According to a new study, there were two time periods in the history of the Earth’s Moon when it was likely to have had pools of water filled with living microbes that may have traveled there from Earth. Are we still related?

In the study, published in the journal Astrobiology and summarized in a press release, astrobiologists Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University and Ian Crawford from Birkbeck University of London admit that the Moon would have had to be much different than it is today to support life. Specifically, it would have needed water, an atmosphere and a magnetic field similar to the one Earth has that was capable of deflecting solar radiation. A good source for two of the three conditions is volcanic activity.

Using data from recent lunar missions which shows water ice on the Moon and evidence of mantle water early in its life, Schulze-Makuch and Crawford used simulations to identify two time periods with favorable conditions for volcanic activity — 4 billion years ago and 3.5 billion years ago. The first period was right after the creation of the Moon, when a much larger Earth collided with another planetary body, creating a cloud of vaporized rock and liquid that eventually became the Moon. That vaporized liquid could have formed both surface water and an atmosphere. About 500,000 years later, the study shows a high level of volcanic activity on the still-young Moon which would have spewed enough water vapor for an atmosphere and ground water.

What about the third condition – the magnetic field? Schulze-Makuch believes the Moon was created with one and lost it over time. Put the conditions together and the Moon was ready for life.

“We basically had what we would call habitable conditions,” he said. “Or at least the most basic parameters for that.”

Where did it come from? While it’s possible that underwater volcanic activity could have sparked a chemical reaction to create life, Schulze-Makuch points out that there was already life on Earth 3.7 billion years ago – right in between those periods of lunar volcanic activities, and it was “likely” that one of those life-changing asteroids that hit the Earth on a regular basis could have launched life forms — microbes, anaerobic bacteria, and photosynthesizing cyanobacteria — to the then-fertile surface of the Moon where it could breath a sigh of relief along with lunar air.

Is it time to break out the champagne and raise a toast to life on the Moon?

“Whether life ever arose on the Moon, or was transported to it from elsewhere, is of course highly speculative and can only be addressed by an aggressive future program of lunar exploration. An important aspect of such an exploration program would be obtaining samples from paleoregolith deposits dating from time of peak mare volcanism to determine if hydrated conditions (or other evidence for habitable conditions, including possible biomarkers) existed at that time.”

In other words, if we want to find out if we have long-lost Moon cousins, it’s time to crank up the lunar exploration programs and send rovers, robots and humans to the Moon for more samples.

Is NASA up for it? Are Musk or Bezos?

Are we?

Oh man, look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show

We’ve come a long way since one of our ape-like ancestors first threw a bone into the sky and apparently got the idea to someday build a space station. One of our Solar System’s most enduring mysteries might have just been solved – or at least gotten a lot closer to being solved. According to a new studypublished in Science, Mars might indeed be home to a massive body of liquid water under its southern ice cap. If confirmed, this would mark the discovery of the largest known body of liquid water on Mars. Even better, the discovery has given the astronomical community a huge boost in our search for life on Mars. 

Mars’ south polar ice cap

This groundbreaking discovery is based on a new analysis of radar data gathered by the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding) instrument, a low-frequency radar sensor aboard the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft. The Mars Express has been in orbit around the Red Planet since December 2003, and spent 2012 to 2015 investigating the Planum Australe region of Mars’ southern ice cap.

The awesomely-named Mars Express

The radar profiles collected from that region indicate the presence of a lake of liquid water stretching 20 kilometers (12 miles) wide and over 1 meter in depth. Roberto Orosei, a scientist at Italy’s National Institute of Astrophysics who led the research, says these radar profiles are similar to those collected in studies of bodies of water hiding under ice caps here on Earth:

The reflections from the bottom are stronger than surface reflection. This is something that to us is the tell-tale sign of the presence of water. This condition on Earth happens only when you observe subglacial water, like in Antarctica. The radar data tell us that this water must contain a large amount of salts. This is because the ice above it is very transparent, and this would not be possible if the ice was too warm, too close to the melting point.

Scientists here on Earth have discovered evidence that there might be entirely undiscovered ecosystems in waters under the Antarctic ice sheet brimming with unknown forms of life. Could microbial Martians be hiding under Mars’ southern ice cap? Let’s just hope that water isn’t too salty to sustain life, which is of course a distinct possibility. As usual, this research is just the tip of the iceberg (or is it ice cap?) and much more data is needed to confirm the presence of this body of Martian water. If these findings are confirmed, though, it would greatly increase our chances of finally answering one of David Bowie’s lingering questions.

