"Page One" Story of the Century? NASA May Announce Thursday to Have Found Extraterrestrial Life

NASA has called a 2 p.m. news conference for Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." The group includes Pamela Conrad, author of a paper on geology and life on Mars; and James Elser, an Arizona State University professor involved in a NASA-funded program that emphasizes looking at the chemistry of environments where life evolves (and not just looking at water or carbon or oxygen); Felisa Wolfe-Simon (an oceanographer) has written extensively on photosynthesis using arsenic recently (she worked on the team mentioned in this article); Steven Benner (a biologist) is on the "Titan Team" at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; they're looking at Titan (Saturn's largest moon) as an early-Earth-like chemical environment. This is likely related to the Cassini mission.

The space agency did not release more details, but the list of news conference participants is telling, according to blogger Jason Kottke.

"So, if I had to guess at what NASA is going to reveal on Thursday, I'd say that they've discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis (by following the elements)," Kottke wrote.

We'll find out in short order...

Casey Kazan via Kotte.org

Comments

[Jim]

Don't we think it is kind of weird that nasa, corrupt governments, corrupt mainstream etc are still going on with this lie while virtually the whole population, or anyone whos had interest in the truth has found it?..We, the people, know what has been going on the past few million years. I mean..you look at the Bible and the first reference to our creator/s is the "Elohim" which translates directly to "those who came from the sky". With this fact alone, you can find the truth. If you've been brainwashed to forget and to think that you are a mere creature you must rewind and go back to the SOURCE to find the truth. There are thousands of planets right around us that many of us have lived on for many lives, without remembering! Wake up!

[astro guy]

cool story bro.

In other news, this would be pretty cool but until we physically go there to collect samples and prove it...

[Bob Dobbs]

The atmosphere appears green. Will the "Little Green Men" comments make more sense now?

[Bob Greenwade]

I'm with astro guy. News of any kind of life -- even just microbes -- on Titan would be utterly massive, but to be truly "confirmed" a probe would have to land on that moon and find it in a first-hand manner. Short of that, it's just "elements of life," with other possible explanations.

[Paul Buckley]

How can you possibly speculate like this? Aren't you supposed to represent SCIENCE? This is sensationalism at its best.

Be sure to notify Entertainment Tonight of your pronouncement. Get a quote from some actor to be sure you get some air time.

Sheesh.

[Antonio Sequeira]

According to Alexis Madrigal, the answer to the hyperbolic question in the headline is "no".

"I'm sad to quell some of the @kottke-induced excitement about possible extraterrestrial life. I've seen the Science paper. It's not that."

this can be found in it's twitter page.

[Alex]

It's a pretty exciting idea.

Cassini + Titan + Speculative exo-biologists + NASA news conference = evidence of life (or at least more complex organic compounds)

I don't think they're going to announce microbes or anything like that, but certainly the fact that they feel the need to have a press conference means that the prospects for life on Titan have just increased drastically. I'll be holding my breath to see what they've found.

If, after all the false ET articles the DG has run, they don't get at least a transcript of the press conference I'm gonna be really dissapointed. They always seem to miss out on the real news, somehow...

[astro guy]

maybe they feel that sensationalizing it just a bit like this is one route towards securing funding for a sample taking expedition? you have to get people up and excited about what might possibly be found there, otherwise we might never know.

[bob]

It's just a global warming announcement.

[Allan W Janssen]

Hey Jim........ blow it out your ass!

[Marco]

Has anyone made the connection that both Titan and Terra have atmospheres and liquid water? And have the same number of letters in their name, INCLUDING starting with a T. Also, if you re-arrange the letters in Titan, you get Antit, as in, "Antit cool that there's life on Titan?" The evidence has been there all along, but it is being covered up for some nefarious purpose, probably involving Obama's birth certificate. Wake up, people!

[Observer]

Don't see anything fantastic about this, the odds have always been that humans are not the only life in the Universe.

[Observer]

Don't see anything fantastic about this, the odds have always been that humans are not the only life in the Universe.

[dax]

lets be fair to nasa. say they have some pretty good evidence that there are some little buggys up there making arsenic or something. im okay with a little sensationalism if it will increase their funding to go and check this out. I mean, if done right, maybe all the religious folks would foot the bill to go disprove it? deliver the first book of fairytales to a distant planet. get a head start on 'em. "three celled flagelettes for christ"

[Jim]

WE must all realize that what you hear is not necessarily the truth. You hear of all these crazy religious folks, but do you see them personally?..in the first person?..All mainstream stories are built up to what they are trying to inject into your thoughts...don't be fooled. Nasa is a sad group of people who are dedicated to their work and many of them think that they are really discovering things...i guess..virtually the whole planet thinks like this..but we can and have proved with 100% evidence (thousands of whistle blowers) that Nasa is lying/holding back the truth of who we are in contact with aka who we really are. These re-discoveries are not discoveries. We are being messed with on this planet by the elite/illuminati.

[Kallex Wolf]

Perhaps a significant announcement will keep NASA flush with enough cash to continue one of mankind's most noble endeavors, but with Republicans now controlling the purse strings more than likely that potential cash will just get shoveled to the rich and another batch of scientists will wind up flipping burgers for a living.

[John A]

-...many of them think that they are really discovering things...i guess..virtually the whole planet thinks like this..-

Yes Jim, virtually the whole, educated world.

I like the Illuminati angle.

I'd come join your commune, but I have to stay under my dining room table with my aluminum foil hat on. If my wife reads this, honey please come back. I'm hungry and I need you to keep the Z rays away while I take a shower.

[Vyas Chady]

Hey Jim, can I add you to my Facebook. I need to share some info with you.

[Vyas Chady]

Hey Jim, can I add you to my Facebook. I need to share some info with you.

[Vyas Chady]

Hey Jim, can I add you to my Facebook. I need to share some info with you.

[Vyas Chady]

Of course its more drama, to score some more cash, how else. That's all our society is these days. Everything is backward, doctors destroys health, university destroys education, law destroy justice, government destroy freedom, religion destroy spirituality, media destroy information. That's the ways that we created it. If you don't freaking wake then be enslaved. And let your children be enslaved. I don't understand how deep are you people stuck into that illusion. I don't mean Jim and Kallex.

[Observer]

@Vyas Chady are you going to sell Jim another tin foil hat to go over his existing one ?

[StanTheManUnMusial]

Jimbo's yammeering bespeaks a brain constructed just like Du(m)bya's, Sarah's, Christine's, Sharron's, Glenn's, ...: two synapses connected by a spirochaete.

[StanTheManUnMusial]

Make that ""yammering," not "yammeering."

[Andrew T]

I have my doubts about the probability of life on Titan. It's possible I suppose; there's some interesting chemistry there. But the frigid temperatures would seem to make most chemical reactions go too slowly to be useful. Single-celled microbes took about a billion years to evolve on Earth. It could take ten times that long on a place as cold as Titan, and that's assuming it could use liquid methane as a medium in place of liquid water.

I would be very surprised if NASA announced definitively that they had found life. A finding like that would certainly need more backing in terms of data. But yeah, I guess we'll find out Thursday.

Sad to see the comments by the True Believers™ in conspiracy theories and woo. This should be a forum for science, not the Art Bell show.