Astronomers testing techniques to search for extraterrestrial life have detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet 63 light-years away.
This carbon dioxide, though, is certainly not coming from plants or automobiles. The planet, HD 189733b, is far too big (about the mass of the Jupiter) and too hot (1,700 degrees Fahrenheit) for any possibility of life.
“It’s really a proof of concept of using CO2 as a biomarker,” said Mark R. Swain, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who led the team that made the discovery.
The findings will appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
This year, astronomers including Dr. Swain’s group reported finding water vapor and methane swirling around HD 189733b. And in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, a different group of astronomers, led by Carl J. Grillmair of the California Institute of Technology, now report that they, too, have detected water around the same planet, using a technique more precise than that used in earlier research.
As seen from Earth, HD 189733b passes directly in front of and behind its parent star as it orbits. Taking advantage of those eclipses, Dr. Swain’s group used the Hubble Space Telescope to compare the near-infrared light from the star alone (when the planet was hidden behind it) with the combined light from both.
The difference between the two spectrums revealed the light emitted from the planet, and the mix of colors in the planet’s light contained the telltale signs of carbon dioxide at concentrations of between one part per million and one part per 10 million, compared with Earth at about 385 parts per million.
Even that much carbon dioxide was a bit of a surprise, because the simplest chemistry equations predicted that carbon would prefer to form carbon monoxide or methane molecules. One possibility is that the intense ultraviolet radiation from the star, just three million miles away, is spurring chemical reactions to produce the observed carbon dioxide.
“The theorists will have no problem explaining it,” said L. Drake Deming, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a member of Dr. Swain’s team.
Meanwhile, the detection of water by Dr. Grillmair’s team, using a similar technique but with longer-wavelength infrared emissions detected by the Spitzer Space Telescope, confirms what had been expected: hydrogen and oxygen are two of the most common elements in the universe, and they readily combine into water.
“This result basically confirms what the theoreticians have been saying for a number of years,” Dr. Grillmair said. “There should be a huge amount of water in these atmospheres, and it looks like there is.”
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Shuttle makes pit stop in Texas on way to Florida
BIGGS ARMY AIRFIELD, Texas (AP) — The space shuttle Endeavour is making a pit stop in Texas on its way home to Cape Canaveral, Fla.
A jumbo jet with the shuttle riding piggyback left Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday morning. The aircraft is scheduled to stay overnight at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth and then leave Thursday at sunrise.
The shuttle, depending on weather, will arrive at Kennedy Space Center in Florida either Thursday or Friday.
Endeavour was supposed to leave California on Sunday, but a technical delay and bad weather postponed the trip.
The shuttle landed in California on Nov. 30 because storms hit the main Florida landing site. The cross-country ferry costs more than $1.8 million
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A jumbo jet with the shuttle riding piggyback left Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Wednesday morning. The aircraft is scheduled to stay overnight at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth and then leave Thursday at sunrise.
The shuttle, depending on weather, will arrive at Kennedy Space Center in Florida either Thursday or Friday.
Endeavour was supposed to leave California on Sunday, but a technical delay and bad weather postponed the trip.
The shuttle landed in California on Nov. 30 because storms hit the main Florida landing site. The cross-country ferry costs more than $1.8 million
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White House Opposes FCC Free Wireless Internet Plan
WASHINGTON – Bush administration officials are trying to put the brakes on the Federal Communications Commission's plan to encourage a free, national wireless Internet plan, which the agency could approve next week.
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez sent a letter to the agency's Republican chairman Wednesday afternoon expressing the administration's displeasure with the idea.
"The administration believes that the (airwaves) should be auctioned without price or product mandate," Mr. Gutierrez wrote. "The history of FCC spectrum auctions has shown that the potential for problems increases in instances where licensing is overly prescriptive or designed around unproven business models."
Outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin hopes to win approval for his plan next week, at one of the last FCC meetings he will chair.
Mr. Martin has proposed auctioning off some airwaves for a new, national wireless broadband service next year. The winner of the auction would be required to offer free wireless Internet access across the country within a few years on a portion of those airwaves.
The free, advertising-supported service wouldn't necessarily be speedy – it would be faster than dial-up, slower than most cable broadband offerings -- and would come equipped with a smut-filter to keep children 18 and younger from viewing porn and other racy fare. The winner of the auction could offer a higher-speed subscription service on the rest of the airwaves.
Mr. Martin's proposal is similar to a plan proposed by the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed startup M2Z Networks. The FCC is scheduled to vote on the plan Dec. 18.
