Astrobiology News
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Astrobiology News
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| Highly-tilted worlds would have extreme seasons, subjecting life to alternating periods of scorching and subzero temperatures. This could make the development of all but hardiest, simplest creatures a | ||||
| High Planetary Tilt Lowers Odds for Life? | ||||
| Scientists have developed new formulas for determining the materials that compose extrasolar planets. | ||||
| Defining the Structure of Exoplanets | ||||
| New research shows that mass extinctions need not be sudden events. The deadliest extinction known in Earth s history may have killed in stages. | ||||
| The P-T Extinction was a Slow Death | ||||
| NASA s IBEX spacecraft has successfully measured neutral atoms that originate from beyond the heliosheath. | ||||
| IBEX Glimpses Alien Interstellar Material | ||||
| Scientists have shown that sugars essential for life to begin can be produced by a previously unknown pathway. For decades, chemists thought that the formose reaction was the only route for sugar prod | ||||
| A New Pathway to Life s Origin | ||||
| When the first plants evolved on Earth some 470 million years ago, they may have triggered a series of ice ages. The study provides new insight into the links between the climate and biosphere of Eart | ||||
| The First Plants Caused Ice Ages | ||||
| A new study may help scientists understand the events that brought about Earth s "Little Ice Age." | ||||
| Little Ice Age Caused by Volcanoes? | ||||
| By looking at the wavelengths of light from nearby stars, researchers have determined the abundance of certain elements for more than a hundred stars. Trace elements in such stars may influence their | ||||
| Elements of ExoPlanets | ||||
| Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. | ||||
| Super-Earth Detected in Star s Habitable Zone | ||||
| Exoplanets are now being discovered at pace, and some have been described as "Earth-Like." These claims are often based on the distance between the exoplanet and its host star. Unfortunately, this dis | ||||
| How Well Can Astronomers Study Exoplanet Atmospheres? | ||||
| Using 10 years of data from atmospheric and oceanic data, scientists are providing new information about the energy balance of Earth. | ||||
| Earth s Missing Energy | ||||
| Discoveries in underwater caves could help scientists understand how life arose in ancient oceans on Earth - and possibly how similar life could survive on other worlds. | ||||
| Underwater Caves Provide Clues to Life Beyond Earth | ||||
| The Radiation Assessment Detector on the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft measured radiation from a recent solar storm, providing valuable information for future human space exploration. | ||||
| Radiation En Route to Mars | ||||
| A new study suggests that geochemical records found in rocks prior to the glaciation event known as Snowball Earth are unrelated to the glaciation itself. | ||||
| What Happened Prior to Snowball Earth? | ||||
| A team of scientists has traveled to remote Laguna Negra in the central Andes of Chile to test technologies that could one day be used to explore the lakes of Titan. While the Planetary Lake Lander (P | ||||
| Ground Truth | ||||
| Scientists have discovered evidence that life continues at hydrothermal sea vents, even after the vents themselves go dormant. The study sheds light on how microbial communities survive in one Earth s | ||||
| Life on Dead Hydrothermal Vents | ||||
| A new theory asserts that the Earth is alive - including purportedly inanimate, non-living objects like water, proteins and DNA. | ||||
| New Theory of Life Claims to Unite Fields of Science | ||||
| Eight years after landing on Mars, NASA s Opportunity rover is still returning important data about the potential for past life on the red planet. Five months ago, Opportunity reached Endeavour Crater | ||||
| Eight Years of Opportunity | ||||
| Half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could survive. | ||||
| Vesta is Cold and Dark Enough for Ice | ||||
| A new study is helping to establish the origin of the carbohydrates that form the building blocks of life. | ||||
| A New Clue into the Origin of Life | ||||
| NASA s Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. The discoveries nearly double the number of verified planets and provide new data in the search for habitabl | ||||
| Kepler Confirms 26 ExoPlanets in 11 Solar Systems | ||||
| A team of scientists has traveled to remote Laguna Negra in the central Andes of Chile to test technologies that could one day be used to explore the lakes of Titan. Astrobiology Magazine s Expedition | ||||
| The Lake Lander s New Home | ||||
| Physicists have built an accurate model of part of the Solar System inside a single atom. | ||||
| The Solar System on an Atomic Scale | ||||
| Geologists have determined that a half-mile-wide crater in California s Death Valley was formed by a volcanic explosion much more recently than previously thought. Their research also indicates that a | ||||
| Waiting for Death Valley s Big Bang | ||||
| Scientists have developed a new method to measure cold plasma above the Earth, and have revealed more cold, charged ions in Earth s upper altitudes than previously imagined. | ||||
| Cold Plasma Above Earth | ||||
| A new analysis of radar data has revealed regional variations in the sand dunes of Saturn s moon Titan. | ||||
| Titan s Giant Dunes | ||||
| NASA Mars rovers have come a long way in terms of size and capability since the rebirth of Red Planet surface exploration just 15 years ago spanning from 1997 to 2012. NASA s newest rover, Curiosity | ||||
| Three Generations of Rovers | ||||
| Like other bodies in the outer Solar System, Pluto may have have rings orbiting it. Finding these rings could be important for the safety of NASA s New Horizons mission - currently en route to the tin | ||||
| The Rings of Pluto? | ||||
| The pattern of clouds on Earth is largely determined by the arrangement of the continents below. Now, astronomers are modeling the clouds at different periods in Earth s past to better understand wha | ||||
| Earth s Cloudy Past Could Reveal Exoplanet Details | ||||
| In July 2011, a rare martian meteorite fell to Earth - the first in about 50 years. The meteorite could hold clues to the history of the martian environment and the potential for life on the red plane | ||||
| Mars Meteorites Fall in Morocco | ||||