Net Cast News

The Phoenix Mars Polar Lander is slated to land on Mars’ north pole on May 25th – very soon now! Phoenix is intended to look for signs of microbial life, and there’s a case that evidence may be found on Mars.

The first piece of evidence is purported microfossils found in an Antarctic meteorite in 1997 – this Shergottic meteorite ALH84001, estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, is still the subject of some controversy. There are some who say that the micro structures are evidence of biotic contamination from its long tenure on Earth, others maintain hope that it’s evidence of a link to life on the Mars.

Martian life has a long held a fascination for astronomers – for one, it’s a bright object in the sky, and for two, after the development of the telescope in the 1600s, it showed the most obvious color changes of any object in the sky. From Schiapiarelli to Lowell to Wells, the prospect of Martian life has held the imagination, even as the scientific evidence mounted that such life would be nothing at all like we’d expect.

The case for life on Mars is reinforced by the exposure of bacteria on Lunar missions – samples went out, and came back, and were able to survive the harsh Solar and Van Allen radiation belts – even some of the plasma and thermal changes of reentry through the Earth’s atmosphere. So life is remarkably hardy and capable of surviving in the vicious environment of space. Achaeobacteria and tube worms living on volcanic vents show that life can survive and thrive wherever there’s a source of energy to exploit, even down in the depths of the ocean where sunlight isn’t even a memory.

However, the question of life on Mars has a few more complications. For one, it’s a cold case -whether there was life in the past, Mars’ surface conditions have changed over the last 5 billion years. There are definite epochs in Martian geology (called areology), where Mars speculation shows Mars having a thicker atmosphere than now, and receding (and advancing) surface water levels. Mars’ current climate cannot support liquid water on the surface – the temperature is too low, and the atmospheric pressure is too low; if you took a tray of ice cubes out on the surface, they’d slowly evaporate by sublimation, the way dry ice does on Earth.

What caused these changes in Martian climate? Plate tectonics, or rather, the lack of them. Earth’s biosphere is driven in large part by plate tectonics, which serve to bury carbon (in the form of limestone) caused by sedimentation. The driving force on plate tectonics is the decay of radioactive elements in the Earth’s core.

Venus also shows evidence of having had plate tectonics in the past; its plate tectonics appear to have stopped due to the lack of water in the subsurface crust – the water in the oceans is far from being the majority of it on the planet; most of the rest is seepage down into the Earth’s mantle, where it acts as a lubricant.

On Mars, due to short range radio surveys by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now show that Mars’ crust isn’t as flexible as Earth’s – it’s not being pressed down as much as it should be by the mass of the Martian polar ice cap. This is indicative that Mars is tectonically dormant.

Why does tectonic dormancy matter for the case for life on Mars? Tectonic activity is the likely driving energy source for any Martian microbes out there, and it’s the only candidate presently known to make long standing seeps of liquid water, which is necessary for life as we know it.

Phoenix will be landing at the Martian north pole to give us some answers – but even if it finds nothing, there’s no reason to give up hope. Mars has a surface area equal to all of Earth’s dry land put together. Phoenix will only be able to sample an area comparable to a ring of soil around an office cubical.

Phoenix’ other mission profile is to give climate data on Martian weather patterns and observational data on the polar winter, and it’s slated to provide data for at least six months, with optional extensions for years. (The Spirit and Opportunity rovers are now approaching the fourth anniversary of the beginning of their 90 day survey…)

Phoenix live commentary from NASA begins at at 3:30 pm USA Pacific time on the 25th as the craft prepares for its decent into the Martian atmosphere, or about 9:30 on the morning of the 26th for Eastern Australia.

Sifting through your email inbox and deleting spam messages can make you want to pull out your hair. It’s bad enough that you don’t always see the emails you want to, but when you accidentaly click on a spam email and it is loaded with a virus it can really mess up your computer. Thanks to a new service that is available, there is now a way that you can bust those spammers and get them into trouble with a reverse email lookup.

 

What you need to do to use this service is input the email address you want to know about into the search box given to you on the website. Within a moment or two you will get information such as the name, address, phone number and IP address for the person the email belongs to.

 

Now all you have to do is turn over this information to the proper authorities and your problem will be solved. Here are some other instances that may come up that you may want to use this service as well.

 

You can use this to find out where a friend is that you have lost contact with, it can be used to catch a cheating spouse or to make sure that your teenagers are not being stalked by a sexual predator.

 

My favorite part of this service is that it is 100% confidential. This makes it impossible for the email search tp be traced back to you.

 

These are just a few of the instances that may arise that will that make you want to use this service. If you give it some thought, I’m sure you can come up with a few ideas of your own.

 

When you want to plan your travel anywhere in the world you have to involve the element of aviation whereby you will have to use a flight be it commercial or private charter you cannot rule aviation out at all.

Aviation plays a vital role especially in emergencies like air ambulance and medical evacuation for seriously injured or unconsious  person and it  is the easiest way to save life.But you need to put  the following  in your mind when travelling,the airstrip state especially when visiting the national parks or semi-arid areas like  Takaba in  Norther Eastern Kenya,weather and the geographical features enroute to your destination.That is why our fleet has aircrafts with short landings and take offs for untidy airstrips example is the c-172,c-182,c-206,c-208 cararvan,Let 410 to be able to serve all the purpose.Travelling to Northern  and North Eastern Kenya there is insecurity,poor road infrastructure and you can not risk to go by road as you will be required to have a convoy of security which you will  have to pay for and incase the vechicle breaks down then you are at the mercy of the bandits.Why go through all these when you can take a private charter depending on your need and we have on our menu all ranging from 3 to 37 seater at your disposal.You can see aviation has played and is still playing a vital role in travel and ajourney which could take you days by road will take you hours.

Aviation is making bussiness owners and investors are able to run bussiness all over the world and they can be able to visit them physically  within days  and be back at their base by using  either private charter or commercial flights. Not even forgetting countries affected by war  where medical attention,relief supplies for both cargo is required it come be done in hours.

Within aviation the sky is the limit and  even transportation of fresh flowers and fresh vegetables can  be flown and received  when fresh and one might think it was planted there.

In the event of  hijacking at the see using aircrafts saves the goods and crew  as they are able to deliver the negotiated  ransom  within hours  and it can be parachuted without  other people knowing .In war tone areas like South sudan,Darfur,Chad where people are suffering  and there are no roads  and there is insecurity,C-130 aicrafts 18 tonner aicrafts,Buffalo 5 tonners are used to do food drops to save lives of millions.

Indeed aviation industry has contributed alot in making our travel  quick and also in saving peoples lives which we have incorporated in our website serving each segment with the right aircrafts and not leaving out the helicopter which is used where there are no airstrips.

Should you require of the mentioned services please contact your reliable flying partner .