A team of researchers has examined the Winchcombe meteorite and demonstrated the existence in it of nitrogen compounds such as amino acids and heterocyclic hydrocarbons—without applying any chemical treatment and by using ...
Astrobiology
Jan 29, 2024
0
32
If life ever existed on Mars, the Perseverance rover's verification of lake sediments at the base of the Jezero crater reinforces the hope that traces might be found in the crater.
Astrobiology
Jan 26, 2024
10
119
All modern life shares a robust, hardy, efficient system of intertwined chemicals that propagate themselves. This system must have emerged from a simpler, less efficient, more delicate one. But what was that system, and why ...
Astrobiology
Jan 26, 2024
3
152
We know of Mars as the red planet, for its surface and atmosphere is caked in endless swirling dust of rusted iron, the rusting action provided by the always-eager oxygen. But this was not always so.
Astrobiology
Jan 24, 2024
0
36
The Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) project is an ambitious plan to build a space telescope with four independent mirrors. The array would allow the individual mirrors to move closer or farther apart, similar to ...
Astrobiology
Jan 23, 2024
0
9
There is a vast menagerie of potentially habitable worlds in the cosmos, which means the universe could be home to a diversity of life beyond what we can imagine. Creatures built on silicon rather than carbon, or organisms ...
Astrobiology
Jan 23, 2024
0
24
On October 19, 2017, astronomers with the Pan-STARRS survey detected an interstellar object (ISO) passing through our solar system for the first time. The object, known as 1I/2017 U1 'Oumuamua, stimulated significant scientific ...
Astronomy
Jan 15, 2024
2
69
Using impact craters as a dating tool, Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist Alexander Morgan has determined maximum timescales for the formation of Martian valley networks shaped by running water.
Astrobiology
Jan 15, 2024
3
466
When scientists detected phosphine in Venus' atmosphere in 2020, it triggered renewed, animated discussions about Venus and its potential habitability. It would be weird if the detection didn't generate interest since phosphine ...
Astrobiology
Jan 12, 2024
0
51
When we look at the moon, either through a pair of binoculars, a telescope, or past footage from the Apollo missions, we see a landscape that's riddled with what appear to be massive sinkholes. But these "sinkholes" aren't ...
Astrobiology
Jan 11, 2024
0
6
