Walking with dinosaurs (and humans) ?

First appearing approximately 230 million years ago colossal creatures known as ‘dinosaurs’ ruled the earth. For millions of years, no other animal species legitimately threatened the existence of dinosaurs. Nonetheless, on one unlucky day, approximately 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth or so the story goes…On occasion throughout history, there have been sightings from remote regions of the world of enormous creatures that resemble various dinosaur species. In particular, a creature known by native Congo pygmies as mokele-mbembe or “one that stops the flow of rivers” supposedly dwells in the central African countries of Congo, Cameron, and Gabon. According to witness testimony, the mokele-mbembe is known for its long neck and tail, small head, and large body. All of which are common characteristics associated with a sauropod dinosaur. To further fuel the excitement, according to researcher William Gibbons, at least two pygmies were directly involved in the slaying of a mokele-mbembe. One of the earliest stories that may be relevant to the existence of the mokele-mbembe comes from the 1776 book of former Congo missionary Abbe Lievain Bonaventure.

According to Bonaventure’s book, he bared witness to unusual footprints of enormous size. Even though he never directly witnessed the creature, he certainly realized that tracks he discovered must have been from a monstrous animal as he was able to depict claws which outlined a footprint nearly three feet in circumference. In addition, Bonaventure never made any reference of the mokele-mbembe in his book since he had no previous knowledge of its alleged existence, which certainly strengthens the testimony of the witness. However, in this case, he may have been a victim of his own imagination as he could have simply misidentified a large footprint such as an elephants. The true discovery of a living prehistoric dinosaur such as the mokele-mbembe would certainly rewrite everything we know about our evolution as a species.

Truth found in tales of monster fish

Anglers all have tales about the one that got away, the fish of legendary size that stripped the line from the reel. A new study suggests why that there might indeed be giants and offers an explanation for how they grow so huge. Turns out fishermen themselves can be responsible for the monsters. If a lake or pond is overfished, and a lot of the big ones are caught, the situation is ripe for oversized freaks to develop, according to a new computer model. The research suggests that harvesting only large fish knocks out the food competition for the remaining adults, allowing the adults to gorge on smaller fish and inflate to gigantic proportions. The effect is strongest for fish prone to cannibalizing their own. A Eurasian perch growing in such a situation, for example, can become more than four times as big as an adult fish the same age in a body of water not heavily fished. "The destabilization of a cannibalistic population can induce the growth of 'cannibalistic giants,'" scientists write in the August edition of the American Naturalist.

Further, the population becomes less stable and more susceptible to crashing into extinction, especially as the rate of fishing increases. The giants were not found to develop in the virtual populations spared from harvesting. The effect also applies to fish species that are not cannibals, but it is less pronounced and does not tend to push the population toward extinction, the computer model suggests. There could be a useful lesson for fish farmers. The model accounted for a range of factors, from food availability to reproductive rates and digestion time. When the researchers over-harvested small fish, cannibalistic giants were not produced, but non-cannibalistic fish grew bigger, faster—a technique that fish farms could use to grow market-ready crops more quickly.

Exploring the MoD's UFO files

It's the weird and wonderful place where the men in grey suits from Whitehall meet the little green men from Mars. The Ministry of Defence has for the first time opened its real-life 'X Files', detailing how its experts have examined photographs of UFOs hovering over the UK. While the images range from the baffling to the risible, there is no doubting the seriousness that officials reserve for the issue of extraterrestrial life. Correspondence between the MoD and members of the public who report sightings of strange objects reveals that Whitehall mandarins remain "totally open-minded" about the existence of UFOs. The letters - obtained by Scotland on Sunday through the Freedom of Information Act - confirm that the MoD has a procedure of scrambling fighter planes to confront any unidentified craft or object that enters UK airspace. However, there are hints that at least some strange objects seen in the sky are of a distinctly terrestrial provenance. In one letter, officials admit that military helicopters carry out low-flying combat training missions across Britain, and apologise for any alarm they may have caused. The MoD has confirmed it receives more than 100 reports of UFO sightings every year, many of which come from Scotland.

