Webb finds icy complex organic molecules around protostars

In the quest to understand how and where life might arise in the galaxy, astronomers search for its building blocks. Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) are some of those blocks, and they include things like formaldehyde and ...

Saturn's icy moon may hold the building blocks of life

As astrophysics technology and research continue to advance, one question persists: is there life elsewhere in the universe? The Milky Way galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of celestial bodies, but scientists often look ...

Martian snow is dusty, could potentially melt, new study shows

Over the last two decades, scientists have found ice in many locations on Mars. Most Martian ice has been observed from orbital satellites like NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But determining the grain size and dust content ...

If there is life out there, can we detect it?

Instruments aboard future space missions are capable of detecting amino acids, fatty acids and peptides, and can even identify ongoing biological processes on ocean moons in our solar system. These are the exciting conclusions ...

New organic compounds found in Enceladus ice grains

New kinds of organic compounds, the ingredients of amino acids, have been detected in the plumes bursting from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The findings are the result of the ongoing deep dive into data from NASA's Cassini mission.

Image: The colors in Saturn's rings

Saturn's rings display their subtle colors in this view captured on Aug. 22, 2009, by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The particles that make up the rings range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains, ...

Stellar outburst brings water snowline into view

A violent outburst by the young star V883 Orionis has given astronomers their first view of a water "snowline" in a protoplanetary disk - the transition point around the star where the temperature and pressure are low enough ...

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