The wireless phone industry is strongly opposed to the plan and raised questions about the ability of any new wireless provider to raise enough capital to build out a new national wireless network. Free speech advocates, meanwhile, have raised concerns about the smut-filter.
Mr. Martin says the plan could result in a new competitor in the wireless broadband market and could help solve broad concerns about the lack of affordable high-speed Internet service across the U.S. The free wireless Internet plan is one of several proposals Mr. Martin has championed in the past year to encourage the spread of high-speed Internet service.
"We're reviewing the letter and it seems very similar to what CTIA [the wireless industry association] had put forth recently. We agree that market forces should help drive competition but we also believe that providing free basic broadband to consumers is a good thing," said Robert Kenny, an FCC spokesman.
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Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez sent a letter to the agency's Republican chairman Wednesday afternoon expressing the administration's displeasure with the idea.
"The administration believes that the (airwaves) should be auctioned without price or product mandate," Mr. Gutierrez wrote. "The history of FCC spectrum auctions has shown that the potential for problems increases in instances where licensing is overly prescriptive or designed around unproven business models."
Outgoing FCC Chairman Kevin Martin hopes to win approval for his plan next week, at one of the last FCC meetings he will chair.
Mr. Martin has proposed auctioning off some airwaves for a new, national wireless broadband service next year. The winner of the auction would be required to offer free wireless Internet access across the country within a few years on a portion of those airwaves.
The free, advertising-supported service wouldn't necessarily be speedy – it would be faster than dial-up, slower than most cable broadband offerings -- and would come equipped with a smut-filter to keep children 18 and younger from viewing porn and other racy fare. The winner of the auction could offer a higher-speed subscription service on the rest of the airwaves.
Mr. Martin's proposal is similar to a plan proposed by the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers-backed startup M2Z Networks. The FCC is scheduled to vote on the plan Dec. 18.
The wireless phone industry is strongly opposed to the plan and raised questions about the ability of any new wireless provider to raise enough capital to build out a new national wireless network. Free speech advocates, meanwhile, have raised concerns about the smut-filter.
Mr. Martin says the plan could result in a new competitor in the wireless broadband market and could help solve broad concerns about the lack of affordable high-speed Internet service across the U.S. The free wireless Internet plan is one of several proposals Mr. Martin has championed in the past year to encourage the spread of high-speed Internet service.
"We're reviewing the letter and it seems very similar to what CTIA [the wireless industry association] had put forth recently. We agree that market forces should help drive competition but we also believe that providing free basic broadband to consumers is a good thing," said Robert Kenny, an FCC spokesman.
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Search Anonymization: More Hot Air from Microsoft
Microsoft announced recently that it is willing to abide by European guidelines that say search engines shouldn't keep personally identifiable search data beyond six months -- as long as other search engines like Google play along too. The announcement got a lot of press, but what's the real news here? Microsoft isn't going to do anything, unless everybody else does. As with a lot of things Microsoft, especially when it comes to the search realm, the news is more marketing hot air than tangible reality.
As it stands today, Microsoft keeps sensitive search data for 18 months, twice as long as Google currently does (although Google's new 9-month rule is also a bit slippery in terms of the actual anonymity it provides). Why didn't Microsoft just agree to meet Google at 9 months, or even to meet Yahoo's 13-month limit, and then have everyone work together to get to the European's stated goal of 6 months? Because it can't. It's still a distant third in the search engine wars, even in Europe, and it can't afford to concede anything that may further erode its position. Although it currently keeps personally identifiable data twice as long as Google, it hasn't been able to leverage that fact to improve its search algorithm and make a stronger run at search leadership. It can hardly retain less data and hope for a better result.
Microsoft has made some smart moves when it comes to search, the most recent of which was last week's hiring of Yahoo search guru Qi Lu to run its Online Services Group. But it's all probably a bit too little, too late.
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As it stands today, Microsoft keeps sensitive search data for 18 months, twice as long as Google currently does (although Google's new 9-month rule is also a bit slippery in terms of the actual anonymity it provides). Why didn't Microsoft just agree to meet Google at 9 months, or even to meet Yahoo's 13-month limit, and then have everyone work together to get to the European's stated goal of 6 months? Because it can't. It's still a distant third in the search engine wars, even in Europe, and it can't afford to concede anything that may further erode its position. Although it currently keeps personally identifiable data twice as long as Google, it hasn't been able to leverage that fact to improve its search algorithm and make a stronger run at search leadership. It can hardly retain less data and hope for a better result.
Microsoft has made some smart moves when it comes to search, the most recent of which was last week's hiring of Yahoo search guru Qi Lu to run its Online Services Group. But it's all probably a bit too little, too late.
Read Article pcworld.com
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