In the never-ending search for life beyond Earth, astronomers tend to look far, far away, but it seems our closest neighbor may have once been a habitable world, too. No, I’m not talking about Mars, but the Moon. According to a new study published in the journal Astrobiology, Earth’s moon may have been a pretty nice place for life to take root many ages ago.
In the study (PDF), researchers suggest that conditions on the Moon a few billion years ago could have been life-supporting. The Moon was a very different place then, and rather than desolate, dusty expanses of nothingness we see today, the sphere was actually bustling with geological activity
In the period immediately following the formation of the Moon, it was likely producing an abundance of water vapor which, scientists say, may have been enough for larger bodies of water to collect on its surface. Combined with other gasses released by the young moon, an atmosphere likely formed that would have offered protection against solar radiation that would have snuffed out new life.
Obviously, things are much different on the Moon today, and it’s been billions of years since it would have been capable of supporting life as we know it. However, it’s quite interesting to imagine that Earth’s trusty satellite could have had an ecosystem all its own. – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]Astronomers oftentimes have to look very, very carefully for something that they believe exists in a certain spot in space. Whether that be an exoplanet orbiting a distant star or perhaps a still-unseen planet lurking at the edge of the Solar System, it’s a challenging endeavor. But every so often, the planets seem to align (no pun intended) and a new discovery just falls right into their laps.
That seems to be what happened to astronomers working at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, where a planned survey of trans-neptunian objects was interrupted by Jupiter. The massive gas giant began muscling in on the telescope’s line of sight, and in doing so, revealed a few secrets of its own.
Rather than delay their work, the researchers decided to pivot to studying moons of Jupiter which had flown into their gaze. In doing so, the scientists noticed not one, not two, but a full 12 totally new moons whose orbits hadn’t yet been documented, bringing the total number of the planet’s moons up to a whopping 79.
The scientists note that they were able to discover these new moons thanks to the lower detection threshold of the telescope. “We were able to go a little bit fainter than anyone has been able to go in the past,” Scott Sheppard of Carnegie Institution for Science told the Washington Post, “That’s why we were able to find these new moons.” – READ MORE
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