Last year alone, the Ministry was sent five sets of photographs and videos purporting to show UFO activity. One was sent by a concerned resident who last March reported seeing silent superfast "triangular craft" and other strange objects in the skies above the south of England. He enclosed a picture that appears to show a ball of light moving at speed across the sky with an illuminated trail in its wake. A lengthy official response from the MoD's Directorate of Air Staff is at pains to reassure the individual. It states: "We remain totally open-minded, but to date we know of no evidence which substantiates the existence of these alleged phenomena.

NARCAP confirm O'Hare Airport UFO

This report presents the results of an investigation into an interesting incident at O'Hare International Airport (ORD) on November 7, 2006 at about 1615 hrs (4:15 pm) CST that had definite safety implications. A number of highly reliable airline employees and others reported seeing a round, revolving, gray, metallic appearing object [hereafter called an Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP)] hovering approximately above United Airline's Gate C17 in Concourse C at an altitude less than 1,900 feet above ground level (AGL) and departing sometime between 4:18 and 4:33 pm. Since two United taxi mechanics reported seeing the object sometime after 4:00 pm the object could have been present for at least eighteen minutes or more. The following subjects are discussed here: Description of eye witness accounts, overview of O'Hare International Airport and its aviation operations, visibility from the control tower, weather conditions, the reported hole in the cloud allegedly caused by the UAP, radar technical considerations and possible primary contacts, safety implications of the incident, and a summary. Appendices also present a discussion of hoax data, press coverage of the event, reports of UAP made by other alleged witnesses in the area on that day, a description of typical cockpit duties during an approach, landing, and taxi to gate and other relevant documents.

Based on eye witness testimony the UAP would have ranged in size from about twenty-two to eighty eight feet diameter. It accelerated at a steeply inclined angle through the 1,900 ft cloud base leaving a round hole approximately its own size that lasted for as long as fourteen minutes. This is suggestive of a super heated object or otherwise radiated (microwave?) heat energy on the order of 9.4 kJ/m3. According to the FAA nothing was detected by radar at this location or time of day or seen by air traffic controllers from the main tower. An examination of primary radar data supplied by the FAA confirmed the first claim. Nevertheless, an FAA inbound ground controller remarked about the "UFO" (UAP) at about 3:58:09 pm, long before the object had departed. No reference to a UAP IS made by any inbound or outbound flight crew other than two United maintenance taxi mechanics moving an empty airplane to the maintenance hanger on the north side of the airport. Of course this does not mean that there was no object present but only that these flight crew did not discuss it over the radio.

New ‘Last Supper’ theory crashes Web sites

A new theory that Leonardo's "Last Supper" might hide within it a depiction of Christ blessing the bread and wine has triggered so much interest that Web sites connected to the picture have crashed. The famous fresco is already the focus of mythical speculation after author Dan Brown based his "The Da Vinci Code" book around the painting, arguing in the novel that Jesus married his follower, Mary Magdelene, and fathered a child. Now Slavisa Pesci, an information technologist and amateur scholar, says superimposing the "Last Supper" with its mirror-image throws up another picture containing a figure who looks like a Templar knight and another holding a small baby. "I came across it by accident, from some of the details you can infer that we are not talking about chance but about a precise calculation," Pesci told journalists when he unveiled the theory earlier this week. In the superimposed version, a figure on Christ's left appears to be cradling a baby in its arms, Pesci said, but he made no suggestion this could be Christ's child.

Russians to dive below North Pole

Russia is sending a mini-submarine to explore the ocean floor below the North Pole and find evidence to support its claims to Arctic territory. Two parliamentarians, including veteran explorer Artur Chilingarov, are part of a team planning to dive 4,200m (14,000ft) below the Arctic Ocean on Sunday. The team's ship is following a nuclear powered ice-breaker, setting sail from Murmansk port in the Barents Sea. Melting ice in the Arctic has raised hopes of accessing energy reserves. Russia's claim to a vast swathe of territory in the Arctic, thought to contain oil, gas and mineral reserves, has been challenged by other powers, including the US. Moscow argued before a UN commission in 2001 that waters off its northern coast were in fact an extension of its maritime territory.

