Astrobiology Magazine

Just like the mythical creation stories that depict the formation of the world as the story of order from chaos, the early Earth was home to a chaotic clutter of organic molecules from which, somehow, more complex biological ...

Feb 06, 2019 in Astrobiology

299 2

As a principal investigator in the NASA Ames Exobiology Branch, Andrew Pohorille is searching for the origin of life on Earth, yet you won't find him out in the field collecting samples or in a laboratory conducting experiments ...

Dec 14, 2018 in Evolution Biotechnology Molecular & Computational Biology

317 199

Resonating oscillations of a planet's atmosphere caused by gravitational tides and heating from its star could prevent a planet's rotation from steadily slowing over time, according to new research by Caleb Scharf, who is ...

Nov 05, 2018 in Space Exploration Astrobiology

35 2

How life could be shared between planets in close proximity to one another has received a greater insight thanks to new analytics based on previously known and new calculations. The findings are allowing researchers to understand ...

Oct 30, 2018 in Astronomy

68 29

Evidence that catastrophic geological events could have created evolutionary bottlenecks that changed the course of life on Earth may be buried within ancient rocks beneath our feet.

Oct 16, 2018 in Astronomy Astrobiology

214 0

Early life forms on Earth may have been able to generate metabolic energy from sunlight using a purple-pigmented molecule called retinal that possibly predates the evolution of chlorophyll and photosynthesis. If retinal has ...

Oct 16, 2018 in Earth Sciences

300 0

If liquid water exists on the surface of Mars, it is most likely in the form of a briny mixture with magnesium chlorate salts, according to new experiments based on discoveries previously made by NASA's Phoenix and Viking ...

Sep 28, 2018 in Space Exploration

135 0

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology may have made headway in helping determine the origin of life by identifying three different molecules that self-assemble to form a molecular structure with features characteristic ...

Sep 17, 2018 in Biochemistry

768 9

Phosphorus, which is vital to life but somewhat rare, condensed inside asteroids in the outer Solar System before moving back towards the sun, where some of it ended up on Earth, according to new research.

Sep 07, 2018 in Astronomy

87 2

A carbon cycle anomaly discovered in carbonate rocks of the Neoproterozoic Hüttenberg Formation of north-eastern Namibia follows a pattern similar to that found right after the Great Oxygenation Event, hinting at new evidence ...

Aug 31, 2018 in Earth Sciences

131 1