his belief that the chances of life on the newly discovered planet was 100 percent and in a subsequent interview with i09, renaming the new planet "Zarmina" after his wife, before moving on to described what life and even a human colony might be like on the surface of the tidally locked planet.

Well, as you may already be aware. A group of Swiss researches attempting to confirm the findings of the US research team, announced earlier this week that they had been unable to find any reliable sign of a fifth planet located in Gliese's habitable zone.

Oops.

While this announcement doesn't necessarily mean the existence of the planet won't eventually be confirmed, a complete analysis of the data used to make the discovery-which was collected over a period of eleven years- will take some time, possibly several years, to complete.

-CAINE-

Source:Science/AAAS via:80 Beats

Titan's Atmosphere Could Be Producing the Basic Ingredients For Life

There are many theories about how exactly life began on our planet. The most commonly held belief of course, is that life began in the oceans. But a recent experiment using radio waves to simulate the effects of ultraviolet radiation from the sun striking the top of Saturn's largest moon Titan's thick atmosphere, has shown that life may actually have begun in the sky.

The experiment showed that when the ultraviolet radiation strikes Titan's atmosphere it can break apart molecules in the air, like molecular nitrogen and methane, leading to the production of amino acids and the nucleotide bases which make up DNA and RNA, without the need for liquid water.

More than merely having the potential to redefine how life began on earth, as if that weren't enough, if researchers could confirm the presence of nucleotide bases and amino acids in Titan's atmosphere, it would be one more piece of evidence pointing to the possible existence of life on Titan itself. Which is already seen by many as a potential home for some, perhaps alternative, form of life.

According to planetary scientist Jonathan Lunine, Cassini has already detected heavy ions in Titan's atmosphere which could potentially be the Nucleotide bases and amino acids found in the study, but the particles were too large for Cassini's instruments to identify. Lunine says that confirming these particles are actually being produced in Titan’s atmosphere will require an orbiter that can carry instruments 100 to 200 kilometers deeper than Cassini does into Titan’s haze layer.

-CAINE-

Source:Wired Science

For more about the potential for life on Titan read: Methanogenic Life on Titan?

The Answer is 42

Cryptids: The Tale of Mothman

One of the more absurd yet persistent modern cryptids, Mothman is described as a large six and a half to seven foot tall, humanoid figure, sometimes headless with eyes in it's chest, brown or grey in color, with large wings, and glowing red eyes.

The tale of Mothman begins in 1966 near Point Pleasant West Virginia where a group of grave diggers first claimed to have seen a dark brown "man-like" creature flying above the trees as they worked. The next day, another man claimed to have seen the creature standing in a field and late the following night, the most well known and most detailed encounter with the creature took place seven miles outside of Point Pleasant at the site of an abandoned WWII TNT factory.

That night, two young couples and their cousin "out for a drive" on a dark country road, claimed to have seen the creature while driving past an abandoned TNT factory. The group claimed they stopped to investigate what they then believed to be two strange red lights by an old generator plant which, Upon closer examination, they found to be the glowing red eyes of a seven foot tall creature with a pair of large wings folded behind it's back. Terrified, the group fled the scene and drove all the way back to the city limits with the creature taking flight and giving chase at speeds exceeding 100mph.

Over the next few weeks a handful of other witness would come forward to describe brief encounters with the creature in fields, or seeing it lurking in the tops of trees, but nothing as spectacular as the account given by the group from the TNT factory. Eventually, the tales of these encounters would make their way to the local papers, where a Batman inspired reporter would first dub the creature described in the encounters as Mothman

This is where the verifiable accounts-by which I mean claimed sightings that can be proven to have been made in 1966 and not years after the fact- come to an end. And even these accounts have been confused and embellished over the years thanks to books and movies on the subject, as well as the general erosion of memory that comes with the passage of time, making it hard to know exactly which version of any one encounter is accurate.