It sounds like a crime committed in a Greek candy shop, but it’s actually more like a horror movie created by astronomers. According to a new study, the Andromeda galaxy was once and possibly still is a cannibalistic star conglomeration that consumed a sibling of the Milky Way and some of its own smaller siblings … and could one day eat the Milky Way too. If there’s no sound in space, what’s that chomping, slurping and burping noise?

'CANNIBAL' Andromeda galaxy ATE Milky Way's big sibling according to SHOCKING new study

The terrifying report, published in Nature Astronomy, comes from University of Michigan astronomers Richard D’Souza and Eric Bell. They were studying the Local Group – the collection of at least 54 galaxies that lists the Milky Way and Andromeda as its largest and has its gravitational center right between the two of them. It’s predicted that the Local Group will someday – possibly 4 billion years from now – become the Local One as all of the members collapse into the center.

Collapse? Or should we say ‘are consumed by one giant cannibalistic galaxy that is probably Andromeda’?

Andromeda

That may be what the models developed by D’Souza and Bell are suggesting when they used them to analyze the faint halo of stars surrounding Andromeda. Once thought to be the crumbs of many small galaxies eaten by Andromeda, the simulations instead showed that the stars were potentially from a single large galaxy surpassed in size only by Andromeda and the Milky Way. Furthermore, that giant galaxy was most likely a fraternal twin of the Milky Way that astronomers never knew existed. The astronomers named it M32p after the M32 halo around Andromeda that’s the faint reminder of what it once was … and a faint predictor of what may happen to its surviving sibling.

But first, Andromeda would probably turn the Milky Way into a form of the mysterious M32 – a small, dense satellite galaxy made of both old and new stars that has long puzzled astronomers like Bell … until now.

“M32 is a weirdo. While it looks like a compact example of an old, elliptical galaxy, it actually has lots of young stars. It’s one of the most compact galaxies in the universe. There isn’t another galaxy like it.”

Milky Way

The model shows that this “weirdo” is actually the remaining center of Milky Way sibling M32p, likened to the nearly indestructible pit of a galactic peach sloppily chomped to near extinction by a cannibalistic celestial companion. While the pit remains whole, the rest of the M32 peach is now part of Andromeda’s huge galactic disc, which the simulation shows is sturdy enough to have survived many galactic collisions.

Will the Disc of Andromeda (a great name for a band) be all that’s left in four billion years when the Large Group becomes one? Will there be anyone left to sing along?

One of the worst threats to hang over the head of humankind in recent times is that of the grim specter of nuclear war, the effects of which we got a brief and tragic taste of back in World War II with the bombs dropped to horrific effect on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The thought that the whole world could be reduced to such devastation is a fear that constantly looms over us in this day and age, with good reason, but this must surely be a modern fear, right? After all, nuclear weapons are devices of sadistic human ingenuity that has only come about within the last century with the development of our macabre technology, are they not? However, according to ancient texts and some anomalous evidence, it has been alleged by certain conspiracy theorists that nuclear strikes were possibly carried out thousands of years ago, far back in the mists of time.

One of the main historical oddities that has been used to illustrate the possibility of an ancient nuclear war is supposedly contained within the 8th century Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata, which chronicles the Kurukshetra War and battle between Rama and the demon Ravana. Within these pages are claimed to be references to some catastrophic event that in many ways sounds exactly like what one would expect a nuclear strike to look like, such as an annihilating explosion described as being “brighter than a thousand suns,” which caused all trees to instantly ignite into flame, and reduced everything in its path to ashes. Indian historian, Kisari Mohan Ganguli, has said of such weapons of mass destruction in old texts:

Indian sacred writings are full of such descriptions, which sound like an atomic blast as experienced in Hiroshima and Nagasaki… The passage tells of combat where explosions of final weapons decimate entire armies, causing crowds of warriors with steeds and elephants and weapons to be carried away as if they were dry leaves of trees.

Interestingly, the texts also mention that survivors of the catastrophe later fell down ill and lost their hair, which undeniably sounds very much like radiation sickness, thousands of years before they should have known what that was. According to one purported rough translation, one section reads:

A single projectile charged with all the power in the Universe…An incandescent column of smoke and flame as bright as 10,000 suns, rose in all its splendor…it was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic messenger of death which reduced to ashes an entire race. The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable. Their hair and nails fell out, pottery broke without any apparent cause, and the birds turned white. After a few hours, all foodstuffs were infected. To escape from this fire, the soldiers threw themselves into the river.

