Life
Cyborg Jellyfish Could Help Explore Oceans Autonomously
Earth's oceans are—like space—a largely unexplored frontier. Relatively few humans have explored either place, using specialized life-support equipment. Unlike space,…
Juno Measures How Much Oxygen is Being Produced by Europa
If the periodic table listed the elements in order of their importance to life, then oxygen might bully its way…
Cosmic Dust Could Have Helped Get Life Going on Earth
The early Earth didn't have many chemicals needed for life on its surface, but they were present in asteroids and…
Dying Stars Could Have Completely New Habitable Zones
Aging stars that become red giants increase their luminosity and can wreak havoc on planets that were once in the…
Cosmic Dust Could Spread Life from World to World Across the Galaxy
Does life appear independently on different planets in the galaxy? Or does it spread from world to world? Or does…
Could We Live Without Kilonovae?
It’s a classic statement shared at many public outreach events…’we are made of stardust’. It is true enough that the…
The Seeming Impossibility of Life
The number of near misses, false starts, and legitimate disasters that have befallen our species since the day we took…
The Improbable Origins of Life on Earth
We do not yet know how, where, or why life first appeared on our planet. Part of the difficulty is…
Early Life Was Radically Different Than Today
All modern life shares a robust, hardy, efficient system of intertwined chemicals that propagate themselves. This system must have emerged…
The Next Generation LIFE Telescope Could Detect Some Intriguing Biosignatures
JWST has shown that it can detect various chemicals in the atmospheres of other worlds, from water vapor to carbon…