Matt Dougherty
February 13, 2012
Earth Science C Even
Ms. Davies
Antlfinger, Carrie. “Wisconsin Scientists Help Search for
Alien Life” Time. February 13, 2013.
The article
I chose is entitled Wisconsin Scientists Help Search for Alien Life. Carrie
Antlfiger, its author, talks about how scientists at the University of
Wisconsin are searching for evidence of alien life, not in space, but here on
earth. Given a five-year, $7 million grant funded by NASA, the scientists is
able to study rocks here on earth for possible justifications of alien life. The
rocks, some of them over 3.5 billion years old, might provide crucial
information to understand how and where life may have arisen elsewhere in the
universe. The lead investigator for the Wisconsin Astrobiology Research
Consortium Clark Johnson says, “It’s up to (geologists) to be clever enough to
find the tools that we need to interrogate those rocks to find what story they
preserve.” The consortium is tasked with finding biosignatures, such as
elements or isotopes that show ancient life. In these rocks, the scientists
look for microscopic signs of life, including microbes, or tiny bacteria, and
other unicellular organisms that are more adaptive in comparison to complex
organisms such as ourselves. These microbes are then sent into Earth’s orbit on
the International Space Station to see how they respond to radiation and a
space-like environment. Scientists have
found traces of microbial life that date back 2 to 3 billion years before the
planets atmosphere contained oxygen. Similarly, they’ve found microbes that
relied more on iron for energy than sunlight. Information acquired by
Curiosity, the mars spacecraft, will help interpret their data. Curiosity is on
a 2-year trip to determine whether or not Mars is suitable for life and their
work can also help prepare for future missions to Mars. “It may be that planets
spent a long time in a microbial life condition and then only rarely evolved to
advanced multicellular complex life,” Johnson said. Edward Goolish, the acting
director at the NASA Astrobiology Institute, said that data collected by them
supports one of NASA’s major goals of finding potential life on other planets. “The
project’s results will provide a quantitative understanding of how life is preserved”, he said. Johnson and his team’s
understanding of earth is very important to understanding Astrobiology or
science in general.
I chose
this article because it directly relates to two of the topics we have briefly
started talking about this year in earth science, geology and astronomy. It
shows how the different areas of earth science are directly related and a study
of one can lead to a better understanding of another. Similarly, I chose this
article because I have always been interested in possible forms of life outside
of earth. This article clearly explains how that might be possible through a
study of Earth’s properties. This article is important to society because it
allows us to predict whether or not planets contain the resources suitable for
life without visiting the planets directly. We do not have access to technology
allowing us to fly to distant planets, but rovers can collect samples of rocks
and a study of these rocks in comparison to rocks on earth can help determine
whether or not the planet is suitable for microbes. Similarly, sending these
microbes into space allows us to see whether or not they are able to survive in
similar conditions to those on earth. “I’d be really interested to see what
they find too. We’ll have to keep updated on it,” said one University of
Wisconsin-Madison student. Like most people, she and I share similar views on
the study and are quite interested to see what kinds of data and conclusions
they collect and draw from their experiments.
I enjoyed
the article and thought it was well written, but wished it was longer and gave
more information. I know that the study is pretty new and the grant was only
given in January, but I still feel as if some information was left out. For
example, I would like to know if any other similar studies have been done in
determining possible life forms beyond earth. Also, I was interested in other
studies of Mars and other possible ways life could be determined, which the
article did not mention. I understand that it was focused on this one
particular study, but I sort of wished it maybe mentioned similar studies. Still,
the article provided enough detail as to what the scientists were performing
and how conclusions could be drawn from this. It even offered a YouTube clip in
which Clark Johnson and two University of Wisconsin-Madison were interviewed. The
articles strengths included the fact that it got the point across in a pretty straightforward
way. I for one cannot stand when it takes an article 6-7 paragraphs to even
mention anything you saw in the title. The article was also strong in the fact
that it was written in a simplistic way, so that even someone unfamiliar with
astronomy or geology was able to understand it. However, it lacked enough
detail and did not get into the details of the project, which I did not enjoy.
To improve the article, I would suggest that they show similar studies
performed with the same goal and they get into more depth on the Wisconsin
Astrobiology Research Consortium and previous experiments they may have performed
related to the topic.
Matt, your current event report was really interesting to read. First of all, it was presented clearly and it was easy to read. There were no parts that I had trouble understanding. I, too, would like to know more details about this project and some of their studies, and to see where this inquiry will take us in the future. Your summary was very thorough and I felt that no details were left out. When I finished reading the summary, there was no parts that I thought were confusing. You connected all the parts of the reading. For example, when you started talking about how these rocks on Earth are being sent into space to see if they can withstand space or Mars’s conditions. You had a nice transition and a good explanation as to why rocks were being sent out into space. Also, I thought that the why you incorporated quotes from scientists fit nicely into your report. They really brought out what the scientists are trying to do and what they think they might have a good understanding of in the future. I was particularly interested in your article because, like you, I am interested about knowing about life on other planets besides Earth. Also, it shocked me that we could test to see, with these microbes, that other planets may be like Earth if these microbes can withstand their conditions. If they can withstand their conditions, other planets may be more similar to Earth than we would have thought, and maybe there is some life on this Earth. What shocked me was that there were specimens that lived on Earth before oxygen was around, and this lead me to conclude that not all forms of life need oxygen or water to survive, which may lead to the conclusion that life exists on other planets besides Earth. It would be really exciting to know that Earth is not the only planet to have life, and even more thrilling to be able to study that life and hopefully see it one day. Your article was beautifully written, and I agree with you, I would have liked more detail on the subject on their studies, but you could have made this report even better by explaining some of your quotes, in more detail, and what this could mean for future generations if they continued funding this investigation.
ReplyDeleteI read Matt Dougherty’s current event report on the article entitled Wisconsin Scientists Help Search for Alien Life. I thought that Matt’s current event report was well done. His ideas flowed nicely and were interesting. He did a good job relating it to what the class was studying. In addition, I thought that Matt did a nice job including some quotes. The quotes he chose to include helped his report and flowed nicely with the rest of his blog. Likewise, Matt did a good job of critiquing what the article could have improved on and applauding what the article did well. Overall, I think that Matt made the report interesting while still completing the tasks described in the rubric.
ReplyDeleteI think that Matt’s current event report was well done and included many interesting facts. I was especially surprised that there is evidence of alien life on planet earth. Before reading this article I thought that aliens were just made up things that were written about in children’s storybooks. However, after reading this article I learned that aliens might actually be real and living on a place that I call home. I was also surprised that rocks are what the scientists are studying to help them find aliens. I think that it is incredible that scientists have been able to find traces of microbial life that date back 2 to 3 billion years before the planets’ atmosphere contained oxygen. It is also interesting that studying the earth’s properties can help scientist find out if there is life outside of the earth. I was surprised that we can predict whether or not other planets contain the resources suitable for life without actually visiting the planets directly.
Overall, the blog contained many good facts and interesting scientific methodology. However, the blog could also be improved upon. Matt’s blog contained many grammatical errors and misspellings. He should have proofed it before submitting it. Even though the blog is an informal source of information, Matt should have reread his writings so he could have corrected his errors. For example, he uses a plural subject and a singular verb in the second sentence of his blog. Regardless of the grammatical mistakes, I enjoyed the blog since I learned a lot from it.