Besides this text, there are various archeological sites throughout the region and indeed the world that supposedly hold evidence of such nuclear destruction in an era long before World War II. One is the site of the mysterious ancient city of Jodhpur, which lies along the edge of the great Thar desert in India, and is said to have long been plagued by unusually high levels of radiation since ancient times. Inhabitants here have long been said to have much higher incidences of cancer, birth defects, and other related complications than other areas, and radiation readings here have quite often gone off the charts. Why should that be?

Another is skeletons supposedly unearthed at the ancient ruins of the city of Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan, in 1927, which are infused with high radiation levels and appear to have been people who dropped spontaneously where they stood to lie there in the streets, as if from some great weapon of mass destruction that struck them down instantly. Many of these skeletons, which are strangely devoid of the decay one would expect, were purportedly found lying face down right in the streets, in some cases still holding hands as if they had been anticipating the doom that was coming for them, and some of the rocks of these ruins seem to have been partially crystallized as if by some incredibly intense flash of heat. Indeed, British Indian researcher David Davenport claimed to have found rocks with evidence that they had been mysteriously fused and blasted into glass with heat as high as 1500°C. Something very unusual happened here in around 2,500 BCE, but what it was remains unclear.

Mohenjo-Daro

Speaking of anomalous fused glass, there are other sites around the world that exhibit the same phenomenon. In December of 1932, a surveyor from the Egyptian Geological Survey by the name of Patrick Clayton found a mysterious sheet of glass buried in the sands of the Great Sand Sea, near the Saad Plateau in Egypt. Such mysterious glass chunks have been found in such disparate places as the deserts of Libya, the Sahara, Mojave, and others. Experts who have looked at such unusual glass formations have often likened them to the sort of glass left behind by nuclear tests at places like the White Sands missile range, in southern New Mexico. Engineer Albion W. Hart famously once likened the glass left behind at the missile range to similar deposits he had personally witnessed in the deserts of Africa, but speculated that the ones he had seen would have had to have come from a blast roughly 10,000 times more powerful than the detonations at White Sands.

Some scientists have tried to explain these vast glass deposits as the result of some meteorite impact, but the lack of any crater makes such speculation problematic. There is also the high purity and transparency exhibited by much of this glass, which is not consistent with a meteorite strike. So what caused these weird glass deposits? No one really has a clue. Evidence such as this and the other accounts we have looked at have caused some theorists to proclaim that it all points to some sort of event or events involving nuclear weapons far in the past, although how this could have occurred is left to speculation, such as that it was due to time travelers, aliens, or both.

Whatever the cause may be, it on the surface seems when looking at these cases that at least the evidence for some sort of ancient nuclear apocalypse is rather solid and undeniable, but did any of this actually really happen? Unfortunately, there are many problems with this idea, not the least of which is that no official historical or archeological account gives any mention of such a cataclysm, and there has been much doubt cast upon the veracity of the claims of ancient texts describing such doomsday events. There has also been much criticism aimed at the methodologies used and the way the findings made at places like Mohenjo-Daro were analyzed and interpreted, with later studies showing that the bodies were not merely lying in the streets, but had actually merely been displaced from their original graves. Their bodies were also explained as being so well preserved due to the dry and hot climate of the region.

Other findings such as the fused glass and radiation have also been looked at with a skeptical eye, likely caused by rational reasons, and since the buildings themselves are mostly intact it seems odd to presume a nuclear blast should have swept through this site. The ancient texts describing some doomsday scenario have also been called into question, with Brian Dunning from the site Skeptoid perusing the translated version of the Mahabharata for any references to a nuclear war and finding none, leaving him forced to maintain that such tales are fabricated at best. You can read Dunning’s rather thorough deconstruction of the ancient nuclear war theory here.

Despite all of this debunking, the matter is not really settled for some, and many mysteries remain. There are certainly many conspiracy theorists who stand by the notion that such an ancient nuclear war really did happen, that the evidence proves it, and it seems that the debate will keep going on for some time. It is curious to wonder about how, if such an event ever really took place, did this all come to pass? Why would such sophisticated agents of destruction be available so many thousands of years ago and who would have been behind deploying them and for what reasons? We will never know either way, but we can hope that it never happens again.

Vimana - Ancient Nuclear War, Dwarka and Mohenjo-Daro