(Phys.org) —Life took root more than four billion years ago on our nascent Earth, a wetter and harsher place than now, bathed in sizzling ultraviolet rays. What started out as simple cells ultimately transformed into slime ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 16, 2014
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Almost 40 years ago, two NASA probes on the surface of Mars scooped the soil in search of signs of microbes. The results that came back from the twin Viking missions were, to say the least, ambiguous. The scientific literature ...
Space Exploration
Nov 21, 2013
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Long before NASA's Perseverance rover touched down on the Red Planet on Feb. 18, one of its highest-level mission goals was already established: to seek out signs of ancient life on the Martian surface. In fact, the techniques ...
Space Exploration
Apr 7, 2021
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When the Mars 2020 rover arrives on the Red Planet, one of its primary mission goals will be to select and preserve samples that would eventually make it back to Earth for scientific study. Rather than seeking to eliminate ...
Space Exploration
Aug 11, 2015
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A robotic mission's search for life on Mars may seem worlds away from human scientists wandering around hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. But a study of the Yellowstone hot springs has revealed new clues about how ...
Space Exploration
Apr 21, 2015
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Here's a thorny problem: What if life doesn't always appear on planets that can support it? What if we find more and more exoplanets and determine that some of them are habitable? What if we also determine that life hasn't ...
Astrobiology
Dec 21, 2022
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Since the Kepler Space Telescope was launched into space, the number of known planets beyond the solar system (exoplanets) has grown exponentially. At present, 3,917 planets have been confirmed in 2,918 star systems, while ...
Astrobiology
Mar 4, 2019
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A team of scientists including Carnegie's Dina Bower and Andrew Steele weigh in on whether microstructures found in 3.46 billion-year-old samples of a silica-rich rock called chert found in Western Australia are the planet's ...
Paleontology & Fossils
Feb 16, 2016
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Laboratory experiments on Earth can now simulate the conditions under which life might emerge on Saturn's moon Enceladus, as well as other icy alien worlds, according to new research published in the September 2017 issue ...
Space Exploration
Dec 1, 2017
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With about 4,000 planet candidates from the Kepler Space Telescope data to analyze so far, astronomers are busy trying to figure out questions about habitability. What size planet could host life? How far from its star does ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2014
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