#01

The surface of Venus is not a nice place to be. The temperature is over 800F and the atmospheric pressure 90 times that of Earth, never mind the sulfuric acid rain. Higher up in the atmosphere though, conditions are surprisingly Earthlike. Scientists have hypothesized for decades that life could exist in this temperate region, Carl Sagan even wrote about it in a 1967 paper. It wasn't until this week that things got more interesting when scientists found a gas called phosphine high in Venus's atmosphere. On Earth, biological life is the only natural source of phosphine. The authors of the study are careful to point out that this discovery does not imply life on Venus, only that there is interesting chemistry going on that we don't fully understand. Regardless, it does force scientists to reconsider where we should be looking for life in the first place and will certainly affect the future exploration of Venus.

#02

While Venus got all the headlines this week, Curiosity has been busy on Mars performing an experiment that has never been done before. Onboard the rover is an instrument called Sample Analysis on Mars, or SAM for short. SAM does a lot of things, but one of its main jobs is to very accurately determine what rocks are made out of. It has performed this job reliably for 8 years now, but just recently tried something new. For the entire mission, SAM has carried a special chemical called TMAH (or tetramethylammonium hydroxide if you prefer). Mixing rock samples with TMAH allows scientists to more easily identify organic molecules that are hard to see normally but could have important implications for past life on the red planet. The catch is that there's only enough TMAH on board to do this twice during the mission. Scientists have finally decided to use the first dose on a promising sample in a region that likely contained large amounts of water in the distant past. Don't get too excited for quick results though, it'll likely be months before scientists fully understand the data and are able to make any public announcements.

#03

Sometime between 112,000 and 120,000 years ago, early humans were likely hunting game along the shoreline of a shallow freshwater lake in the area of what is now known as the Arabian Peninsula. We know this thanks to the discovery of ancient fossilized human footprints that date to only a few thousand years after humans would have departed Africa, and are the oldest ever found on the Arabian Peninsula.

#04

The Internation Space Station is, by definition, international, but it wasn't always imagined that way. Learn how Cold War politics shaped what became the space station today. One of the side effects that I've never fully realized is that the ISS is effectively two space stations, one built by the Americans, the other the Russians, joined at the hip. All the videos and pictures you see probably come from the American side, so it's about time you had a look at the other half.

In other space station news, muscular mice lead the way to prevent bone and muscle loss in astronauts, experiments show how the human brain adapts to life in space, and an astronaut teaches us what to pack before leaving.

#05

Have you ever wondered where sharks go in the winter? Now you can find out yourself and follow along with updates from dozens of GPS tagged animals around the world.

Is space more your thing? How about an interactive 3D visualization of the 100,000 stars closest to earth?

#06

NASA's next large space telescope has a new eye. The primary mirror for the Nancy Roman Space Telescope is complete! The 7.9 feet diameter mirror is about as large as the Hubble's but is one fourth the weight thanks to advances in technology. The Roman telescope will be plugged into "a giant 300-megapixel camera that provides the same sharp resolution as Hubble across nearly 100 times the field of view. Using this instrument, scientists will be able to map the structure and distribution of invisible dark matter, study planetary systems around other stars, and explore how the universe evolved to its present state." Launch is scheduled for 2025.

#07

Its been a rough few weeks and you made it to the end of this email, so why don't you kick back and celebrate that a turtle species with a permanent smile has been brought back from the brink of extinction and a type of singing dog thought to only exist in captivity was rediscovered in New Guinea!

The Bookshelf

Do you hate getting lost in the woods? Me too. I've read a number of books on natural navigation, and they all seem to refer back to a book called Nature is Your Guide: How to Find Your Way on Land and Sea by Harold Gatty. Gatty is best known as an aeronautical navigator. In 1931 he was the navigator for a record-setting flight around the world and was referred to as the "Prince of the Navigators" by Charles Lindbergh. As part of his contributions during WWII, he wrote The Raft Book which, predictably, was a survival guide for aviators stranded at sea and was standard issue in Air Force life rafts. Drawing on years of observation at sea and on land, Nature is Your Guide is an exhaustive reference for navigation whether on a polar glacier, an equatorial desert, or lost somewhere at sea. Gatty eschews map and compass navigation for methods that rely on careful observation of the land, sky, and sea. You may never get lost in some obscure corner of Earth, but by reading this book and learning how to pay attention to nature you will never look at your favorite hiking trails in the same way again.

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This newsletter was produced as a private venture and not in the author's capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology or of Griffith Observatory. Any views and opinions expressed herein or on exploreandobserve.com are his own and not those of his employers.

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