https://phys.org/space-news/astrobiology/ en-us Astrobiology news stories about origin and evolution of life in the Universe Europa, one of Jupiter's icy moons, has long fascinated scientists because of what may lie beneath its frozen shell: a global ocean of liquid water. That hidden ocean has made Europa one of the most compelling places in the solar system to study the conditions that might support life. But new research led by Rutgers scientist Lujendra Ojha suggests one of the most promising shortcuts to Europa's ocean may be far more complicated than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-europa-hidden-ocean-difficult-scientists.html Astrobiology Fri, 24 Jul 2026 12:00:03 EDT news704105234 UK astronomers are a step closer to playing a leading role in NASA's search for alien life in the coming decades as they continue developing one of the core instruments of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). The exciting mission—the U.S. space agency's next flagship space telescope after the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope—is expected to launch in the 2040s. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-uk-pole-position-key-instrument.html Astrobiology Fri, 24 Jul 2026 11:00:09 EDT news704103592 Astronomers searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence may have been missing alien signals in part of the radio spectrum that has not recently been explored. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-alien-radio-channel.html Astronomy Thu, 23 Jul 2026 19:00:03 EDT news703934221 Dreams of finding a sort of Earth 2.0 motivate much of the thinking around the search for exoplanets. But there is more to exoplanet science than searching for potentially habitable worlds. Scientists need a deeper understanding of the overall exoplanet population to understand the cosmos. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-venus-zone-planets-plato-habitable.html Astrobiology Tue, 21 Jul 2026 12:00:02 EDT news703845362 Are we alone in the universe? For scientists working on NASA's proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory, that question is no longer purely philosophical. It is increasingly becoming an engineering problem. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-advance-tech-scientists-habitable-worlds.html Astrobiology Mon, 20 Jul 2026 07:40:01 EDT news703748041 Scientists have developed a new way to predict the strength of the sun's next activity cycle up to seven years before it reaches its peak. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sun-reveal-future-space-weather.html Astrobiology Sun, 19 Jul 2026 19:00:03 EDT news703511720 Nearly a decade after the discovery of LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet in the habitable zone of a nearby low-mass star, a new study reveals that the object may have its own atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nearby-rocky-planet-replenishing-helium.html Astrobiology Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:00:18 EDT news703345883 In a major milestone in the search for life on other planets, astronomers have detected, for the first time, an atmosphere surrounding an Earth-like, rocky planet orbiting within the habitable zone of another star. The finding provides the strongest evidence yet that worlds with conditions similar to Earth in composition and temperature, with the potential to support life, could exist beyond our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-life-solar-atmosphere-habitable-zone.html Astrobiology Thu, 16 Jul 2026 14:00:11 EDT news703314812 Scientists have painted the most detailed portrait yet of the planetary system orbiting Barnard's Star—the sun's closest neighbor after Alpha Centauri, just under six light-years from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-nearby-planets-small-strange.html Astrobiology Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:20:01 EDT news703340046 On July 16, 2024, a daytime meteor shook New York City with a sonic boom as it passed just south of the Statue of Liberty. Now, an international team of researchers reports in the journal Science Advances that a short time later, a meteorite weighing more than 2 pounds crashed through the roof of a house in the town of Hillsborough, New Jersey. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-alien-world-chemistry-meteorite-struck.html Space Exploration Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:00:03 EDT news703263418 Astrobiology has long been split into two camps: a search for "biosignatures" and a search for "intelligence." These look for very different things, but they also leave a huge gap in between. It took 3.5 billion years for us to go from the first microbe to a civilization that sent radio waves into the cosmos. Detecting life in between those stages is a relatively untouched aspect of astrobiology—which is also the focal point of a new paper, "Signs and Signatures of Intelligence," available on the arXiv preprint server, by astrobiologist Julia DeMarines. