Astronomers find star-less (dark matter?) galaxy

Astronomers say they have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible galaxy made almost entirely of dark matter. The team, led by Cardiff University, claimed it is the first to be detected. It was found 50 million light years away using radio telescopes in Cheshire and Puerto Rico.

[Thanks to GB for the link.]

No Evidence of Life on Mars

News reports on February 16, 2005, that NASA scientists from Ames Research Center have found strong evidence that life may exist on Mars are incorrect. NASA does not have any observational data from any current Mars missions that supports this claim. The work by the scientists mentioned in the reports cannot be used to directly infer anything about life on Mars, but may help formulate the strategy for how to search for martian life. Their research concerns extreme environments on Earth as analogs of possible environments on Mars. No research paper has been submitted by them to any scientific journal asserting martian life.

Life on Mars? Never mind!

A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water. The scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, told the group that they have submitted their findings to the journal Nature for publication in May, and their paper currently is being peer reviewed. What Stoker and Lemke have found, according to several attendees of the private meeting, is not direct proof of life on Mars, but methane signatures and other signs of possible biological activity remarkably similar to those recently discovered in caves here on Earth.