A team of NASA researchers is developing new types of optical masks that could help enable the many orders of magnitude of starlight suppression needed for future space observatories to pick out very faint habitable exoplanets ...
Astrobiology
Mar 25, 2026
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21
A new study reveals all five fundamental nucleobases—the molecular "letters" of life—have been detected in samples from the asteroid Ryugu.
Astrobiology
Mar 22, 2026
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Provided they host thick, hydrogen-dominated atmospheres, moons orbiting free-floating exoplanets could retain much of the heat generated deep within their interiors by tidal forces. Led by David Dahlbüdding at the Max Planck ...
A research team from the Center for Applied Space Technology and Microgravity (ZARM), the Department of Environmental Process Engineering (UVT) at the University of Bremen and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has made significant ...
Space Exploration
Mar 20, 2026
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79
There's more evidence that water once flowed on Mars with the discovery of an ancient river delta deep below the surface. NASA's Perseverance rover found it more than 35 meters beneath Jezero Crater using ground-penetrating ...
If we're to find extraterrestrial life in the universe, astronomers have pinpointed the best places to look for it. They have identified just under 50 rocky worlds most likely to be habitable out of the more than 6,000 exoplanets ...
Astrobiology
Mar 19, 2026
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79
Two microscopic grains collide and produce a tiny spark. This phenomenon may have provided the energy to kick off life on Earth. But if these solid particles have the same composition, what factor causes the charge to flow ...
Astrobiology
Mar 18, 2026
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32
New experimental results have cast doubt on earlier proposals suggesting that spherical, cell-like membranes could form in the methane lakes of Saturn's largest moon. Through results published in Science Advances, Tuan Vu ...
Here is a problem that has been quietly gnawing at astronomers for decades. The standard approach to detecting life on other worlds involves scanning exoplanet atmospheres for oxygen, methane, and ozone, whose presence is ...
Astrobiology
Mar 16, 2026
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720
Europa is not supposed to look the way it does. Jupiter's icy moon is scarred by a chaotic patchwork of fractured terrain, crisscrossed ridges, and disrupted surface regions that suggest something dynamic is happening beneath ...
Astrobiology
Mar 16, 2026
0
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