Christian Schoon: author, reader, critter-wrangler

Reading SF as a kid, I recalled Barnard’s Star being tagged as one of the closest local systems sporting alien civilization, or at least off-world life. Now, a couple of scientists posit that ol’ Barnard’s just might harbor some actual living critters, if only of the microbial sort.

The system’s planet, Barnard’s star b, is an icy super-earth circling its cool red dwarf star in an orbit closer than Mercury’s distance from our earthly sun.  But the red dwarf is much less intense than our Sol, so the exoplanet is basically deep-freezed – at least on the surface. But since the planet is three times earth’s mass, they also posit a heat-generating core, and of course what you have then is the possibility of a large, toasty warm under-ice ocean. And in the comfy waters: single celled life, or Barnard’s endearingly wiggly equivalent.

While we’re unlikely ever to know if this is true in any of our life times, it’s still a cool thought…. and yet one more SF prophecy made real. Or kinda sorta real. Or real enough to merit a blog post. So there’s that…

And here, an artist’s impression of Barnard’s star b, in all its ice-queen majesty.

SCIENCE Magazine reports the discovery of a pretty darn good-sized body of at least semi-liquid water under the Martian south polar region. Life at last?! Hold your exo-horses, space cadets….

Now, no doubt this qualifies as more shiny fresh, fascinating data beaming in from the various robots circling around, driving on, digging into, snapping selfies from the surface of Mars. And what we might have here is a lake. A 12-mile-plus wide body of possibly liquid water under the planet’s south pole. So, walleye pike and jellyfish competing for resources just below the surface? Prolly not quite time to pop the Dom Perignon yet. The lake is over 100 degrees F below zero. On Earth, our toasty molten core keeps sub-surface polar ice downright hot-tub warm in comparison. On Mars? A dead-cold core, so no heating from that direction. But salts, you say! Salt does lower the freezing temp of water. Most likely salt in a Martian lake? Perchlorates. So, toxic to life (as we know it, at least.) But but! The pressure of the overlying ice, you say! Wellllll – the low grav on Mars and thinness of the ice (less than a mile) mean not enough pressure to help much. So, the lake is likely not open water, but a sludge of soil-suspension with maybe poisonous chemical mix at a temp that’s not remotely life-friendly. Could there STILL be life? Sure. Not a “slam dunk” at all, as one JPL researcher said by way of “keep calm and carry on probing.” But, it IS a very cool discovery and who knows? Maybe there are other subterranean Martian bodies of water brimming with Tiger shrimp and sentient squid! Or maybe Martians have evolved life forms beyond our humble Earther imaginations. Stay tuned. And watch the skies!

Here’s a graphic of the basic findings as posted by the planetary mavins at the ESA. Get a better look at whole dealeo over at the European Space Agency.

The Breakthrough Initiative is widening its galactic reach. New Breakthrough-funded upgrades to the CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope (“Parkes”) in New South Wales, Australia, will now allow it to sort through up to 100 petabytes of raw data from stars in the galactic plane looking for telltale signs of intelligent technological societies.

This leveling up in sensing power means the BTListen back-end can now gather up and analyze 130 gigabits per second – or, more than 100 million radio channels in each of the receiver’s 13 beams. Big deal? Indeed. Cosmic-big. It’s one of the most extensive, data-rich SETI experiments we hyoomans have yet mounted.

So, to celebrate, I want to indulge in a little nostalgia, with a look back at Stephen Hawking (I still hate that he’s gone. I really do.) talking about the project that he thought Earth really needed to get behind. And just between you & me, this Hawking guy seemed to know his space-and-stars stuff, ya know? So, we need to pay attention, OK? OK.

Pretty much every speculative narrative of humanity’s First Contact goes something like this: aliens, or evidence there-of, spotted. Military, government, scientific coven, etc. declare “Must keep this ever-so-top secret. Public will go hyperactive-ape-shit. Kill all the witnesses. Especially that annoying know-it-all kid and all his pals.” Or similar. I’ve always found this… unconvincing. Sure, some humans will barricade themselves in the basement and spend their final, pathetic days eating raw macaroni. But these are the same people who are pretty damn sure Bigfoot is lurking in the shrubbery behind their gardens. And that Hillary has bodies buried in hers. Soooo many bodies.

So, as The Atlantic reports, an Arizona State prof name Michael Varnum did a study. Turns out Earth’s dominant-and-darned-proud-of-it primates aren’t all that paranoid about the subject. Large portions of the population, Varnum tells us, are fine with the discovery of alien life forms. But with this rather significant caveat: the aliens in his study are microbes. Yeah… so… I think we have what you might call a fly in the peer-reviewed-ointment here. I mean, extraterrestrial bacteria could certainly be a threat. Andromeda Strain, I’m lookin’ at you. But Varnum maybe shoulda asked his study peeps how they’d feel about those mile-long hyperspace battlecruisers parked over every major metro on the planet. I think you might get some different boxes being checked off on the “Aliens: Meet, Marry or Kill” part of the paperwork. JMHO, of course, but I’m not sold on his findings. I just really, really hope I live long enough to see for myself.