Astrobiology
The Origins of Life Could Indeed Be “Interstellar”
Some of science's most pressing questions involve the origins of life on Earth. How did the first lifeforms emerge from…
Unusual Distributions of Organics Found in Titan’s Atmosphere
A new mystery of Titan has been uncovered by astronomers using their latest asset in the high altitude desert of…
Moons of Confusion: Why Finding Extraterrestrial Life may be Harder than we Thought
Astronomers and planetary scientists thought they knew how to find evidence of life on planets beyond our Solar System. But,…
A New Mantra: Follow the Methane — May Advance Search for Extraterrestrial Life
The search for life is largely limited to the search for water. We look for exoplanets at the correct distances…
Cassini Spacecraft Confirms Subsurface Ocean on Enceladus
Ever since the Cassini spacecraft first spied water vapor and ice spewing from fractures in Enceladus’ frozen surface in 2005,…
New Technique Could Measure Exoplanet Atmospheric Pressure, an Indicator of Habitability
Measuring the atmospheric pressure of a distant exoplanet may seem like a daunting task but astronomers at the University of…
Martian Meteorite Could Have Contained Ancient Water And Life, NASA Paper Says
Could this meteorite show evidence of ancient water and life on Mars? That's one possibility raised in a new paper…
High Potential for Life Circling Alpha Centauri B, our Nearest Neighbor
While exoplanets make the news on an almost daily basis, one of the biggest announcements occurred in 2012 when astronomers…
Prebiotic Molecules May Form in Exoplanet Atmospheres
Before there was life as we know it, there were molecules. And after many seemingly unlikely steps these molecules underwent…
Lithopanspermia: How Earth May Have Seeded Life on Other Solar System Bodies
With the recent discovery that Europa has geysers, and therefore definitive proof of a liquid ocean, there’s a lot of…