Leituras sobre o espaço

No sistema solar, há água por todo lado, e isso é uma boa notícia:

• MRO Radar Maps Extensive Subsurface Martian Ice | Universe Today

Especulações sobre outras espécies inteligentes e sobre a melhor metodologia de descobrir, de modo eficiente, planetas Terra à volta de estrelas anãs M:

• Human Compulsions Among the Stars|Centauri Dreams: "What are the odds for survival of a technological society? We don’t know yet, having but one example to work with, but it’s interesting to speculate, as Ray Villard does in a recent online post, about the kinds of intelligence that may evolve in the universe. All too often we equate technology with intelligence, which may skew our view of projects like SETI. Energized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego last week, Villard is thinking that intelligent life may have appeared on our planet not once but twice, and one of those life-forms is never going to be found by listening to radio wavelengths."

• Targeting Nearby M Dwarfs|Centauri Dreams: We’ve been talking for the last six years (since Centauri Dreams‘ inception) about finding a terrestrial world in the habitable zone of another star. It’s an exciting prospect, but the reality about space missions like Terrestrial Planet Finder and Darwin, each designed to make such identifications, is that the budget ax has fallen and we don’t know when they might fly. Indeed, we still face a host of technological difficulties that call for much work if the aim is not only to find a terrestrial world but also to study its atmosphere for possible biomarkers.