Using data from the Spitzer space observatory, Dr. Susana Iglesias-Groth, a researcher from The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found evidence for the existence of the amino acid tryptophan in the interstellar ...
Astronomy
Jun 20, 2023
1
3799
The organic material found in a few areas on the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is probably of exogenic origin. Impacting asteroids from the outer asteroid belt may have brought it with them.
Astrobiology
Jan 27, 2025
0
277
Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? It's a question that has been debated for centuries, if not millenia. But it is only recently that we've had an actual chance of finding out, with initiatives such as Seti ...
Astrobiology
Oct 19, 2021
6
277
Presently, Earth is the only known location where life exists in the Universe. This year the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to three astronomers who proved, almost 20 years ago, that planets are common around stars beyond ...
Astrobiology
Jan 21, 2020
3
614
Once upon a cosmic time, scientists assumed that stars apply an eternal magnetic brake, causing an endless slowdown of their rotation. With new observations and sophisticated methods, they have now peeked into a star's magnetic ...
Astronomy
Jan 10, 2024
1
276
Enrico Fermi's lunchtime question at wartime Los Alamos, "Where is everybody?" has been both a gift and a problem to scientists ever since. Known as "Fermi's Paradox," it simply asks, why, since life on Earth is ubiquitous ...
One of the properties that make a planet suitable for life is the presence of a weather system. Exoplanets are too far away to directly observe this, but astronomers can search for substances in the atmosphere that make a ...
Astronomy
Feb 3, 2021
0
431
In recent years, the explosive nature of exoplanet discovery (over 4,164 confirmed so far) has led to renewed interest in the timeless question: "Are we alone in the universe?" Or, as famed Italian physicist Enrico Fermi ...
Astronomy
Jun 25, 2020
0
274
A harsh sun shines down through a cloudless sky, across a vast and unforgiving landscape. It's covered in gray rock, giant ice sculptures and expansive fields of spiky, yellow and orange bushes. In the distance, intimidating ...
Astrobiology
Mar 7, 2022
0
273
A team of researchers at MIT has found via theoretical modeling that the saltiness of the oceans on Saturn's moon, Enceladus, may be the right level to sustain life. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, ...