The claim was based on the argument that an underwater feature, known as the Lomonosov Ridge, was an extension of its continental territory. The UN has yet to rule upon the claim. The team aboard the mini-submarine Mir is expected to carry out scientific experiments and measurements on the sea bed. Reports say it will also leave behind a Russian flag and a capsule with a message for future generations. "The Arctic is ours and we should demonstrate our presence," Mr Chilingarov told Russian TV.

Pilot's UFO report released after 16 years

 "It's moving very fast to the northeast, spraying fire-like gas and transforming into two objects, a ball and a cube." It's not a line from a sci-fi movie, but from a tape recording of a conversation between a ground dispatcher and a passenger plane pilot who allegedly chased an unidentified flying object 16 years ago above Shanghai.The tape, the only known in-flight voice recording of a UFO sighting in China, was released to the public for the first time during a UFO seminar held on Saturday in Shanghai, Beijing Legal Times reported today.The recording has been kept by Wu Jialu, former senior engineer with the Shanghai Aircraft Design and Research Institute. He said equipment needed to analyze the report wasn't available until now.

"The 26-minute-long tape recording on March 18, 1991, included the pilot detecting the object, following it and eventually, he watched it disappear," said Wu, now director general with a city's UFO research center.Wu played the taped conversation to the newspaper. The following is a transcript of the conversation.

UFO-Air Force dogfight ended in Flatwoods

Sci-fi buffs flocked to a fantasy film in 1984 bearing a title prediction that 2010 would be the year earthlings make contact with aliens. Actually, contact has come, and it was less than friendly, says one UFO researcher. Three decades earlier, in fact, back in 1952, just five years after the famed Roswell, New Mexico incident, the American military engaged a convoy of alien aircraft with orders to destroy them in a pitched air battle right off the Atlantic Coast, says Frank Feschino, author of "The Flatwoods Monster,'' a phenomenon that rocked a tiny West Virginia town that year. An illustrator and writer, Feschino has produced a follow-up book, this one titled "Shoot Them Down,'' an effort produced after years of painstaking research of the U.S. Air Force's once-classified files on unidentified flying saucers and digesting countless magazine articles on the matter. His years of exhaustive study have convinced Feschino that American jet fighters did indeed make contact -- at the point of their guns. "Shoot Them Down'' draws its name from orders Feschino says President Truman gave military commanders while an American public was growing increasingly jittery over coast-to-coast UFO sightings.

Two years earlier, Truman had remarked at a news conference, "I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on earth.'' "There are tons of documents right there, intelligence reports, talking about pilots chasing these things, going after them,'' Feschino said, citing the once-hidden reports on the Air Force's so-called Project Blue Book. "That's when it hit the fan, and the government stepped up. That is when they had to simmer the whole country down. The whole country was in an uproar. Everybody was panicking. The job of the government is to keep things under control, and they couldn't let the country panic.'' UFOs were buzzing the entire country that year, "and a good chunk of them were over military installations, and power plants, like Oak Ridge,'' the author says. Feschino pulls his theory largely from the writings of Air Force Capt. Edward Ruppelt, a decorated World War II veteran, recalled to duty when hostilities erupted in Korea.

New predinosaur fossil discovered

Paleontologists have come across the fossil remains of a surprising creature whose existence could rewrite the books on how dinosaurs came to be. The story as it is being rewritten is that the first dinosaurs on Earth were relatively pint-sized animals and spent 15 million to 20 million years low in the minor leagues of life’s pecking order before they became the world’s dominant animal life form.That idea runs counter to the prevailing theory that after dinosaurs first evolved, their numbers and their relative size exploded, quickly making them the dominant animal life form on Earth.The newly discovered fossil that is shaking up old theories of a rapid rise of dinosaur dominance is not a dinosaur but a very close cousin, given the name by its discoverers. It belonged to an archaic group of animals called “basal dinosauromorphs,” or predinosaurs.Dinosauromorphs had been thought to have gone extinct as the first dinosaurs began to appear on Earth roughly 228 million years ago.

