Using impact craters as a dating tool, Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist Alexander Morgan has determined maximum timescales for the formation of Martian valley networks shaped by running water.
Astrobiology
Jan 15, 2024
3
466
Giant-impact driven redox processes in the atmosphere and magma ocean may have played crucial roles during the evolution of the Earth. However, the absence of rock records from the time or era makes it challenging to understand ...
Paleontologists are getting a glimpse at life over a billion years in the past based on chemical traces in ancient rocks and the genetics of living animals. Research published in Nature Communications combines geology and ...
Evolution
Dec 7, 2023
0
114
A team of biophysicists affiliated with several institutions in China has uncovered via experimentation the means by which early life might have been able to survive cosmic radiation. In their study, reported in the journal ...
Pentoses are essential carbohydrates in the metabolism of modern lifeforms, but their availability during early Earth is unclear since these molecules are unstable.
Biochemistry
Dec 1, 2023
0
34
Nineteen million years ago, during a time known as the early Miocene, massive ice sheets in Antarctica rapidly and repeatedly grew and receded. The Miocene is widely considered a potential analog for Earth's climate in the ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 29, 2023
0
115
We're inching closer and closer to reliably detecting biosignatures on distant planets. Much of the focus is on determining which chemicals indicate life's presence.
Astrobiology
Nov 17, 2023
3
59
Geochemist Alexandra Phillips has sulfur on her mind. The yellow element is a vital macronutrient, and she's trying to understand how it cycles through the environment. Specifically, she's curious about the sulfur cycle in ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 16, 2023
0
119
Scientists proposed a novel idea on Wednesday that could solve two of the world's mysteries at once—one that passes over our heads every night, and one that sits far below our feet.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 4, 2023
14
116
An interdisciplinary international research team has recently discovered that a massive anomaly deep within the Earth's interior may be a remnant of the collision about 4.5 billion years ago that formed the moon.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 1, 2023
0
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