The deserts of Utah and Nevada have not always been dry: Between 14,000 and 20,000 years ago, valleys throughout the desert southwest filled with water to become large lakes, which–at their maximum–covered about a quarter of both those states. And a dry stream bed has been found on Mars–was this "red desert" planet ALSO once covered with water? This transformation may have happened on Mars as well!
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The theory is that dark matter is made up of particles that can’t interact with the electromagnetic force, and thus can’t be revealed with light. But they do interact gravitationally–in fact, it’s the gravitational pull of dark matter that stops galaxies from flying apart as they rotate. Astronomers think there is five times as much dark matter in the universe as there is ordinary matter, even though we can’t see it. Since both the dark and the visible forms of matter are affected by gravity, they tend to cluster together.
If we can’t see dark matter, how is it detected? By looking at the distorting effect that dark matter has on the light emitted by nearby galaxies.
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While we sent up a rover to check out the surface of Mars, it turns out we’re more likely to find life on the one of the MOONS of some of our other planets–for instance, on the moon of Saturn. What about the moons of Mars?
And is Mars alive or dead? (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this exciting show)
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If the Mars rover Curiosity finds carbon-based molecules in the Martian soil, researcher Gilbert Levin will feel vindicated, since he promulgated the theory that life on Earth was seeded by an asteroid from Mars 36 years ago.
A Titan/Centaur vehicle was sent to Mars on August 20, 1975 and picked up a soil sample there. Levin mixed the Martian soil with a nutrient containing radioactive carbon.
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