Scientists analyzing soil sample tests sent back by the Phoenix Mars Lander has found that the Martian soil to be much more alkaline than previously expected, “flabergasting” scientists. This means that Martian soil, containing traces of magnesium, sodium, potassium and other elements, could support life in it’s past, present and future forms (similar to the soil in your backyard).

The location of the Phoenix touch down is believed to hold large amounts of water-ice below the surface, however scientists haven’t been able to detect organic carbon, which is an essential ingredient for life.

You can also follow the Mars Phoenix on Twitter for up to the minute news as it happens, or at least a few minutes delay as the signal reaches Earth.

Read more Via BBC News

Captured by the Cassini spacecraft, the noises you’re hearing are emissions directly from Saturn, which have been altered so humans can interpret them. Though the general patterns of the emissions remain intact, what we get is beautiful and sweeping ambient noise, which is being added to my iPhone play list right behind Eno, Canavarro and Cage. Via Tomorrowland

Listen now at NASA.gov

A lovely slideshow of the space shuttle Discovery being prepped for staging and liftoff.

Armchair astronomers and space freaks listen up! The amazing developers behind Stellarium have accomplished quite some amazing things. Used by many real planetariums for their projection showings, Stellarium is an amazing feat of open source software development, giving the user a realistic, 3D sky on a desktop environment, allowing users to enter coordinates, browse the night sky or even beam it onto your ceiling before going to sleep. The educational usage and possibilities of this is amazing and I for one am considering purchasing an HDTV projector simply to see Uranus on my ceiling at night!

Download: Stellarium – Open source planetarium for your computer

SpaceX, the private space transportation company started by ex-PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, is currently counting down for an unmanned demo launch of their Falcon I space module. With several delays so far it’s looking like the launch will take place later this evening Pacific Standard Time, meaning I’ll probably be asleep while this puppy is hopefully heading up to the stars. Musk is said to have invested over $100,000,000 of his own money, so let’s hope this demo flight goes well.

Read more: Spacex updates as they happen

After the very public breakdown of astronaut Lisa Nowak U.S. media, missing anything of more substance to cover, have shined a bright spotlight on NASA and their policies regarding astronauts and their mental health. Recently, it has surfaced that NASA has detailed instructions on how to handle crew that become unhinged during a mission. Those are to bound the crewmates wrists and ankles with duct tape, secure them with a bungie cord and drug them with tranquilizers, if necessary. After seeing countless science fiction movies where unruly crew mates lose it in space, I for some reason never imagined NASA needing such measures. NASA went on to elaborate that they’ve determined the need for weapons in space modules isn’t necessary, at least not until we can fight wars in outer space.

Read more: Unruly astronauts in space to be bound and drugged

We’re back in outer space again this post, bringing you The Onion’s absolutely fucking brilliant parody of the Apollo moon landing, featuring extremely high production value and some great voice acting. Hear what the first astronauts on the moon really meant to say, all while dreaming out to a Brian Eno track.

Hit the jump to view the NSFW, not safe for kids, not safe for fuddy-duddies video…

Read more of ”What the Apollo astronauts really wanted to say when they landed on the moon“

Who needs planet Earth when we’ve got Mars?? That’s what I’m saying. The Mars Society, a group of scientists who share a goal of colonizing Mars, believes that humans can colonize the red planet in little more than 1000 years, in stark competition with other scientist’s who say it would be 20,000-100,000 years. According to the society, Mars could be colonized in 3 steps, the first of which is occurring now, exploration. Though many human landings would need to take place, the following steps would involve sketchy actions, such as giant mirrors directing the sun to the planet in an attempt to warm it, freeing gasses and eventually creating a global warming type effect. One of the options would be to build several chemical plants on the surface, pumping out 1,000 tons of fluoromethane an hour, which would raise the temperature on the red planet by 50°F over 30 years. See the complete PopSci walkthrough for a complete walkthrough of scenarios for terraforming planet Mars.

Read more: Mars habitable in 1000 years

In a new paper published on Sunday and delivered at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society a scientist is stating his theory that two NASA space probes (Vikings) may have found alien microbes on Mars 30 years ago but inadvertently killed them. The theory presented is that Voyager was looking for life forms specific to Earth-life, where salt water is the internal liquid of living cells, rather than hydrogen peroxide, a liquid which could more realistically survive the cold and dry climate of Mars. As the Viking probes performed their experiments on the Mars surface any hydrogen peroxide-based life would have been killed by experiments consisting of water poured onto the planet surface and another which heated the soil to see if something would occur, essentially baking and Martian microbes.

Read more: Scientist: NASA found life on Mars — then killed it

French photobugs have been hard at work, taking pictures of the heavens, from moon phases to the Aurora Borealis, and posting them on celestial hobby photos page Photo Astronomique. One such project is a collection of pretty-good quality photos of every full moon since May 2005, compiled into a nifty little flash animation. Something about good quality photos of the moon is just so perfectly relaxing.

See more: 20 consecutive full moon slideshow