Plankton in the Clouds

An anonymous reader writes "NASA is reporting that the September 1997 Pacific hurricane, Nora, was able to deliver sea salt and plankton as far inland as Oklahoma. The tale-tell signs of prismatic light halos around cirrus clouds pointed to ice crystals with nucleated hexagons and sea-salted clouds. Various proposals have been made previously about such 'life in the clouds' proposals on other planets like Jupiter and Venus."

Is NASA really relevant??

[jkrise]

Going by the no. of articles on Slashdot, one would think NASA is a huge, highly successful org., and one intent on extending the frontiers of technology. Cutting off all the chaff, I guess there's very little NASA's doing that's relevant. The hype built around them is not matched by anything they've turned out, over the last 3 decades.

Too much hype, too little advancement.

Dead or alive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientists were surprised to find what appeared to be frozen plankton in some cirrus crystals collected by research aircraft over Oklahoma, far from the Pacific Ocean.

So they found some dead plankton. I'd be much more impressed about the connection with Venus if they were still alive while in the clouds some how.

life

[prmths]

life as we know it is possible anywhere there is water. At this point, simple life forms like algea and bacteria on an extra-terrestrial world wouldn't excite me more than a "that's damn cool" type reaction. I'm to the point now that I'd expect there to be simple life on some of the other worlds in our solar system. I'd be a lot more surprised of all the planets and moons around us were completely dead. Now if they found concrete proof of extinct complex organisms on mars, or a sea full of life on Europa, It'd be a very exciting day. Jupiter's natural radiation could heat Europa's innards enough for life to thrive. Some say that the amount of radiation from jupiter would kill everything off; but life has a tendency to find a way to overcome obstacles. After all, despite all our efforts, spammers exist, trolls keep posting and the Saddams of the world keep on having their way.

Jumping the Gun?

[tanveer1979]

I guess the guys being too hopeful. Even if it is micro-biological life, it needs some time to form out of basic building blocks.

Up in the clouds the conditions are too violent and volatile and material transfer is past, so life may land up there, but it is difficult for it to develop from there, unless the whole cloud is made of primodial soup, like the depths of jupiter where there is thich murky cloud where scientists think life is possible.

But life forming in clouds like venus has, sorry i dont bite.

Re:Is NASA really relevant??

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a hurricane, neither NASA to
have stuff going in the sky,
I have seen a large stem of a plant flying at
2000m (6500ft).
It was taken there only with air convection.

Re:Is NASA really relevant??

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe, but would you have gps ? weather satellites ? Hubble ? Vegetables in little bags, that taste fresh until 2099 ? ...

Re:life

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on -- he isn't asserting that he's smarter than anyone else; he's simply saying that he questions things before blindly believing them. Big difference.

Try not to belittle others for not blindly believing something. Skepticism is a good thing.

Re:life

[master control progr]

This is not flamebait. Religions don't have a very good track record when it comes to accepting new discoveries that contradict them. Besides, this view is fairly common among those of us who choose to think for ourselves... FWIW, although I was raised in church, I started tuning out uber-religious people after a "good christian" woman called me a fairly nasty name over a debate about whether dinosaurs had really existed. Her view was since they were not mentioned explicitly in the Bible, they never existed, and there was no chance she was wrong about it (science be damned!). Whatever.

BTW, blind faith in your religion is not only a problem in the South. For example, does any rational Muslim really believe that Allah condones the killing of Jews... or Catholics vs. Protestants in Ireland...