The following three articles all come from one day at www.dailygalaxy.com 26th October … the first says robotic telescopes have turned attention to strange exploding stars that seem to indicate unusual physics. One supernova in particular cannot be explained by known mechanics or physics. Observation has been done by a variety of different telescopes and it seems it is devoid of oxygen and carbon but is rich in helium.
The second story concerns reservoirs of water in crates in polar regions of the Moon – and has been a feature of mainstream news stories during the week – including the BBC (see www.bbc.co.uk/news )The LCROSS mission involved crashing an object into a prominent crater to see what was thrown up – and it consisted of 5 or 6 per cent water, among other things such as carbon monoxide, dioxide, ammonia, sodium, mercury, silver, and methane.
Finally, there is a story about a massive asteroid strike in Australia some 590 million years ago. This may have triggered the evolution of tiny complex organisms, known as Ediacara biota, segmented worms, fronds, disks and other life forms with little resemblance to modern life forms. Such rocks with fossils were first found in the Flinders Range in South Australia 300km from the impact site. Australia appears to have been an icy location at this time as glacial debris such as pebbles and gritty sediments were found in association with shattered rocks – presumably as a result of the impact. See www.cosmosmagazine.com and www.vic.gsa.org.au/Selwyn/past_symposiums/Selwyn1995Gostin.pdf . It seems the strange life forms may have emerged after the asteroid collision – so what life forms were blasted away by the impact?