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Astrobiology news
Are we the Martians? The intriguing idea that life on Earth began on the red planet
How did life begin on Earth? While scientists have theories, they don't yet fully understand the precise chemical steps that led to biology, or when the first primitive life forms appeared.
Astrobiology
Dec 29, 2025
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Saturn's icy moon Enceladus is an attractive target in the search for life—new research
A small, icy moon of Saturn called Enceladus is one of the prime targets in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system. A new study strengthens the case for Enceladus being a habitable world.
Astrobiology
Dec 24, 2025
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Scientists crack ancient salt crystals to unlock secrets of 1.4 billion-year-old air
More than a billion years ago, in a shallow basin across what is now northern Ontario, a subtropical lake much like modern-day Death Valley evaporated under the sun's gentle heat, leaving behind crystals of halite—rock ...
Astrobiology
Dec 23, 2025
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Stardust study resets how life's atoms spread through space
Starlight and stardust are not enough to drive the powerful winds of giant stars, transporting the building blocks of life through our galaxy. That's the conclusion of a new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, ...
Astrobiology
Dec 22, 2025
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Life's first molecule: Borate boosts its formation, finds study
The transition from simple chemistry to the complex biology of molecules that gave rise to life is a puzzle that scientists have been trying to solve for ages.
Could advanced civilizations communicate like fireflies
Long before scientists discovered that other stars in the universe host their own planetary systems, humanity had contemplated the existence of life beyond Earth. As our technology matured and we began monitoring the night ...
Astrobiology
Dec 19, 2025
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Life on lava: How microbes colonize new habitats
Life has a way of bouncing back, even after catastrophic events like forest fires or volcanic eruptions. While nature's resilience to natural disasters has long been recognized, not much is known about how organisms colonize ...
Astrobiology
Dec 18, 2025
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The first alien civilization we encounter will be extremely loud
For decades, science fiction writers have tried their best to prepare us for eventual contact with aliens. Their efforts are dominated by several recurrent tropes. There's the invasion by a warlike species, there's the highly-evolved ...
Astrobiology
Dec 17, 2025
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Why most exoplanets are magma worlds
In astronomy, there is a concept called "degeneracy." It has nothing to do with delinquent people, but instead is used to describe data that could be interpreted multiple ways. In some cases, that interpretation is translated ...
Astrobiology
Dec 17, 2025
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Saturn's biggest moon might not have an ocean after all
Careful reanalysis of data from more than a decade ago indicates that Saturn's biggest moon, Titan, does not have a vast ocean beneath its icy surface, as suggested previously. Instead, a journey below the frozen exterior ...
Astrobiology
Dec 17, 2025
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Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like? Research using machine learning offers a new way
When NASA scientists opened the sample return canister from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample mission in late 2023, they found something astonishing.
Astrobiology
Dec 15, 2025
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Supernova immersion model suggests Earth-like planets are more common in the universe
Rocky planets like our Earth may be far more common than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Science Advances. It suggests that when our solar system formed, a nearby supernova (the massive ...
How oxygen first reached Earth's oceans
For roughly 2 billion years of Earth's early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required for complex life. Oxygen began building up during the period known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), ...
Astrobiology
Dec 9, 2025
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NASA-JAXA XRISM finds elemental bounty in supernova remnant
For the first time, scientists have made a clear X-ray detection of chlorine and potassium in the wreckage of a star using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) spacecraft.
Astronomy
Dec 8, 2025
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Ten versions of Earth's future can help us hunt for technosignatures
Searching for technosignatures—signs of technology on a planet that we can see from afar—remains a difficult task. There are so many different factors to consider, and we only have the technological capabilities to detect ...
Astrobiology
Dec 4, 2025
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Chlorine and potassium found in supernova remnant at unexpectedly high levels
"Why are we here?" is humanity's most fundamental and persistent question. Tracing the origins of the elements is a direct attempt to answer this at its deepest level. We know many elements are created inside stars and supernovae, ...
Astronomy
Dec 4, 2025
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The bacteria that won't wake up: NASA discovers new bacteria 'playing dead'
New research conducted on a NASA-discovered bacterium shows the microbe is capable of entering an extreme dormant state, essentially "playing dead" to survive in some of the cleanest environments on Earth.
Space Exploration
Dec 3, 2025
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Sugars, 'gum,' stardust found in NASA's asteroid Bennu samples
The asteroid Bennu continues to provide new clues to scientists' biggest questions about the formation of the early solar system and the origins of life. As part of the ongoing study of pristine samples delivered to Earth ...
Astrobiology
Dec 2, 2025
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Evidence of rain-driven climate on Mars found in bleached rocks scattered in Jezero crater
Rocks that stood out as light-colored dots on the reddish-orange surface of Mars now are the latest evidence that areas of the small planet may have once supported wet oases with humid climates and heavy rainfall comparable ...
Astrobiology
Dec 1, 2025
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A new possibility for life: Study suggests ancient skies rained down ingredients
Earth's atmosphere might have contributed to the origin of life more than previously thought. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, CU Boulder researchers and collaborators reveal that ...
Astrobiology
Dec 1, 2025
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More news
What seven decades of hunting for aliens tells us
Why being in the 'right place' isn't enough for life
Helping to grow plants in space for NASA missions to the moon and mars
Life is just matter with meaning
Expert Q&A on searching for alien life
Moss spores survive 9 months outside International Space Station
Other news
Sudden breakups of monogamous quantum couples surprise researchers
Bacteria reveal second 'shutdown mode' for surviving antibiotic treatment
How the 'guardian of the genome' impacts blood vessel growth
Origins of THC, CBD and CBC in cannabis revealed
The rust that could reveal alien life
What a missing signal tells us about alien worlds
How to spot life in the clouds on other worlds
A coral reef's daily pulse reshapes microbes in surrounding waters
Physicists repair flaw of established quantum resource theorem
Sunlight-driven nanoparticles enable cleaner ammonia synthesis at room temperature
