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Herschel Space Observatory Finds Precursors of Life In Orion

Posted by kdawson on from the but-not-as-we-know-it dept.

ogre7299 recommends an announcement out of Caltech on a milestone for HIFI, the Herschel Space Observatory's Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared. "The Herschel Space Observatory has revealed the chemical fingerprints of potential life-enabling organic molecules in the Orion Nebula, a nearby stellar nursery in our Milky Way galaxy. ... This detailed-spectrum, obtained with the Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HIFI) — one of Herschel's three innovative instruments — demonstrates the gold mine of information that Herschel-HIFI will provide on how organic molecules form in space. The spectrum, one of the first to be obtained with HIFI since it returned to full health in January 2010 following technical difficulties, clearly demonstrates that the instrument is working well. ... [The HIFI instrument had previously been offline since] August 2009 when HIFI experienced an unexpected voltage spike in the electronic system, probably caused by a high-energy cosmic particle, resulting in the instrument shutting down. On 14 January 2010, HIFI was successfully switched back on using its spare electronics, with science observations commencing on 28 February."

10 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Nuke it! by Colin+Smith · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's the only way to be sure!

     

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    Deleted
    1. Re:Nuke it! by Jeremy+Erwin · · Score: 2, Funny

      The orion nebula is (very) roughly spherical, with a radius of 12 ly. It's about 1344ly away. Developing the technology to deliver millions of nukes across hundreds of parsecs might well be the sort of stimulus are planet needs to crawl out of this recession.

    2. Re:Nuke it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      pedant:
      are = The second-person singular and plural forms of the verb "to be",
      our = Our is the possessive determiner of the personal pronoun "we".
      Rrr = What a pirate or old sea captain says.

  2. DNA in spaaaaace. by pcjunky · · Score: 2, Funny

    Can pigs be far behind

  3. Definition of "working well" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    "The spectrum [...] clearly demonstrates that the instrument is working well."

    Yep, we got a result that's good for some headlines, so clearly the system is working well! Otherwise, we'd have had to conclude it's still not working.

  4. Re:So that's where he went! by Foobar+of+Borg · · Score: 2, Funny

    God isn't dead, he just moved to Orion!

    But, did God need a starship to get there?

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    Similar to the upcoming US election results
  5. Re:So that's where he went! by NEDHead · · Score: 2, Funny

    No. He actually moved there to him. Less work than figuring out how to make a starship.

  6. Re:So, what next? by migla · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do you know something we don't know about advances in beam-up technology? Of course the probe has to land to get access to the butts to be probed. And butts need probing. Aliens always do that. And in this case, the aliens are us!

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    Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
  7. Re:So that's where he went! by Hognoxious · · Score: 5, Funny

    He went in an attack ship, but it caught fire. I've seen it.

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    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  8. Re:Hurry already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    My guess is the death rays.