In fact, the discovery last year of Dromomeron in New Mexico’s Ghost Ranch hills shows that the 18-inch-high creatures lived and died alongside early dinosaurs not much bigger than themselves.“We can no longer say predinosaurs went extinct, making room for the dinosaurs,” said one of Dromomeron’s discoverers, Nathan Smith, 27, a University of Chicago doctoral candidate and Field Museum research associate.The discovery captured the cover story of the journal Science. It was the first time that dinosauromorph fossils had been found alongside dinosaur fossils, proving they lived in the same time and place.

Symbol in NYC building a history mystery

A final thrust of the crowbar cracked the wooden crate open, and the architect, the anthropologist and the mortar expert leaned in to look at the oddity that had drawn them to an out-of-the-way warehouse. It was a 3-foot-by-10-foot section of timeworn brick wall, its predictable rows abruptly interrupted by three distinct, deliberate-looking triangular shapes. Once part of a warehouse, it now does nothing but raise questions.Painstakingly preserved from a 175-year-old building in lower Manhattan, the brickwork symbol is part of a tantalizing historical whodunit. The setting conjures both New York's mercantile past and its future, and those who may be involved include a prominent, deeply Christian businessman.Could the design be a cryptic marker of mystical beliefs? A tradesman's signature? A bit of architectural shorthand? A creative way to patch a hole?Speculation, some backed with scholarly authority, has generating enough gravity to pull in community leaders and persuade a developer to spend $13,000 to save the artifact from demolition.

"Whether you believe in this stuff or not, it suggested so much and pointed to so many things," said Alan Solomon, a historian who pushed to preserve the symbol and probe its meaning. "It's just a cabinet of curiosities."The design is simple, but clearly intentional: It centers on a triangle framed with a strip of mortar, framed by two rougher triangular forms.It sat unheralded for years in a building on Pearl Street, at the edge of the financial district. Solomon, who works for a vintage-lumber dealer, spotted it several years ago while engaged in an effort to save the 1832 building.

Backward research goes forward

University of Washington physicist (and science-fiction author) John Cramer is moving forward with his experiment in backward causality, thanks in part to tens of thousands of dollars in contributions sent in by his fans. Although Cramer emphasizes that his lab is looking at “nonlocal quantum communication” rather than backward time travel per se, the gadgetry he’s assembling could settle a controversy surrounding a seemingly faster-than-light effect that Albert Einstein thought was downright spooky.Boiled down to its basics, the experiment involves splitting laser light into two beams, so that characteristics of one beam are reflected in the other beam as well. That's an example of what physicists call quantum entanglement. Specifically, Cramer has been planning to fiddle with one of the entangled laser beams such that it takes on the property of waves or particles. If one beam behaves like particles, the entangled photons of light in the other beam should behave like particles, too.

So what happens when the beams go their separate ways, and you conduct a wave-vs.-particle measurement on one beam? When someone else checks the other beam, the same measurement should yield the same result. In fact, you could visualize using the wave-vs.-particle toggle as a means for communicating information, sort of like Morse code. Theoretically, you could check one beam to receive a message instantaneously from whoever is fiddling with the other beam - even if you're separated from the receiver by millions of light-years.That's what Einstein considered "spooky action at a distance." Such an effect could send information faster than light beams could travel, running counter to special relativity - and thus Einstein thought the effect was impossible to achieve. However, the evidence is mounting that quantum entanglement actually happens.

New top secret construction at Area 51

Something big is in the works at Nevada's legendary Area 51 military base. A massive new building is under construction at the top secret location. Aviation experts say there's a good chance that a new, highly classified aircraft might soon be zipping around the Nevada skies. What kind of aircraft? One possibility is a successor to the SR-71 spy plane, the SR-72. The SR-71 Blackbird is widely regarded as the greatest airplane ever built. It sliced through the sky at Mach 3 and still reigns, officially anyway, as the fastest plane in history. Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, was home for the Blackbird during its early days. The question is -- will Area 51 also be the location of choice for the development of a successor, and maybe more than one?