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-universe-noosignatures.html Astrobiology Tue, 14 Jul 2026 20:40:02 EDT news703245931 A technique for judging whether a common mineral formed through biological activity could aid the search for ancient life on Earth and Mars. Apatite is a ubiquitous phosphate mineral found in terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. It is a major component of teeth and bones, but it also occurs in igneous rocks and sedimentary phosphorites. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-driven-tool-mineral-biosignatures-worlds.html Astrobiology Tue, 14 Jul 2026 11:50:01 EDT news703246314 Scientists have detected evidence of landslides on Pluto for the first time. A paper published in the journal Icarus reports that images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during a flyby revealed six large landslides in three impact craters. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-massive-landslides-icy-pluto.html Astrobiology Mon, 13 Jul 2026 15:30:02 EDT news703172932 Sugars are key biomolecules in living organisms, as they form the backbone of DNA and RNA and play a fundamental role in metabolic processes. In theories of the origin of life, sugars are also essential for the synthesis of the first nucleic acids. Despite their importance, one of the major questions in origin-of-life research is how the first sugars formed on Earth, since laboratory experiments show that they do not form in sufficient quantities under prebiotic conditions. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sugar-interstellar-space.html Astronomy Mon, 13 Jul 2026 11:00:04 EDT news703140907 Ever so slightly bigger than Earth, the exoplanet LHS 3844b orbits its parent star, LHS 3844, a red dwarf 48.5 light-years from our solar system. Its rotational speed mirrors its orbital speed. The result? One side of LHS 3844b is perpetually bathed in scorching sunlight, locked into a never-ending, blistering hot day, while the other is forever shrouded in darkness so cold that particles are incapable of movement, a state known as absolute zero (zero Kelvin). https://phys.org/news/2026-07-exoplanets-eternal-day-endless-night.html Astrobiology Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:00:05 EDT news702896075 For the first time, astronomers have discovered stellar cocoons rich in complex organic molecules within a supernova remnant. A research team from Niigata University, Gifu University, RIKEN and Kyoto University in Japan used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe the remnant of a massive star that exploded about 1,600 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-newborn-stars-rich-gas-ancient.html Astronomy Thu, 09 Jul 2026 11:50:01 EDT news702814502 When it comes to the search for life elsewhere in the universe, methane and other chemical compounds are seen as signs of biology because they are often produced by living microbes. However, scientists can be misled because certain geological processes can produce chemical signatures identical to those of living organisms. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-baseline-tool-alien-life-geology.html Astrobiology Tue, 07 Jul 2026 13:30:01 EDT news702646858 Like a shelf in an old house, the Earth collects a lot of dust from its surroundings. This "space dust" is mostly made up of micrometeorites that survive atmospheric entry and provides researchers with a cheap and easy way to obtain samples to study our cosmic neighbors. However, it can be difficult to determine which objects certain samples originated from if their parent bodies aren't already in available catalogs. A recent study, published in Science Advances, describes a new subset of space dust with such mysterious origins and how researchers are tracking down potential sources. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-earth-space-unidentified-asteroids.html Astrobiology Tue, 07 Jul 2026 12:50:02 EDT news702646844 Are we alone in the universe? Consider mysterious "extraterrestrial" radio signals. Unexplained gases on other planets. Things mistaken for UFOs. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-disturbingly-easy-ai-aliens.html Astronomy Tue, 07 Jul 2026 07:00:03 EDT news702619561 With new technologies come new opportunities. And that is especially true in astronomy—with every new advanced telescope, we have the potential to see (or in some cases, listen) farther and more clearly than ever before. That is certainly the case for the new Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which is currently undergoing a multiyear rollout phase. Despite that drawn-out process, astronomers are already excited about its potential, and a new book chapter from Dr. Chenoa Tremblay and her co-authors details how this new technology could be used to answer one of the most fundamental questions: Are we alone? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-square-kilometer-array-revolutionize-alien.html Astronomy Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:20:02 EDT news702560762 Searching for habitable worlds beyond our solar system involves more than having a planet orbit within its star's habitable zone, the region where temperatures could be just right for liquid water to exist on the surface. On Earth, where water comprises approximately 75% of the planet's surface, life is abundant. But what about the exoplanet's star, specifically its activity and rotation? How could this influence how exoplanets are identified for current and future missions? