Word: solarization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...orbit it has traced for billions of years. It is an asteroid known as 433 Eros, and it is just one of thousands that have been discovered since the first was spotted in 1801. Astronomers believe these mysterious objects are rubble left over from the formation of the solar system and that they've occasionally smashed into Earth; it may well have been a wayward asteroid, for example, that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But nobody has ever got a close enough look to say anything definitive about what the asteroids are or where they came from...
Despite Goldin's caution about assuming the existence of Earthlike planets, few astronomers doubt they are out there. If other solar systems do contain Earthlike worlds, says NASA exobiologist Michael Meyer, at least some should fall into the "habitable zone"--the region, governed by a planet's distance from its star, where water is liquid rather than solid or gaseous. "The good news," he says, "is that if our solar system is typical, there's a 50% chance that a planet will be in the right zone...
That suggests, though it does not prove, that biology will take hold if it possibly can, even under hostile conditions. In fact, biologists have not quite given up on our own solar system yet. They think Mars may have had a brief fling with one-cell life that could have left fossil evidence behind. Some even hold out the hope that microorganisms are still surviving somewhere under the Martian surface. Attention is also turning to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons; its icy white surface could conceal oceans of liquid water, and perhaps some sorts of living organism. Both possibilities...
...life to intelligent life is probably the longest shot of all," observes Des Marais. Even so, the small band of astronomers devoted to the search for broadcasts from high-tech extraterrestrials is encouraged: their 35-year quest has always rested on the assumption that planets exist outside Earth's solar system, and the fact that they have been proved right makes the search seem considerably less quixotic...
...using instruments ranging from the high-flying Hubble to relatively small scopes, are stepping up their activities. Predicts Marcy: "We are going to find, between us and the Swiss, 10 more planets in the next two years." Concurs Butler: "Very shortly, there could be more planets known outside the solar system than inside." Whether or not they are right, the human race has already moved closer to answering the most enduring question about its true place in the cosmos...