As for a natural explanation, like most cryptids
Mothman's true origin is likely the simple misidentification of some other know animal. The most likely cantidate in this case, as first suggested by Joe Nickell, is the barred owl.

Though admittedly on the small side, the barred owl can appear either brown or grey in color, could easily be perceived as headless with eyes in it's chest, due to the birds shoulderless frame, has large eyes which could be seen as glowing red when reflecting light thanks to the animals night vision, and most tellingly of all, bears an obvious resemblance to this early eyewitness sketch of Mothman. The times and places where the original sightings are said to have taken place also paint the barred owl as a likely suspect for the real Mothman.

Mimas, Moon? Or Death Star? You Decide.

A message for DominatorPS3,



Remember-Trust No one!

-SPOOKY-

Speaking of Conspiracies, NASA "Caught" Photoshopping an Image of Saturn's Moons

This image of Saturn's moons Titan, the large yellowish moon in the background, and Dione in the foreground, was taken earlier this year by the Casini craft orbiting Saturn. But one man says that before NASA photo shopped out the additional details, this image contained much more than just the spectacular sight of one extraterrstrial moon passing in front of another.

Identified by Fox "News" ( they're a real network you know ) only by his YouTube user name, "DominatorPS3". This anonymous truth seeker posted a video on you tube in which he adjusted the contrast on the image making the Photoshop brush marks in the shaded area of Dione, along with the remnants of a red and green halo around the edge of the moon, clearly visible. A find which Dominator described as: "More solid proof of NASA/government cover-ups," Ya, Of course it is.


1) The raw data for Casini's images can be found on THIS super secrete NASA website which I "uncovered" by googling the words: "Casini images raw data". But, in order to trust even the raw data you'd first have to believe that NASA hadn't altered it as well, which is a leap of faith I'm sure the Dominator isn't willing to make. So we'll just move on to point number two.

2) If you take even a moment to read about the images produced by Casini and basically every other piece of observational equipment ever to produce a full color image of an object in space. Then you know that the images typically exists as individual sets of raw data in different spectrums which must then be combined to create a single full color, or "composite" image. Not surprisingly, an issue with this very process is exactly the explanation given for the anomalies in the image by the person responsible for the manipulation, Emily Lakdawalla, who told a forum full of conspiracy theorists:

"Cassini takes color pictures by snapping three sequential photos through red, green and blue filters," she said. "In the time that separated the three frames, Dione moved, so if I did a simple color composite I would be able to make Titan look right, but not Dione; or Dione look right, but not Titan. So I aligned Dione, cut it out, and then aligned Titan," Lakdwalla explained, "and then had to account for the missing bits of shadow where the bits of Dione had been in two of the three channels."

She even went on to explain the process in great detail on Planetary.org, but to no avail, as Dominator himself soon responded to her post,

"Thanks for the feedback and explanation, However I still remain skeptical, because someone still could have ordered her to 'cut it or something out. But thanks for putting that info up so others can read it; I am not trying to convince people what I believe,"

3) finally, let's assume for a minute that PS3 man's theory was actually correct, which it isn't, and the government had decided to Photoshop out evidence of an alien civilization on Dione, or the klingon battle cruiser orbiting the moon, or whatever the hell it is that he believes was removed from the image. Do you really think they'd have done such a poor job of hiding their work that anyone with their contrast turned up a little too high would notice the sloppy brushstrokes, not to mention the colored halos they left behind?

As for DominatorPS3 himself, he decided to remove the original video that kicked this whole thing off from his YouTube channel, sighting the hate mail he received along with non-specific threats which he "can't go into", I'm sure you can see where this is going right?. He has since posted a second video of himself demonstrating his astonishing find via his PS3 which you can easily find on YouTube if you are so inclined but I won't be linking to it here as I would like the fifteen minutes he's clearly chasing come to an end as soon as possible.

-CAINE-

Source:i09

Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI; Color composite: Emily Lakdawalla