New Kid in Town

GRIFFEY FOREVER: Today our errands took us past Safeco Field a little after noon. Out front on the corner of Dave and Edgar, we saw a tall object wrapped in a blue, protective cover. We knew immediately that it was the brand new Ken Griffey Jr. statue under wraps.

By the time we got back from our errand, they had unwrapped the statue! So, we snapped some quick photos from our car. We'll get a chance to see the real live Junior tomorrow night, when he throws out the ceremonial first pitch at the Mariners' game!

NASA NEWS: This morning, while working on making a fake fireplace and constructing a robotic art project, we listened to a a live press conference with several NASA experts with updates from the Cassini Mission to Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope.

The missions have both produced new details about icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, each with an intriguing ocean.

Scientists associated with the Cassini probe to Saturn announced that a form of chemical energy that life can feed on appears to exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

From NASA, the illustration above shows Cassini diving through the Enceladus plume in 2015. New ocean world discoveries from Cassini and Hubble will help inform future exploration and the broader search for life beyond Earth.  Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

And the cool graphic above shows how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of the ocean of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, producing hydrogen gas. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech 

In other news, Hubble researchers report there is additional evidence of plumes erupting from Jupiter's moon Europa.

These composite images above show a suspected plume erupting two years apart from the same location on Jupiter's icy moon Europa. Both plumes, photographed in UV light by Hubble, were seen in silhouette as the moon passed in front of Jupiter. Credits: NASA/ESA/STScI/USGS

In a press release, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington, said, "This is the closest we've come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment. These results demonstrate the interconnected nature of NASA's science missions that are getting us closer to answering whether we are indeed alone or not.”

For more info, check out the news release on the findings: NASA Missions Provide New Insights into 'Ocean Worlds' in Our Solar System