A photo of a new building under construction at Area 51 has raised tantalizing possibilities for the civilian researchers who dabble in such topics. No one can say for certain what the building will be used for, but aviation historian Peter Merlin says the one thing we can say is that it's one big hangar. "It probably measures 275 feet by 600 feet. It's no larger than hangars at other bases, but it certainly is the largest at Area 51," Peter Merlin said.

Dinosaurs' slow rise to dominance

 The dinosaurs might have gone out with a sudden bang, but their rise to dominance was a gradual ascent, not a sudden takeover, a study suggests. It shows that dinosaurs co-existed with a more primitive group of reptiles for millions of years before becoming the most common land animals on Earth. Experts had thought that once dinosaurs emerged, they swiftly replaced their relatives the dinosauromorphs. But the latest study in Science journal questions this idea. Dinosaurs first appeared around 230-220 million years ago, towards the end of the Triassic Period. By the beginning of the Jurassic Period, about 200 million years ago, they had become the dominant creatures on land - and would remain so for another 135 million years. But the reasons for their success - and why the dinosauromorphs faded away - are poorly understood. This is because the fossil record leading up to the Jurassic is relatively sparse.

Some researchers had assumed that dinosaurs were quick to supplant their more primitive relatives, the dinosauromorphs. In other words, they got a "lucky break". Dinosaurs may have either outcompeted their reptilian relatives for resources, or taken advantage of some catastrophe that devastated the Dinosauromorpha. But fossils described in the latest issue of Science suggest that if competition occurred, it was over a prolonged period, according to the team that unearthed them in the south-western US. The Late Triassic cache from Hayden Quarry, New Mexico, contains primitive dinosaurs and several species of dinosauromorph - including the newly identified species Dromomeron romeri.

Military prepping for a ray gun war

No one has quite figured out how to put together a battlefield ray gun -- yet. But that isn't stopping the U.S. military from getting ready.The Air Force Research Lab is "conducting research... to accurately predict the effects of lasers on various threat targets. Laser vulnerability assessments on space, tactical/ground, and missile, systems, subsystems, and components shall be completed to accurately predict the consequences of lasers interaction with these targets. " The Naval Surface Warfare Center is launching "scientific investigations into the effects of Laser Weapons on marine mammals." And it's looking to "leverage of existing and/or Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) items into militarily useful laser weapon systems within two to three years." The Pentagon's High Energy Laser-Joint Technology Office is taking a slightly longer view, looking to kick in $10 million a year for all kinds of ray guns... from gas-powered lasers to electric ones to free electron lasers.

Viking treasure hoard uncovered

The most important Viking treasure find in Britain for 150 years has been unearthed by a father and son while metal detecting in Yorkshire. David and Andrew Whelan uncovered the hoard, which dates back to the 10th Century, in Harrogate in January. The pair kept their find intact and it was transferred to the British Museum to be examined by experts, who said the discovery was "phenomenal". It was declared as a treasure at a court hearing in Harrogate on Thursday. North Yorkshire coroner Geoff Fell said: "Treasure cases are always interesting, but this is one of the most exciting cases that I have ever had to rule on. "I'm delighted that such an important Viking hoard has been discovered in North Yorkshire. We are extremely proud of our Viking heritage in this area." Metal detectorists David and Andrew Whelan, who uncovered the treasures, said the find was a "thing of dreams". The pair, from Leeds, said the hoard was worth about £750,000 as a conservative estimate. They told the BBC News website: "We've been metal detecting for about five years; we do it on Saturdays as a hobby. "We ended up in this particular field, we got a really strong signal from the detector... Eventually we found this cup containing the coins and told the antiquity authority.

