Astrobiology News

Early Earth. Image credit: Peter Sawyer / Smithsonian Institution.

Earliest Organisms on Earth Built Their Biochemistry around Molybdenum, Study Suggests

May 5, 2026 by Natali Anderson

New research reveals that 3.4 billion years ago (Archean Eon), ancient microbes relied on molybdenum — a metal that was vanishingly rare at the time...

Vishal Gajjar & Grayce C. Brown report one of the first quantitative frameworks for assessing the impact of stellar environments on the detectability of narrowband technosignatures. Image credit: Sci.News.

Astronomers Propose New Way to Find Alien Life without Knowing What It Looks Like

Apr 15, 2026 by News Staff

A new ‘agnostic biosignature’ method searches for patterns across exoplanets, suggesting alien life could be detected by how it spreads and reshapes...

Nickel is present in bright magnesium-sulfate veins in Jezero crater on Mars, supporting an authigenic origin. Image credit: Manelski et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-026-70081-3.

Nickel-Rich Rocks Discovered by Perseverance Hint at Complex Chemistry on Early Mars

Apr 1, 2026 by News Staff

New findings from Neretva Vallis, an ancient river channel that once transported water into Jezero crater on Mars, reveal unusually high nickel levels...

An artist’s impression of a planetary system around a slightly hotter star than our Sun. Image credit: Gillis Lowry.

Astronomers Create Catalogue of Habitable-Zone Rocky Exoplanets

Mar 19, 2026 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s Gaia mission and the NASA Exoplanet Archive, astronomers at Cornell University have identified 45 rocky exoplanets in the empirical...

Hayabusa-2 image of the asteroid Ryugu as seen from a distance of 3.7 miles. A particularly large crater is visible near the center of the image. Image credit: JAXA / University of Tokyo / Kochi University / Rikkyo University / Nagoya University / Chiba Institute of Technology / Meiji University / University of Aizu / AIST.

DNA’s Building Blocks May Have Arrived from Space, Asteroid Ryugu Samples Suggest

Mar 17, 2026 by News Staff

Samples returned by JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 mission from the C-type asteroid (162173) Ryugu contain all five canonical nucleobases — purines (adenine...

This is an artist's impression of a rocky and water-rich asteroid being torn apart by the strong gravity of the white dwarf star GD 61. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick, Space-art.co.uk / University of Warwick / University of Cambridge.

Extremophile Bacteria May Hitch Rides on Asteroid Fragments

Mar 4, 2026 by News Staff

Earlier work has demonstrated that an extremophile bacterium species called Deinococcus radiodurans can survive the radiation, cold, and desiccation associated...

This graphic shows the long-chain organic molecules decane, undecane, and dodecane, and NASA’s Curiosity rover. Image credit: NASA / Dan Gallagher.

Mars Organics Can’t Be Fully Explained by Geological Processes Alone, NASA Study Says

Feb 9, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Known non-biological sources, from meteorites to surface chemistry, fall short of accounting for organic compounds detected by NASA’s Curiosity rover,...

Resurrection and characterization of ancestral nitrogenases. Image credit: Rucker et al., doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-67423-y.

Biologists ‘Resurrect’ 3.2-Billion-Year-Old Enzyme

Jan 22, 2026 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison has reverse-engineered a primordial nitrogen-fixing enzyme, illuminating how life thrived...

Artist’s concept of ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

New Model Suggests How Nutrients Could Penetrate Europa’s Ice Shell to Feed Its Hidden Ocean

Jan 20, 2026 by News Staff

A duo of geophysicists from Washington State University and Virginia Tech has uncovered a plausible pathway for nutrient transfer from the radiation-charged...

The surface of Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view; image scale is 1.6 km per pixel; north on Europa is at right. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SETI Institute.

Europa’s Ocean Floor is Surprisingly Calm, New Modeling Study Suggests

Jan 7, 2026 by News Staff

A new analysis of stress, tides and interior forces suggests Jupiter’s icy moon Europa lacks the active seafloor faulting needed for robust hydrothermal...

An artist’s impression of a prebiotic gel on the Early Earth’s surface. Image credit: Nirmell Satthiyasilan.

Life First Emerged in Surface-Bound Prebiotic Gels, Research Suggests

Dec 2, 2025 by News Staff

In a new paper published in the journal ChemSystemsChem, Hiroshima University’s Professor Tony Jia and colleagues outline the ‘prebiotic gel-first’...

Model depicting the importance of RNP condensate in mediating survival under Mars-like stress condition. Image credit: Dhage et al., doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgaf300.

Baker’s Yeast Can Survive Mars-like Stress Conditions, New Study Shows

Oct 14, 2025 by News Staff

Exploring the possibility of the survival of life under extraterrestrial conditions is an important goal of astrobiology. In a new study, scientists used...

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about 4 billion years ago. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Perseverance Finds Potential Chemical Signatures of Ancient Microbial Life on Mars

Sep 10, 2025 by News Staff

NASA’s Perseverance rover has explored and sampled igneous and sedimentary rocks within Jezero crater to characterize early Martian geological processes...

This illustration depicts the interior of Ceres, including the transfer of water and gases from the rocky core to a reservoir of salty water; carbon dioxide and methane are among the molecules carrying chemical energy beneath Ceres’ surface. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Dwarf Planet Ceres May Have Had Lasting Source of Chemical Energy to Fuel Habitability

Aug 20, 2025 by News Staff

Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed on Ceres, the results of a new study support theories that this dwarf planet may have once...

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this stunning mosaic of Enceladus on October 5, 2008 as the spacecraft sped away from this geologically active moon of Saturn. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.

Underground Microbial Life Could Survive on Mars, Europa and Enceladus Using Cosmic Rays

Jul 29, 2025 by News Staff

Radiolysis induced by Galactic cosmic rays could provide a viable energy source for microbial metabolism in the subsurface environments of rocky planetary...

Ramiro Saide et al. explored how hidden electromagnetic leakage might look to extraterrestrials up to 200 light-years from Earth, if they had state-of-the-art radio telescopes like our own. Image credit: Gemini AI.

Civilian and Military Radar Leakage is Revealing Our Existence to Alien Civilizations, Study Suggests

Jul 8, 2025 by News Staff

In a new study, a team of researchers from the University of Manchester performed comprehensive simulations of Earth’s radar systems as potential technosignatures...

An artist’s impression of the super-Earth exoplanet K2-18b. Image credit: A. Smith / N. Mandhusudhan.

Webb Detects Possible Biosignature Gases in Atmosphere of K2-18b

Apr 17, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected the chemical fingerprints of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide...

An artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Image credit: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Titan May Be Able to Support Only Minuscule Amount of Biomass, New Modeling Study Suggests

Apr 8, 2025 by News Staff

A team of biologists from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and France has developed a scenario of what life on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon,...

An artist’s impression of the Gliese 414 system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

What If Astronomers Find Nothing in Future Exoplanet Habitability and Biosignature Surveys?

Apr 7, 2025 by News Staff

Using advanced statistical modeling, a team of researchers from ETH Zurich, SETI Institute, the Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’ and the University...