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Astrobiology news
Investigating the possibility of using asteroid material to grow edible biomass for astronauts
A team of engineers and planetary scientists at Western University's Institute for Earth and Space Exploration, in Canada, has found that it might be possible to produce food for space travelers by feeding bacteria asteroid ...
2-billion-year-old rock could help understand very early life on Earth and the hunt for evidence of life on Mars
Pockets of microbes have been found living within a sealed fracture in a 2-billion-year-old rock. The rock was excavated from the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa, an area known for its rich ore deposits. This is ...
Astrobiology
Oct 3, 2024
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Investigating the statistical likelihood of triple star systems hosting exoplanets
Why is it important to search for exoplanets in triple star systems and how many can we find there? This is what a recent study accepted by Astrophysics & Space Science hopes to address after a pair of researchers from the ...
Astrobiology
Oct 2, 2024
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Another building block of life can handle Venus' sulfuric acid
Venus is often described as a hellscape. The surface temperature breaches the melting point of lead, and though its atmosphere is dominated by carbon dioxide, it contains enough sulfuric acid to satisfy the comparison with ...
Astrobiology
Sep 27, 2024
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How a nearby supernova left its mark on Earth life
When a massive star explodes as a supernova, it does more than release an extraordinary amount of energy. Supernovae explosions are responsible for creating some of the heavy elements, including iron, which is blasted out ...
Astronomy
Sep 25, 2024
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How sweet is the Milky Way? Astrochemist is helping find out
Astrochemist Ryan Fortenberry, UM associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, collaborated with Ralf Kaiser, of the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, to study the creation of a simple sugar acid in space-like conditions. ...
Astrobiology
Sep 25, 2024
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Can the 'hard steps' in the evolutionary history of human intelligence be recast with geological thresholds?
What took so long for humans to appear on Earth? The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological species we know of in the universe—have existed ...
Potential indicators of life on other planets can be created in a lab
One way to understand the potential for life on far-off planets—those in other solar systems that orbit different stars—is to study a planet's atmosphere. Telescopic images often capture traces of gases that may indicate ...
Astrobiology
Sep 23, 2024
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Those aren't Dyson spheres, they're HotDOGs
If there really are advanced alien civilizations out there, you'd think they'd be easy to find. A truly powerful alien race would stride like gods among the cosmos, creating star-sized or galaxy-sized feats of engineering. ...
Astrobiology
Sep 23, 2024
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Advanced civilizations will overheat their planets within 1,000 years, researchers suggest
Earth's average global temperatures have been steadily increasing since the Industrial Revolution. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), Earth has been heating up at a rate of 0.06°C (0.11°F) ...
Astrobiology
Sep 23, 2024
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Could stars hotter than the sun still support life?
Although most potentially habitable worlds orbit red dwarf stars, we know larger and brighter stars can harbor life. One yellow dwarf star, for example, is known to have a planet teaming with life, perhaps even intelligent ...
Astrobiology
Sep 23, 2024
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Exoplanets could be hiding their atmospheres
Most of the exoplanets we've discovered orbit red dwarf stars. This isn't because red dwarfs are somehow special, simply that they are common. About 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs, so you would expect red ...
Astrobiology
Sep 20, 2024
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Life might thrive on the surface of Earth for an extra billion years
The sun is midway through its life of fusion. It's about 5 billion years old, and though its life is far from over, it will undergo some pronounced changes as it ages. Over the next billion years, the sun will continue to ...
Astrobiology
Sep 20, 2024
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Plants could still grow well under alien skies
Photosynthesis changed Earth in powerful ways. When photosynthetic organisms appeared, it led to the Great Oxygenation Event. That allowed multicellular life to evolve and resulted in the ozone layer. Life could venture onto ...
Astrobiology
Sep 20, 2024
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Scientists scan TRAPPIST-1 for technosignatures
If you are going to look for intelligent life beyond Earth, there are few better candidates than the TRAPPIST-1 star system. It isn't a perfect choice. Red dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 are notorious for emitting flares and ...
Astrobiology
Sep 19, 2024
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Volcanoes may help reveal interior heat on Jupiter moon
By staring into the hellish landscape of Jupiter's moon Io—the most volcanically active location in the solar system—Cornell astronomers have been able to study a fundamental process in planetary formation and evolution: ...
Astrobiology
Sep 19, 2024
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Detailed model suggests organic matter on Mars was formed from atmospheric formaldehyde
Although Mars is currently a cold, dry planet, geological evidence suggests that liquid water existed there around 3 to 4 billion years ago. Where there is water, there is usually life. In their quest to answer the burning ...
Astrobiology
Sep 19, 2024
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Could interstellar quantum communications involve Earth or solve the Fermi paradox?
Thus far, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has used strategies based on classical science—listening for radio waves, telescopes watching for optical signals, telescopes in orbit scouring light from the ...
Projecting what Earth will look like 1,000 years from now could assist in search for advanced civilizations
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is regularly plagued by the fact that humanity has a very limited perspective on civilization and the nature of intelligence itself. When it comes right down to it, the ...
Astrobiology
Sep 12, 2024
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Keeping mold out of future space stations
Mold can survive the harshest of environments, so to stop harmful spores from growing on future space stations, a new study suggests a novel way to prevent its spread.
Space Exploration
Sep 11, 2024
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Other news
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ESA's Hera spacecraft set for asteroid 'crime scene investigation'
Antarctic 'greening' at dramatic rate, satellite data show
Phage cocktail shows promise against drug-resistant bacteria
Scientists uncover auditory 'sixth sense' in geckos
Innovative method targets removal of PFAS from wastewater
Solar flares may cause faint auroras across top of Northern Hemisphere
