How many intelligent civilizations should there be in our galaxy right now? In 1961, U.S. astrophysicist Frank Drake, who passed away on September 2 at the age of 92, came up with an equation to estimate this. The Drake ...
Space Exploration
Sep 6, 2022
7
29
At the center of our galaxy resides the galactic bulge, a densely packed region of stars, dust and gas. Within this massive structure, which spans thousands of light-years, there are an estimated 10 billion stars, most of ...
Astronomy
Jun 9, 2020
0
55
In the absence of direct observations of extraterrestrial life, scientists often focus on searching for biosignatures, chemical by-products of life, that can be detected with remote sensing. Although Mars has received the ...
Astrobiology
Dec 2, 2022
1
108
In recent years, astronomers have discovered thousands of planets and planetary systems orbiting around nearby stars. Some are small and rocky like the Earth, whilst others are gas giants like Jupiter. It is now believed ...
Astronomy
Jun 6, 2019
0
72
A team of astrophysicists led by Lauren Weiss, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, created the first-ever catalog of small, Earth-like planets with Jupiter-like ...
Astrobiology
Dec 19, 2023
0
133
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter, the cosmos's mystery material that has eluded detection for decades. Dark ...
Space Exploration
Oct 14, 2020
8
82
Are we alone in the universe? An answer to that age-old question has seemed tantalizingly within reach since the discovery of ice-encrusted moons in our solar system with potentially habitable subsurface oceans. But looking ...
Space Exploration
Oct 6, 2022
0
333
Enceladus is the tiny moon of Saturn that seems to have it all. Its icy surface is intricately carved by ongoing geological processes. Its icy shell overlies an internal, liquid ocean. There, chemically charged warm water ...
Astrobiology
Jun 18, 2023
2
45
University of Washington astrobiologist Rory Barnes has created software that simulates multiple aspects of planetary evolution across billions of years, with an eye toward finding and studying potentially habitable worlds.
Astronomy
Sep 20, 2019
0
149
Researchers have found that rocky exoplanets which formed early in the life of the galaxy seem to have had a greater chance of developing a magnetic field and plate tectonics than planets which formed later. As both these ...
Astrobiology
Jun 22, 2020
0
41