"We were astonished when we finally discovered what it contained." The ancient objects come from as far afield as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe. The hoard contains 617 silver coins and 65 other objects, including a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel. Dr Jonathan Williams, keeper of prehistory in Europe at the British Museum, said: "[The cup] is beautifully decorated and was made in France or Germany at around AD900. "It is fantastically rare - there are only a handful of others known around the world. It will be stunning when it is fully conserved." Turbulent times Most of the smaller objects were extremely well preserved as they had been hidden inside the vessel, which was protected by a lead container. The British Museum said the coins included several new or rare types, which provide valuable new information about the history of England in the early 10th Century, as well as Yorkshire's wider cultural contacts in the period. It was probably buried for safety by a wealthy Viking leader during the unrest following the conquest of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria in AD927. A spokeswoman for the museum said: "The size and quality of the hoard is remarkable, making it the most important find of its type in Britain for over 150 years."

Fame from outer space

J. Bond Johnson is one of this newspaper's most famous photographers. He has been portrayed in Hollywood films and documentaries and discussed at length in magazine articles and on blogs and other Web sites. His photos have been a prominent exhibit for almost two decades in a museum that draws 150,000 visitors a year.And they are "the most frequently requested images from our Fort Worth Star-Telegram collection -- really from all of our photo collections," said Brenda McClurkin of the University of Texas at Arlington Library of Special Collections. "I just sent one to Australia."That's because on a warm afternoon in July 1947, Johnson, at the age of 21, took the only known photographs of the supposed remains of the UFO crash near Roswell, N.M. -- and then forgot all about it until researchers came looking for him more than three decades later.They made Johnson, by then a Methodist minister, something of a celebrity as they argued over his photos and espoused theories of vast government conspiracies and intrigue.

Thanks to modern technology, Johnson, who died last year, remains at the forefront of the ufology world, said Julie Shuster, director of Roswell's International UFO Museum and Research Center. Cigars and cigarettes fed a cloud of smoke above typewriters and black rotary phones in the Star-Telegram newsroom in July 1947. There was no air conditioning.Phil Record, who later rose to associate executive editor, was a copy boy at the time. He remembers Johnson, but not much about the Roswell photos."I don't really recall it being a big story," said Record, who retired in 1997.But he said reports of UFOs were common."There were a lot of people who would swear, 'I saw something,' but they wouldn't tell anybody because they would come off as being nuts," Record said.

Did ancient volcano alter human history?

An ancient volcanic super-eruption, one of the largest known in Earth's history, may not have devastated the world and humanity as much as once thought. The eruption at what is now Lake Toba in the Indonesia island of Sumatra roughly 75,000 years ago was the largest in the last 2 million years. This gigantic blast released at least 7.7 trillion tons or 670 cubic miles of magma, equivalent in mass to more than 19 million Empire State Buildings. Vast plumes of ash stretched from the South China Sea to the Arabian Sea and likely blotted out the sun and drastically cooled the Earth for years—a "volcanic winter." Scientists have suggested the environmental catastrophe that might have resulted could have influenced the course of human history, with people today evolving from the few thousand survivors of that disaster. Newly unearthed prehistoric artifacts now suggest the blast might not have been "as catastrophic as before thought," said Cambridge University archaeologist Michael Petraglia. Petraglia and his colleagues investigated deposits of ash from Toba more than eight feet thick near the southern Indian village of Jwalapuram. They found hundreds of stone blades and other tools just below and above this ash layer—effectively immediately before and after the eruption—that are fairly similar to each other.

With the artifacts, they also found pieces of red ochre, a mineral used for body art and cave drawings, as well as for helping to stick tools together. The artifacts appeared similar to some from modern humans dating to around the same time period in Africa. These findings suggest humans continued to live in the area after the blast. "We would have had very mobile populations of hunter-gatherers here, able to cope with all sorts of disasters," Petraglia told LiveScience. "If we were talking about settled people with agriculture, the Toba super-eruption would have been a cataclysm."

Butterfly shows evolution at work

Scientists say they have seen one of the fastest evolutionary changes ever observed in a species of butterfly. The tropical blue moon butterfly has developed a way of fighting back against parasitic bacteria. Six years ago, males accounted for just 1% of the blue moon population on two islands in the South Pacific. But by last year, the butterflies had evolved a gene to keep the bacteria in check and male numbers were up to about 40% of the population. Scientists believe the comeback is due to "suppressor" genes that control the Wolbachia bacteria that is passed down from the mother and kills the male embryos before they hatch. "To my knowledge, this is the fastest evolutionary change that has ever been observed," said Sylvain Charlat, of University College London, UK, whose study appears in the journal Science. Gregory Hurst, a University College researcher who worked with Mr Charlat, added: "We usually think of natural selection as acting slowly, over hundreds of thousands of years.

