Amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life, were previously found in samples of 4.6-billion-year-old rocks from an asteroid called Bennu, delivered to Earth in 2023 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. How those amino acids—the ...
Astrobiology
Feb 9, 2026
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For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic ...
Astrobiology
Feb 9, 2026
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109
Recent research suggests that Saturn's bright rings and its largest moon, Titan, may have both originated in collisions among its moons. While Cassini's 13-year mission expanded our understanding of Saturn, the discoveries ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 11, 2026
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Using an advanced machine-learning algorithm, researchers in the UK and Japan have identified several promising candidate locations for the long-lost landing site of the Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft. Publishing their results ...
Gas giants are large planets mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. Although these planets have dense cores, they don't have hard surfaces. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants in our solar system, but there are many ...
Astronomy
Feb 9, 2026
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A major study by an international team of researchers using data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft has revealed a lattice-like structure of crisscrossing reflected waves that flow downstream behind the moon in Saturn's ...
Planetary Sciences
Feb 9, 2026
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In a new study, researchers say that nonbiological sources they considered could not fully account for the abundance of organic compounds in a sample collected on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover. The paper is published in ...
Astrobiology
Feb 10, 2026
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56
Free-floating planets, or as they are more commonly known, rogue planets, wander interstellar space completely alone. Saying there might be a lot of them is a bit of an understatement. Recent estimates put the number of rogue ...
Astrobiology
Feb 11, 2026
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NASA's Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) project has completed an important step toward using local resources to support human exploration on the moon. The CaRD team performed integrated prototype testing that used ...
Space Exploration
Feb 13, 2026
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Using HARPS and HARPS-N spectrographs, astronomers have observed a nearby K-type star designated HD 176986, known to host two super-Earth exoplanets. The observations resulted in the discovery of another planet in the system ...
