Astronomers have made some very interesting discoveries in space recently, each potentially bringing them one step closer to finding habitable exo-planets with signs of extra-terrestrial life-forms.

A study appearing this week in the journal Nature revealed findings extracted from the combined offerings of three NASA space telescopes: Hubble, Spitzer, and Kepler. Data from the telescopes showed clear skies and steamy water vapor on a gaseous planet outside our solar system.
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Hopes of finding intelligent life in the universe have been raised by more unidentified signals from outer space detected by astronomers in Puerto Rico, validating reports of similar signals identified by researchers in Australia.

The discovery of a split-second burst of radio waves by scientists using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico provides important new evidence of mysterious pulses that appear to come from deep in outer space.
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It has been said that "life will always find a way," and a recent discovery by Russian space officials appears to confirm that life can certainly exist in the most hostile of environments.

Traces of plankton and other microorganisms have been found living happily aboard the International Space Station (ISS), not safely within its cosy interior but clinging to its exterior surfaces assaulted by freezing temperatures and cosmic radiation. It seems that the tiny organisms are even able to survive in an atmosphere without oxygen, previously thought to be one of the factors necessary to support any form of life.
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Mysterious signals from outer space are being detected by scientists, and so far their origins are unexplained.

The Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have been foxing astronomers since they were initially identified in 2007; the first one, named the Lorimer burst after its discoverer Duncan Lorimer, was a random signal lasting just five milliseconds. This original FRB was so fleeting that it left researchers wondering for years whether it had merely been a malfunction in one of the telescope’s instruments, but since then several other isolated signals have been detected.
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