A NASA press release announcing "an astrobiology finding" -- something that will impact the search for extraterrestrial life -- has sent shockwaves through the blogosphere.

The press release simply announces an event, set for Thursday at 2 p.m. EST, to discuss an astrobiology discovery "that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.
And the concept of NASA discussing alien life has everyone a-Twitter. Gawker, PC World, New Scientist and others have all speculated about the news -- even suggesting that the space agency may reveal that E.T. has finally arrived.

The reality may be less dramatic, though still intriguing: Based on the background of the four conference participants NASA cites, the announcement will probably concern lifeforms that live off of poisonous arsenic. Popular blogger Jason Kottke and others have concluded that the announcement will tie into the quest for life on Saturn's moon Titan.

"I'd say that they've discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis," Kottke theorizes, a hypothesis short of actually confirming alien life.

He notes that geobiologist Pamela Conrad was the primary author of a 2009 paper on geology and life on Mars, while oceanographer Felisa Wolfe-Simon has written extensively on photosynthesis using arsenic. Biologist Steven Benner is on the "Titan Team" at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; they're looking at Saturn's largest moon as an early-Earth-like chemical environment. And ecologist James Elser is involved with a NASA-funded astrobiology program called Follow the Elements, which studies the chemistry of environments where life evolves, not just water, carbon or oxygen.

Despite the hype and rumors, Phil Plait of Discover Magazine urged rational calm, noting that an announcement of the discovery of extraterrestrial life "seems really unlikely." Plait called overreactions par for the course, citing a June press release about the lack of acetlyne in Titan’s atmosphere "that sparked vast speculation."

"Even though the press release was clear enough, it was misleadingly reported as NASA finding sings of life on Titan," Plait wrote.
Forbes blogger Brian Caulfield agreed, noting that "Thursday’s news is probably a big deal" but "probably just not that big a deal."
Of course, there is always the chance that NASA has discovered alien life -- right? We'll know for sure tomorrow. Stick with FoxNews.com for complete coverage of NASA's news conference Thursday at 2 p.m. EST and be sure to check out our Twitter feed for real-time updates.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/01/rumor-roundup-nasa-discovered-alien-life/#ixzz16wf3ZXDg

They've come again

I'm not sure this is true because earth is the only planet that has what it takes to support life based on its position in the galaxy

Depends on how you define life.

quick review

so NASA has found a bacteria that can survive by using the chemical compound arsenic.

the bacteria's unique biological makeup substituted phosphorus with arsenic.

arsenic is a toxic chemical which kills organic organisms that it comes in contact with.

six chemical compounds are what makes up organic life.  Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.

this basically means that our view of how life is created has changed.

the bacteria was found in califorina

so this may mean life can exist in/ be makeup of any compound, not just the six.

so i guess the chance of life on other plants (earth like or not) had increase.

dapssee said:

They've come again

I'm not sure this is true because earth is the only planet that has what it takes to support life based on its position in the galaxy

Please just keep quiet if you have nothing reasonable to contribute. Quite how someone like you that's done zero research into your next door neighbour on your street, can tell us what exists in ''the galaxy'' is completely beyond me. To start with, do you realise there are estimated to be BILLIONS of solar systems in our galaxy?

And do you know that there are BILLIONS of galaxies?

culled:

We know there are at least 70 sextillion stars in the known universe (70,000,000,000,000,000,000,000), and 300 billion of those in the Milky Way galaxy, and so far we've only found about 278 stars with planets around them (with 326 Planets in total between them).
Source(s):
http://www.astrophysical.org/stars.php
http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/
http://exoplanets.org/

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html

Pretty cool.

There has always been clash between religionists and astrologists with regards to life outside earth.I do not see it coming to an end soon.

Well, they got a specie in Eastern Nigeria called "Ibo Men"; fxcuking aliens if I even seen one. So, how can anyone now say this is a "New" discovery of extraterrestrial life?

Abagworo:

There has always been clash between religionists and astrologists with regards to life outside earth.I do not see it coming to an end soon.

Which religion rejects life outside earth? Certainly not Christianity. And I think, you meant astronomers.