By Sophia Meng: Subscribe to Sophia's RSS feed
December 2, 2010 5:55 PM EST
NASA has excited the science fans with the vague announcement of a Thursday briefing to discuss "astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life".
Some writers and bloggers are speculating that it could be a discovery on Mars, which has been under intense study by the Rover since 2004. Others seem to think it will be an announcement regarding one of Saturn's moons, either Titan or Rhea.
The briefing participants will include Mary Voytek, director of Astrobiology Program, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, NASA astrobiology research fellow, Pamela Conrad, astrobiologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Steven Benner, distinguished fellow from Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution and James Elser, professor from Arizona State University.
Though the science journal has embargoed details of the discoveries secret until the conference, , but instead it's the roster of conference participants that has raised eyebrows in the blogging world.
Felisa Wolfe-Simon, for example, has written in New Scientist about the discovery of a new kind of photosynthesis that uses arsenic instead of water. Blogger Jason Kottke, who fueled a lot of the speculation, even said he thinks NASA has discovered arsenic on Titan.
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Bloggers are speculating as to why these experts would be participating, if not for a major Mars or Saturn discovery.
However, Alexis Madrigal, senior editor at The Atlantic, put a damper on the hysteria when he tweeted Tuesday that he had read the embargoed Science article pertinent to Thursday's press conference. And no, Madrigal said, the conference will not announce the discovery of little green men (or life in general) on other planets.
Since information is unknown for the world, people interested can visit http://www.nasa.gov/ntv to join the live broadcast of the news conference at 2 p.m. EST Thursday.
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