Curiosity Grows as NASA Sets Extraterrestrial Search Update

A seemingly routine press release issued by NASA is causing a serious stir in the blogosphere today with no small amount of hyperventilation about the possibility that scientists may have something to say about the discovery of extraterrestrial life.

A press conference, which will be streamed on NASA TV, is set for Thursday at 2 p.m. EST (1900 GMT) at the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. According to NASA, the event will discuss "an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe."

NASA has also brought together a geologist, an oceanographer, a biologist, and an ecologist for a panel discussion at the press conference. That's got peoples' imaginations running wild but props to Kottke.org for doing a bit of online sleuthing into the backgrounds of the invited speakers. They include:

• Geobiologist Pamela Conrad is the primary author of a 2009 paper on geology and life on Mars
• Oceanographer Felisa Wolfe-Simon has written on photosynthesis using arsenic recently
• Biologist Steven Benner is part of the "Titan Team" at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Ecologist James Elser works with a NASA-funded astrobiology program called Follow the Elements

Of course, more than a little skepticism is called for since at this point nobody outside of NASA knows what's on tap for Thursday. Given the advance hype, however, anything less than a cameo by ET will likely come as a disappointment to many. Still, space exploration continues to proceed on a steady pace and so even if it's not the aforesaid blockbuster, the announcement will be worth watching.

[Bush-cheney-R-Terrorists]

Did you see the movie Men In Black? Well, it now turns out that it was a documentary.

[Rodeo_Joe]

There are people who believe in Aliens.

There are people who believe in God.

It's a Free Country. Have a nice day.

[jrforums]

and some believe there is evidence for neither.

[phillip81872]

What a waste of money. All of NASA is a waste of money. The only good thing they ever produced was velcro!

[warsux]

wow. I didnt think anyone could possibly be this ignorant. Please, try using a search engine. In 3 seconds, I found the following:

Some are major developments by NASA and some are inventions.
-Water Reclamation
-Water/Air purification
-climate monitering
-Global positioning systems
-heart pump
-Lasik eye surgery
-Various vaccines
-high tech jobs
-new industries (hence future space exploration)

[Rodeo_Joe]

Maybe because they didn't find "the old man in the sky"?

[nopatriot]

I think human being humiliate me often , but may be not by Alien being.

Ok, when the night sky clear, you may see Orion now, it is amazing and let me forget anything bad.

I love to watch stars and I don' t know why sometimes some stars are moving around and coming back.

I don't know why some are dancing, but this is a reality.
And Authorities may be fooling themselves and hurting innocent people,
shooting to death innocent people, blocking wikileak without any political responsibilities and explanations,
and so on.

But Many American people are fine, it is not their fault to be shot by bad guys or authorities while they are not unarmed and this is not American's fault when people world wide watch wikileak but USA people can not access like China.

This is not all most of all USA people's fault when USA can not stop to kill civilians in other countries.

This is not all most of all USA people's fault when they can not stop authorities do something wrong.

Why Aliens can not help all of people on the earth?

I was wondering why.

And I reached to the answer, even I can not do.

Same thing to them( Aliens).

[nopatriot]

So do you want to say, NASA or MIB also Majestic 12 are monitoring my account?
And my super power feel that way?

I don't know if people are able to stay together with the intelligence being .

It is like ghost and people try to get together to have one government.

[MisterSquash]

Some people have a way with words.....
some not good have as words so writing much

[eestorblog]

http://bariumtitanate.blogspot.com/2010/12/nasa-press-conference-bubble-burst-no.html

According to one of the NASA panelists scheduled for tomorrow, Steven Brenner, there will be no announcement of life found on other planets. Sorry.

[rf35]

Well I guess we'll all just find out on Thursday, won't we?

Maybe they're announcing that they've cut all funding for searching for extraterrestrial life because Congress can't pull their collective head out long enough to pass a budget.

[frankie2fing]

I do not think that aliens would eat us, the taste would be gamey and different from anything they have tasted before. Although, I would not mind if they ate palin, heck, I WOULD eat palin, that is about all she is good for...

[Void-Master]

Bad news about ET. Aliens showed up at my door a few weeks ago. They asked me to take them to my leader. I told 'em, "I ain't got one." So they left.

[pierrevz]

Most likely announcement is the presence of complex organic molecules a) necessary to form life; b) which could only originate from life as we know it AND constant long term conditions suitable for life as we know it, all on one of Saturn's moons.

It is doubtful that a signal has been detected from Japetus, which undoubtedly will disappoint.