I was also confused by this notion until it was explained to me that most common substances in the universe are hydrogen, helium, carbon and oxygen which, apart from the inert helium are the primary substances that make up life on earth.

So the theory then is that the most likely type of life found outside of the earth will also be carbon based and hence require the same substances, like water, to exist.

If you know what I mean.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the laws of physics have to change in order to go beyond known 92 natural elements?

Images From NASA Mars Rover Include Bright Spots


Bright Spot Toward Sun in Image from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover This image from the Navigation Camera (Navcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover includes a bright spot near the upper left corner. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

April 08, 2014

Images taken by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover on April 2 and April 3 include bright spots, which might be due to the sun glinting off a rock or cosmic rays striking the camera's detector.

The image from April 3, from Curiosity's Navigation Camera, is online at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA18077

The rover took the image just after arriving at a waypoint called "the Kimberley." The bright spot appears on a horizon, in the same west-northwest direction from the rover as the afternoon sun.

"In the thousands of images we've received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots nearly every week," said Justin Maki of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., leader of the team that built and operates the Navigation Camera. "These can be caused by cosmic-ray hits or sunlight glinting from rock surfaces, as the most likely explanations."

If the bright spots in the April 2 and April 3 images are from a glinting rock, the directions of the spots from the rover suggest the rock could be on a ridge about 175 yards (160 meters) from the rover's April 3 location.

The bright spots appear in images from the right-eye camera of the stereo Navcam, but not in images taken within one second of those by the left-eye camera. Maki said, "Normally we can quickly identify the likely source of a bright spot in an image based on whether or not it occurs in both images of a stereo pair. In this case, it's not as straightforward because of a blocked view from the second camera on the first day."

At the Kimberley and, later, at outcrops on the slope of Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, researchers plan to use Curiosity's science instruments to learn more about habitable past conditions and environmental changes.

[quote=NASA]Images From NASA Mars Rover Include Bright Spots

NASA have just released info that they were able to zoom in and render the image, to determine exactly what the bright spot was!



#thingstherbbinvented #rbbinventions

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the laws of physics have to change in order to go beyond known 92 natural elements?

You're right, there are 92 natural elements, not 98.

We know of 118 or so elements, synthetic or natural, but only 92 are found in nature, hence natural.

The laws of physics (or chemistry) would not have to change if we were to find Neptunium (the 93rd element - also the first synthetic one) in nature/space. After all, our describing of them as "natural" or "synthetic" is arbitrarily, as all of them are elements.

Back Up Computer Not Responding to Commands
April 11, 2014

The Mission Control team at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston confirmed Friday night that a backup computer on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS) called a Multiplexer-Demultiplexer (MDM) is not responding to commands. The station's MDM computers control some systems associated with robotics aboard the space station. The primary MDM operating aboard the space station is functioning normally and there is no immediate impact to space station operations. The computer outage does not pose a risk to the six crew members aboard the space station. ISS teams are assessing next steps to attempt to bring the computer back online or replace it. Replacing the backup MDM, if needed, would require a spacewalk. The backup MDM would provide redundancy for robotic systems that will be needed to attach the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft currently scheduled to launch on Monday and rendezvous with the ISS on Wednesday. NASA is continuing to work toward a Monday launch of the SpaceX cargo resupply mission pending further evaluations by the ISS Program.
The six-member Expedition 39 crew was off-duty Friday in recognition of Cosmonautics Day. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the International Space Station to congratulate the crew the day before Cosmonautics Day, April 12, the anniversary of the historic first human spaceflight by Yuri Gagarin.
The station is set for an orbital reboost Saturday morning when the ISS Progress 53 resupply craft, docked to the Zvezda service module, will fire its thrusters for 13 minutes, 32 seconds. This will put the orbital lab at the correct altitude for a crew swap in May.
Expedition 38/39 crew members Mikhail Tyurin, Koichi Wakata and Rick Mastracchio will return to Earth May 14 inside the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft. They will be replaced May 29 when the Expedition 40/41 crew of Maxim Suraev, Reid Wiseman and Alexander Gerst arrive inside the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft.
Another cargo ship is set for a launch to the space station on Monday at 4:48 p.m. EDT. The Dragon commercial cargo craft will liftoff atop a Falcon 9 rocket on the SpaceX-3 mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
The third Dragon capsule to visit the station will deliver about 5,000 pounds of gear and return 3,500 pounds of cargo, including science results for analysis, to Earth. When Dragon is captured and berthed to the Harmony node, there will be five space vehicles parked to the international space laboratory.

SpaceX-3 Launch Scrubbed Due to Helium Leak
April 14, 2014 - 5:11 PM EDT

SpaceX’s launch to the International Space Station was scrubbed today due to a helium leak on the Falcon 9 first stage. The next launch opportunity would be Friday, April 18 at 3:25 p.m. EDT if the issue can be resolved.

