Association Of Catholic Bloggers

It's been a little over 10 years since scientists spotted Kepler-22 b. It was the first time we'd spotted a transiting exoplanet that's in its sun's habitable zone. That may or may not mean that Kepler-22 b is habitable. The odds are good that the exoplanet is a water world: covered with an ocean far deeper than Earth's Since then we've discovered quite a few water worlds. And, possibly because there's a 1995 action film called "Waterworld", they're often called ocean worlds. 1 This week I'll talk about two (probably) ocean worlds, Kepler-138 c and d; discovered in 2014, they're far to hot for life as we know it. But scientists recently published a new analysis of those two worlds. And that gave me something to talk about. So did a proposed change in when taxpayer-funded research projects release data. It's good news or bad news, depending on who's talking. That's this week's first item. I'll also look at

We've found two new worlds, GJ 1002 b and c, that could be habitable. They're the right size and most likely around the right temperature. Actually, make that three new worlds. Another one, Wolf 1069 b, showed up in my news feed as I was writing this. 1 But Wolf 1069 b will wait for another time. What with one thing and another — including an unexpected visit from a daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter — I didn't ramble on as much as usual this week. So I'll take a brief, for me, look at GJ 1002 b and c. And I'll talk about literally cool data from the JWST: a look at ingredients for "the building blocks of life" in the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud. More at A Catholic Citizen in America . (GJ 1002 b and c may be habitable worlds orbiting a nearby red dwarf. JWST gives us new data about CHONS: key elements in the building blocks of life.)

Science stories and topics have been piling up in my 'to do' list for more than a year. This week, I'm catching up on what we're learning about life here on Earth; and developments in the ongoing search for extraterrestrial life..... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

(Mars 2020 getting ready for launch last year.) I'll be looking at NASA's Mars 2020 Ingenuity helicopter, the spacecraft, and an experimental oxygen generator. With a quick look at news of the mission's landing this afternoon. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Mars is and will be in the news this month. The UAE Hope spacecraft settled into orbit around Mars Tuesday, February 9. Then, a day later, China's Tianwen-1 arrived.... ...The UAE's successful orbiter is historically significant. And China's Tianwen-1 may collect useful data. But I'll be focusing on the NASA mission. And Mars.... More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

What we're learning about Mars, and a new type of really small spacecraft, reminded me of earth, air and kilts. Also pharaohs, Thomas Paine, and Lord Kelvin. By then I was running out of time to write something more tightly-organized. I figured you might be interested in some of what I have written. On on the other hand, maybe not. So I added links to my ramblings before and after what I said more-or-less about the science news, and figure you can decide what's interesting and what's not. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

TRAPPIST-1's planets may support life: or not. We don't know. Not yet. We're pretty sure that all seven are rocky worlds, like the Solar System's inner planets. Three are in the star's habitable zone. The inner two definitely do not have one sort of atmosphere that would make life as we know it impossible. Even if we don't find life there, we'll learn a great deal while looking. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .

Scientists spotted Philae, the European Space Agency's spacecraft that crash-landed on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014: which will help them make sense of data sent back while the probe still functioned. Other scientists think they’ve worked out where carbon near Earth's surface came from, and the Juno orbiter has been sending pictures of the giant planet. More at A Catholic Citizen in America .