Astrobiology News

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

Scientists Revise Famous Drake Equation

Jul 2, 2024 by News Staff

Within the uncertainties of involved astronomical and biological parameters, the Drake equation typically predicts that there should be many exoplanets...

This graphic illustrates how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of Enceladus’ ocean, producing hydrogen gas. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Southwest Research Institute.

Study: Active, Seafloor Hydrothermal Systems on Small Ocean Worlds Could Support Life

Jun 25, 2024 by News Staff

Ocean worlds are planetary bodies that have a liquid ocean, often under an icy shell or within the rocky interior. In our own Solar System, several moons...

An illustration of various planetary technosignatures, including artificial atmospheric gases. Image credit: Sohail Wasif / UC Riverside.

Astrobiologists Identify Five Greenhouse Gases that Would Be Giveaways of Terraformed Exoplanet

Jun 25, 2024 by News Staff

The five artificial greenhouse gases identified by University of California, Riverside astrobiologist Edward Schwieterman and his colleagues would be detectable...

Kane & Byrne describe Venus as an anchor point from which planetary scientists can better understand the conditions that preclude life on exoplanets. Image credit: Kane & Byrne, doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02228-5.

Uninhabitable Venus Offers Lessons about Potential for Extraterrestrial Life

Apr 23, 2024 by News Staff

Fully understanding how a rocky planet becomes habitable and remains so is a fundamental challenge for planetary scientists and astrobiologists, given...

The Jupiter-sized planet TOI-5205b has a surface temperature of 737 K and orbits its parent star, TOI-5205, at a distance of 0.02 AU. Image credit: Sci.News.

Purple is the New Green: Purple Bacteria Could Dominate Wide Range of Exoplanetary Environments

Apr 17, 2024 by News Staff

With more than 5,500 detected exoplanets, the search for life is entering a new era. Using life on Earth as a guide, astrobiologists from Cornell University...

This composite image, taken by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, shows Venus. Image credit: JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic.

Clouds of Venus Could Be Hospitable for Some Forms of Life, New Research Suggests

Mar 20, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary scientists have long speculated about the potential habitability of Venus, not at its hot surface, but in the cloud layers located at 48-60 km...

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 Most Likely Non-Habitable, Astrobiologists Say

Feb 20, 2024 by News Staff

Saturn’s moon Titan has an organic-rich atmosphere and surface with a subsurface ocean that may represent a habitable environment. In a new study, astrobiologists...

This is an artist's impression of the SN 1987A remnant. The image is based on real data and reveals the cold, inner regions of the remnant, in red, where tremendous amounts of dust were detected and imaged by ALMA. This inner region is contrasted with the outer shell, lacy white and blue circles, where the blast wave from the supernova is colliding with the envelope of gas ejected from the star prior to its powerful detonation. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Alexandra Angelich, NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Employ Novel Technique for Searching for Alien Technosignatures

Feb 13, 2024 by News Staff

Technosignatures are any measurable property that may provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)...

An artist’s impression of the super-Earth planet Ross 508b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Find New Way to Detect Water Oceans and Alien Life on Rocky Exoplanets

Dec 29, 2023 by News Staff

Planets too close to their star are too hot (such as Venus), those too far, are too cold (like Mars), whereas planets in the habitable zone are just right....

Enceladus’ tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon’s icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon’s south pole and creating Saturn’s mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. Tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Image credit: NASA / ESA / JPL / SSI / Cassini Imaging Team.

Enceladus’ Surface May Contain Relatively High Abundances of Pristine Organic Material

Dec 21, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus, the sixth-biggest moon of Saturn, presents a remarkable opportunity in our Solar System for searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life,...

The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae).

SETI Scientists Test Interactive Bioacoustic Playback as Tool for Exploring Non-Human Intelligence

Dec 13, 2023 by News Staff

The Whale-SETI team, which includes researchers from the SETI Institute, University of California Davis and the Alaska Whale Foundation, has been studying...

Molecular hydrogen points to hydrothermal activity in an ocean beneath the icy surface of Enceladus. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Ice Plumes of Saturn’s Icy Moon Enceladus May Hold Amino Acids, Study Suggests

Dec 5, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life in the Solar System, identified by NASA as the second-highest priority site for a flagship mission in...

Meteoroids bombarded the Earth-Moon system 800 million years ago. Image credit: Murayama, Osaka University.

Can Comets Deliver Building Blocks for Life to Rocky Exoplanets?

Nov 15, 2023 by News Staff

In a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, researchers at the University of Cambridge...

An artist’s impression of the Gliese 3470 planetary system. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Mid-Phanerozoic Exoplanets Might Be Easier to Detect than Modern Earth

Nov 2, 2023 by News Staff

In the search for life in the Universe, Earth provides a template of evolution for the one habitable planet we know. Earth’s atmospheric composition...

The I-LOFAR radio telescope. Image credit: I-LOFAR.

Astronomers Use Multi-Telescope Technique to Scan Milky Way for Alien Technosignatures

Oct 25, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers from Trinity College Dublin, the Breakthrough Listen project and Onsala Space Observatory have demonstrated the effectiveness of using multisite...

Zhang et al used artificial intelligence to search through radio signals recorded from FRB 121102. Image credit: Breakthrough Listen Initiative.

New Study Sets Clearer Bounds on Search for Technosignatures from Extraterrestrial Intelligences

Oct 24, 2023 by News Staff

A stable-frequency transmitter with relative radial acceleration to a receiver will show a change in received frequency over time, known as a ‘drift...

Wells et al estimate that there should be at least 10 -- currently undiscovered -- exoplanets which are favorably located to detect the Earth and are capable of sustaining life as we know it. Image credit: NASA.

Scientists Unveil Nature’s Missing Evolutionary Law

Oct 18, 2023 by News Staff

Physical laws — such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics — codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic...

Novel AI Technique Reveals Sample’s Biological or Non-Biological Origin with 90% Accuracy

Sep 26, 2023 by News Staff

The search for definitive biosignatures — unambiguous markers of past or present life — is a central goal of paleobiology and astrobiology....

CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia. Image credit: Shaun Amy.

Novel SETI Technique Filters Out Earth Interference to Focus on Alien Technosignatures

Jul 18, 2023 by News Staff

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) aims to answer one of the most important scientific questions: are we alone in the Universe? Complementing...