Based on Viking data (surprisingly), German scientists believe there is evidence for the existence of extremophiles in the Martian permafrost.  Coolness.

We might not.

It seems weird – almost dumb – to me that they did all that prepping for how to repair tiles in case this happened – then decided not to fix them.  Oh well – they’re the scientists.

Astronauts allegedly flew drunk – come on, as if they actually fly that thing.. I mean, how sober do you really need to be to buckle your harness and pray?

NYTimes: Just What The Founders Feared

Dollar at 20-year lows; crude oil headed for $100++; reality finally hitting overleveraged homeowners; a really bad spanking on Wall Street; and it’s going to get worse.

Obesity is contagious.

Anne Hathaway is gorgeous.

So, does this mean that it might be OK to stop making fun of Tom Cruise and John Travolta and all their space opera madness?

Here’s the news – seems like we found liquid water on Enceladus. Very cool.

Water probably exists under Europa‘s crust, too – I had a weird dream a long time ago that we discovered tube worms living under its icy shell. That dream seems just a little less weird today.

Word is that NASA will today make a major announcement that points to extraterrestrial life or such conditions within our solar system. NASA will hold a press conference today at 2pm. I am not sure if this is directly connected to the progress of the new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as it’s scheduled to begin its orbital insertion today… but it’s probably just coincidental timing, since most of the MRO’s instruments are still undeployed.

By chance, I was wandering through Wikipedia’s entries for Titan and Europa just yesterday… hmm. I love this stuff… stay tuned.

Despite my skepticism that Huygens was going to work, it looks as if the probe has successfully landed on a “soft” surface and continues its transmissions. I gotta say I am in awe.

“01.14.05 (10:15 a.m. ET) – Radio telescopes on Earth confirm that the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Huygens probe has landed on the surface of Titan. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has turned its antenna to Earth and will relay the data received from the probe over the next few hours to NASA’s Deep Space Network. It takes one hour and 7 minutes for the signal to travel from Cassini to Earth. The European Space Agency will get the first look at that data at approximately 11:30 a.m. EST.”

[Source: NASA]

New Scientist is reporting that repeated signals of interest have been found (via the SETI@Home project) emanating from an area between Pisces and Aries. It could very well be some heretofore-undiscovered astronomical phenomenon, but the most compelling evidence that it may be “artificial” is its drift:

“There are other oddities. For instance, the signal’s frequency is drifting by between eight to 37 hertz per second. “The signal is moving rapidly in frequency and you would expect that to happen if you are looking at a transmitter on a planet that’s rotating very rapidly and where the civilisation is not correcting the transmission for the motion of the planet”

Very cool… I’ll be keeping my eye on this one. If it is aliens, they’re very far away. If it isn’t, it’s probably possums f*ckin around with the telescope.