"But the example in this study happened in the blink of the eye, in terms of evolutionary time, and is a remarkable thing to get to observe." The team first documented the massive imbalance in the sex ratio of the blue moon butterfly (Hypolimnas bolina) on the Samoan islands of Savaii and Upolu in 2001. In 2006, they started a new survey after an increase in reports of male sightings at Upolo. They found that the numbers of male butterflies had either reached or were approaching those of females.

Scientists find water on extra-solar planet

Scientists have, for the first time, conclusively discovered the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet beyond our Solar System, according to an article appearing in Nature. They made the discovery by analysing the transit of the gas giant HD 189733b across its star, in the Infrared using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.Giovanna Tinetti, ESA fellow at the Institute d’Astrophysique de Paris, and colleagues from around the world, targeted planet HD 189733b, 63 light-years away, in the constellation Vulpecula.The planet was discovered in 2005 as it dimmed the light of its parent star by some three percent when transiting in front of it. Using Spitzer, Tinetti and the team observed the star, which is slightly fainter than the Sun, as its starlight dim at two infrared bands (3.6 and 5.8 micrometres).Had the planet been a rocky body devoid of atmosphere, both these bands and a third one (8 micrometres), recently measured by a team at Harvard, would have shown the same behaviour. Instead, as the atmosphere absorbed less infrared radiation at 3.6 micrometres than at the other two wavelengths indicating the presence of water vapour.“Water is the only molecule that can explain that behaviour,” says Tinetti.The presence of water vapour does not necessarily make it a good candidate in the search for planets that harbour life. “This is a far from habitable world,” she adds.

HD 189733b is a 'hot jupiter', a gas giant that is roughly the size and mass of Jupiter but orbits very close to the star. These planets tend to have extensive atmospheres because heat from the nearby star gives them energy to expand. HD 189733b’s atmospheric temperature is about 1000 Kelvin or higher, implying that the significant amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere cannot condense to fall as rain or form clouds but the temperature is far too hot to produce clouds and rain.That does not mean the atmosphere is sedate as the planet is gripped so tightly by the gravity of its star that one hemisphere constantly faces the star, heating the planet only on one side generating fierce winds sweeping from the day-side to the night-side. “There are a thousand things to learn about these planets,” says Tinetti.

Hope for the alien hunters

Nasa this week unveils a new emissary in the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. The Phoenix Mars Lander, which launches next month, marks just the latest instalment in a quest that has exercised the imaginations of writers and scientists since long before the adventures of Jules Verne. In the 17th century Johannes Kepler, the architect of our modern understanding of the solar system, imagined a journey to a moon inhabited by serpent-like creatures called Prevlovans who endured the lunar night "bristling with ice and snow under the raging, icy winds". Regrettably, however, here is no reliable account of a real encounter with alien life-forms. Many doubt whether they exist at all. The Phoenix mission to Mars is very much in pursuit of liquid water, the key to life. Every watery place on our own planet, from the depths of the ocean to the tips of the highest mountains, supports life. The hardiest organisms, bacteria called extremophiles, can endure more or less anything the terrestrial environment can muster, from boiling acid baths to cold briny seas. But take away water, or freeze it or boil it to steam, and nothing grows.

Life requires water and the water has to be in the liquid state for it to be useful. Water is common in the universe, but is liquid only within a narrow window of temperatures and pressures. In our own solar system, temperatures range from 480C on the surface of Venus to -230C on Pluto. The habitable or "Goldilocks zone", as it is sometimes called, because it's neither too hot nor too cold, occupies a narrow band of our own solar system of less than 1% of the distance from the sun to the outer edges. This is precisely where the Earth orbits.