Are we alone in the universe? Findings by NASA's Kepler space telescope are making that seem less likely. Only six weeks after it began operating in 2010, NASA announced its new Kepler orbiting telescope had helped do something startling -- the discovery of 700 new planets. Most were big, gaseous and inhabitable. But 140 of them were classified as "Earth-like," meaning they had solid masses of land and water, and the potential to hold life. Then came the big news. One of those planets was, like Earth, located just the right distance from its sun, was just the right size, and had just the right gravity and atmosphere that it could, potentially, support life Now, this week, NASA scientists have announced Kepler has spotted five more planets about the size of Earth, orbiting stars in our galaxy. These planets are orbiting in what is known as the habitable zone, which puts them at a distance from their suns where liquid water could exist. Liquid water is a key ingredient for … [Read more...]

Methane, the predominant hydrocarbon produced by the BP blowout last year, has all but vanished from Gulf of Mexico waters, a new study reports—presumably eaten up by marine bacteria. That hadn’t been expected to happen for years. Two-thirds of the hydrocarbons released by the BP accident were forms of natural gas: largely methane, ethane and propane. While Gulf microbes quickly began devouring the larger gas molecules, they initially left tiny methane—which accounted for an estimated 87.5 percent of the gas initially emitted—largely untouched. Some of the authors of the new paper had reported in the Oct. 8 Science News that they found almost no microbial breakdown of BP methane in June, about a month and a half into the 83-day gusher. Rates of biodegradation in subsea plumes, where this gas had been accumulating, “indicated methane would persist for many, many years, if not almost a decade,” observed John Kessler, a chemical oceanographer at Texas A&M … [Read more...]