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-star-sharpen-habitable-worlds.html Astrobiology Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:20:01 EDT news702117020 Exoplanet atmospheres have become prime targets for astrobiologists in the search for life beyond Earth. This is because exoplanet surfaces can't be directly imaged yet, so astronomers must get creative in how they search for signs of life, also called biosignatures. Presently, powerful ground- and space-based telescopes like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are improving in their ability to observe and analyze exoplanet atmospheres. But how did these atmospheres form and evolve, and what could this mean for the search for life beyond Earth? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nautilus-array-track-exoplanet-atmospheres.html Space Exploration Wed, 01 Jul 2026 17:20:01 EDT news702117027 Hopefully, we're about to travel back to the moon relatively soon. And while the original "giant leap for mankind" was taken by a human, Neil Armstrong brought a plethora of other forms of life along with him. Humans themselves are essentially walking ecosystems, and understanding how our microbial companions survive in the harsh environments of space will be critical to ensuring the health and safety of future astronauts, no matter where their giant leaps might be. A new Ph.D. thesis from Tommaso Zaccaria at Radboud University showcases just how well suited terrestrial pathogens actually are to some of these harsh environments. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-earth-microbes-survive-individual-martian.html Astrobiology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 18:20:03 EDT news702056221 Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. The planet, known as GJ 3378b, orbits a small, cool star called a red dwarf. Just 25 light-years from Earth in the direction of the northern constellation Camelopardalis, it lies in its star's "habitable zone"—the region where temperatures could allow liquid water to exist—making it a candidate to host life. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-nearby-super-earth-candidate-life.html Astrobiology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:50:01 EDT news702044402 Securing sustainable food supplies is a key challenge for long-term human exploration and potential habitation of the moon. The moon's soil contains no organic material, and essential plant nitrogen sources like ammonia and nitrate are virtually nonexistent. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-rice-grown-moon-air-fertilizer.html Astrobiology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:40:06 EDT news702030421 Artificial intelligence (AI) is continuing to have a disruptive impact on ever more parts of humanity. But what does it mean in the long run? A new paper, available as a preprint on arXiv from Austrian researcher Sergey Ivliev, extrapolates what the wide-scale adoption of AI means for the future of humanity in space—and in particular, what it means for the ultimate question of whether we're truly alone in the galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-space-ai-fermi-paradox.html Astrobiology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 22:00:01 EDT news701954739 Researchers from the University of Oxford have uncovered evidence that Mars once hosted enormous, Earth-like magmatic systems deep beneath its surface—despite the planet lacking the plate tectonics long thought necessary for this kind of geological complexity. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-evidence-vast-hidden-magma.html Astrobiology Fri, 26 Jun 2026 05:00:04 EDT news701604001 In September 2025, NASA announced that its Perseverance rover had discovered a potential biosignature, which is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin. A new paper, published in Science Advances, unambiguously confirms the detection of organic carbon, the building blocks of life, in the same two rocks from the Bright Angel formation, and describes in more detail exactly what we can say about that organic matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-carbon-bright-angel-formation-mars.html Astrobiology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:10:04 EDT news701538061 On Earth, garnet is best known as the fiery red January birthstone—popular in jewelry since the Bronze Age and valued highly by ancient Egyptians. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-garnet-meteorite-fragment-mars.html Astrobiology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 13:20:01 EDT news701517902 Vegetarians need not worry yet—plants will be on Earth for a long time to come. But not forever. The sun will ultimately determine the long-term existence of life on Earth. Its total energy output, called luminosity, has been increasing over epochs and eons by about 10% every billion years—determining much of Earth's surface temperature. This will continue for billions of years in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-survive-earth-billion-years.html Astrobiology Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:00:05 EDT news701425675