Look closely! Our Curiosity Mars rover and its tracks are visible in this view from orbit, acquired on April 11 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The rover is near the largest butte in the lower left quadrant of the image, at about a two o'clock position relative to the butte. It appears bright blue in the exaggerated color of this image. Curiosity entered the area included in this image on March 12, along the tracks visible near the upper left corner.

The multi-layered location filling much of the left half of this image is called "the Kimberley." Curiosity's science team chose it, based on other HiRISE images, as a potential gold mine for the rover mission. Black gold, that is, as organic material that, if found at the Kimberley could be a biomarker (sign of past life) -- the holy grail of Mars exploration.

Kepler-186f (Photo: Courtesy)

-Mirror
Michigan, USA: Kepler-186f is almost exactly the same size as the Earth and has temperatures that are mild enough to allow liquid surface water .

Scientists have discovered a new planet which is extremely similar to Earth and could be home to extraterrestrial life.
Kepler-186f is almost exactly the same size as the Earth and has temperatures that are mild enough to allow liquid surface water.

If the planet has lakes or oceans, scientists say it would increase the chances of extraterrestrial life evolving there.
But anything living on the world may have to withstand extra large doses of radiation from its active sun.

The find is described in the journal Science as "a landmark on the road to discovering habitable planets".

Professor Fred Adams, from the University of Michigan in the US, said: "One of the most interesting questions in science is whether life can arise on other planets or, alternatively, if life on this planet is unique.

"The discovery of planets with Earth-like properties is one important link in the chain required to answer this question. And the discovery of the planet Kepler-186f is an important step toward finding a planet that is like our Earth."

Kepler-186 is an "M-dwarf" star 795 light years away that is smaller and cooler than the Sun.

It is orbited by a family of five known planets. Kepler-186f, the latest to be discovered, is the outermost. Because its star is cooler than ours, it occupies a habitable zone closer in than the sun's.

The planet was found by astronomers scouring the Sun's neighbourhood of the Milky Way galaxy for potentially habitable worlds.

Using the American space agency Nasa's Kepler space telescope, they measured the very tiny dimming that occurs when a planet crosses or "transits" in front of its star.

The transit information allowed them to calculate the planet's size and estimate its mass and density.

Kepler-186f was found to be just 0.1 times bigger than the Earth. While habitable zone planets have been identified around other stars, none of them so closely match the Earth in size.

US astronomer Dr Stephen Kane, a member of the Kepler team, said: "Some people call these habitable planets, which of course we have no idea if they are. We simply know that they are in the habitable zone, and that is the best place to start looking for habitable planets.

"What we've learned, just over the past few years, is that there is a definite transition which occurs around about 1.5 Earth radii. What happens there is that for radii between 1.5 and two Earth radii, the planet becomes massive enough that it starts to accumulate a very thick hydrogen and helium atmosphere, so it starts to resemble the gas giants of our solar system rather than anything else that we see as terrestrial."

The habitable zone has also been called the "Goldilocks" zone, because conditions there are not too hot or too cold but "just right" to permit liquid surface water and, possibly, life.

Of our two closest neighbours in the Solar System, Mars is just "too cold" and its water is locked up as ice, while Venus orbits closer to the Sun than the Earth and is "too hot".

Kepler-186f seems to orbit the outer edge of its habitable zone. However, being slightly larger than the Earth means it is likely to have a thick insulating atmosphere that would stop its surface water freezing.

Small stars such as Kepler-186 live a lot longer than larger stars, providing more time for biological evolution to take place. This makes them promising places to look for life, according to Dr Kane.

On the other hand small stars tend to be more active than the Sun and liable to produce more solar flares and potentially harmful radiation.

http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/mobile/?articleID=2000109679&story_title=New%20%27Earth-like%20planet%27%20discovered/business/

Expedition 39 is finalizing preparations for a 2.5 hour spacewalk scheduled to begin at 9:20 a.m. EDT today.. Spacewalkers Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio will install a spare backup computer on the S0 truss located on top of the Destiny laboratory module. They will remove the old computer which failed April 11 after being shut down then restarted for a periodic health check.

Watch Live on NASA TV

Would watch but my internet is capped=\

Space Selfie! It's been said that it's difficult to get a good selfie while wearing a spacesuit, but an astronaut snapped this one during a spacewalk on April 23 outside the International Space Station! Astronauts Steve Swanson and Rick Mastracchio completed a short spacewalk to replace a failed Multiplexer/Demultiplexer (MDM) back up computer. The backup computer failed April 11 after a routine health check by the Mission Control team in Houston.