NASA will NOT announce life find today

NASA is not going to be making a "huge" announcement regarding evidence of life somewhere else in our solar system today as is being erroneously reported on the Internet and repeated by some broadcasters. The space agency is releasing a study today, at 2 p.m., that is being terribly misinterpreted by some who clearly do not fully understand what they're reading in a news release summarizing the study.

The story posted earlier at the web site of a local cable news outlet here in Central Florida saying that, "NASA is planning to make a huge announcement today, about possible life in our own solar system" is simply incorrect. The station has since removed the story from the web site, noting that earlier reports may have been misleading. It could be that other news organizations also posted or broadcast the same erroneous information or something similar. In any event, the "news" blazed a trail all over the Internet and prompted a lot of unnecessary excitement.

Here's how this stuff happens, for those who care.

The NASA news release has been provided to some news outlets, including Florida Today, in advance to let reporters to get stories ready. This is relatively standard practice for some NASA science announcements. It gives reporters and editors time to read, understand and do additional research prior to publishing news stories.

The reason, in all honesty, is to avoid just the kind of misunderstanding that is happening today in the event that someone hurriedly reads and reports on a news release without having time to do some added homework. It's unclear who posted what, on which web sites and when, but the bottom line is the "huge life" announcement is bogus.

We're going to honor the original 2 p.m. NASA embargo on the actual science news they've got to report. The news is significant, but is not about evidence of life beyond the planet Earth. Anyway, please come back this afternoon. We'll have the complete story for you at that time here in The Flame Trench.