Atmospheric oxygenation three billion years ago

Oxygen appeared in the atmosphere up to 700 million years earlier than we previously thought, according to research published today in the journal Nature, raising new questions about the evolution of early life.

ChemCam laser first analyses yield beautiful results

Members of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover ChemCam team, including Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, squeezed in a little extra target practice after zapping the first fist-sized rock that was placed ...

Is there an atmosphere on the Moon?

(Phys.org) —Until recently, most everyone accepted the conventional wisdom that the moon has virtually no atmosphere. Just as the discovery of water on the moon transformed our textbook knowledge of Earth's nearest celestial ...

A cool discovery about the Sun's next-door twin

(Phys.org)—ESA's Herschel space observatory has detected a cool layer in the atmosphere of Alpha Centauri A, the first time this has been seen in a star beyond our own Sun. The finding is not only important for understanding ...

Cassini to make a double play

(PhysOrg.com) -- In an action-packed day and a half, NASA's Cassini spacecraft will be making its closest swoop over the surface of Saturn's moon Dione and scrutinizing the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Living in the galactic danger zone

We know for certain that life exists in the Milky Way galaxy: that life is us. Scientists are continually looking to understand more about how life on our planet came to be and the conditions that must be met for its survival, ...

First carbon-rich exoplanet discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by a former postdoctoral researcher in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics, recently measured the first-ever planetary atmosphere ...

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