Issue Date: February 10, 2008

A year of big advances?

New data may help explain some mysteries, such as habitability of other planets.

By Karen C. Fox

This year we elect a new president, check out China during the Olympics, get an extra day on Feb. 29 and watch Harrison Ford don a fedora again as Indiana Jones. Also, 2008 is loaded with some highly anticipated events in the world of science. Here's a sneak peek at a few mysteries we may begin to unravel this year, along with some noteworthy landmark events:

Rise of the megacity
For the first time in history, more than half of the world's population -- about 3.3. billion people -- are living in urban areas, as of 2008, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The world's five largest urban areas (cities plus suburbs) are now Tokyo; New York City; Seoul; Mumbai, India; and Jakarta, Indonesia, says Demographia's "World Urban Areas" report.

Heavenly views
Saturn will be at its closest to the Earth on Feb. 24, and Jupiter will be nearest on July 9. You can see both with the naked eye, but it's worth finding a friend with a telescope to look at Saturn's awe-inspiring rings -- especially if you're viewing them for the first time.

Saturn's rings are truly a sight.

Weighty matter
Physicists have yet to prove the all-important key to the origin of particle mass -- known as the Higgs boson. Thought to be the particle that gives all other things their mass, the Higgs boson finally might be observed in experiments involving the extremely powerful Large Hadron Collider, a particle smasher that's scheduled to begin operating in May in Geneva.

Another Earth?
Researchers will soon get their hands on a cornucopia of results from the European COROT telescope when more data is released to the scientific community. The burning question: Are there Earth-like planets outside our solar system? So far, scientists have spotted 270 planets around other suns, but conditions on those planets aren't thought to be capable of harboring life as we know it. Because COROT is finding planets about the size of Earth, 2008 could be the year when we find another habitable world.

Similar data may come from sites closer to home, such as Mars. NASA's Phoenix spacecraft is expected to land there on May 25. The Phoenix will use a robotic arm to dig into the polar cap; if ice is found there, it could be an indication that Mars has supported life.

Calendar events
This year, Easter comes before Passover, and the two holidays are almost a month apart. Easter falls on March 23 and Passover begins on April 20 -- about as far apart as they can be. This large discrepancy sometimes happens on modern calendars because Easter is observed on the first Sunday after the full moon on or after March 21, a date determined from a solar calendar, while the date for Passover is based solely on the Hebrew lunar calendar. With one of these celebrations determined by the sun and the other influenced by the moon, there is no guarantee that their sequence will correspond to the original Biblical order.