In a groundbreaking discovery, scientists say they have finally detected gravitational waves — ripples in space-time from a violent collision 1.3 billion light-years away — that serve as a resounding confirmation of a prediction made by Albert Einstein a century ago. The detection, made with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, known as LIGO, is the culmination of a decades-long search for signs of this elusive phenomenon.

By Amina Khan www.latimes.com 2-11-16

The discovery, described in a paper in Physical Review Letters, will open a new window onto the universe, said LIGO Executive Director David Reitze.
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     The hunt for signs of life on Mars has been on for decades, and so far scientists have found only barren dirt and rocks. Now a pair of astronomers thinks that strangely shaped minerals inside a Martian crater could be the clue everyone has been waiting for.

In 2008, scientists announced that NASA’s Spirit rover had discovered deposits of a mineral called opaline silica inside Mars's Gusev crater. That on its own is not as noteworthy as the silica’s shape: Its outer layers are covered in tiny nodules that look like heads of cauliflower sprouting from the red dirt.

No one knows for sure how those shapes—affectionately called “micro-digitate silica protrusions”—formed. But based on recent discoveries in a Chilean desert, Steven Ruff and Jack Farmer, both of Arizona State University in Tempe, think the silica might have been sculpted by microbes. At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December, they made the case that these weird minerals might be our best targets for identifying evidence of past life on Mars. [...]
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