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关于地球外生命的讨论（图文）
Conditions Are Right Elsewhere
The findings don't prove that life exists beyond the Earth,said Martin Harwit,a Cornell University astronomer."But it proves that the conditions that led to the formation of life and our solar system are present in lots of places."Harwit was chairman of a panel of researchers who presented data on Monday from the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite and the Infrared Space Observatory.The panel appeared at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.Gary J.Melnick,leader of an international team that built the astronomy satellite,said in a statement that water vapor is common and plentiful in warm regions around forming stars.Inside gas clouds where new stars are forming,temperatures soar to several thousand degrees,setting off chemical reactions favoring production of water,said Melnick,a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.This chemical churning,he said,results "in water being one of the most abundant molecules in these clouds."In chilled parts of the star-forming clouds,water vapor is rarely detected,however.Edwin Bergin of the Harvard-Smithsonian center suggests that the water is there,but in the form of ice that is coating dust grains.
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