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Just as NASA was about to solve the mystery of whether or not there is life on Mars, the world went broke and both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) had to back off on their plans to send astronauts and rovers there to find out. Two NASA missions to Mars–one in 2016 and another in 2018–have been canceled.

In the March 13 edition of the New York Times, Kenneth Chang quotes Planetary Society director Bill Nye as saying, "The pipeline is being shut off, and that’s not what anyone wants. We are closer than anyone has ever been to discovering life on another world."
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NASA Scientists have been gagged in the US in the past–now Canadian scientists are complaining that their vital research on health and environment issues is being suppressed.

On BBC News, Pallab Ghosh quotes university scientist Thomas Pedersen as saying, "The Prime Minister (Stephen Harper) is keen to keep control of the message, I think to ensure that the government won’t be embarrassed by scientific findings of its scientists that run counter to sound environmental stewardship. I suspect the federal government would prefer that its scientists don’t discuss research that points out just how serious the climate change challenge is."
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One that is shooting water! A geyser of water is spurting up from the poles of a star that is 750 light-years from the earth at a rate of 124,000 mpg, creating "water bullets" that it shoots deep into space. If it has other planets around it, the inhabitants (if any) will have plenty to drink.

If this kind of star is common, there’s a possibility that stars like these distributing water throughout the universe. And since water is one of the things necessary for life as we know it, it implies that life is more common than we’ve thought.
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An incredible discovery has been made by NASA recently: A new planet that’s the right size and location for life and only 20 light-years away, in a solar system very similar to our own but much smaller. The newly-discovered planet is called Gliese 581g and is the first world discovered beyond Earth that’s the right size and location for life.
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