Tag Archive for Extraterrestrial life

This illustration shows NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft-lander approaching a site on Titan. Image credit: NASA / JHU-APL.

NASA Announces Dragonfly Mission to Explore Saturn’s Hazy Moon Titan

Jul 2, 2019 by News Staff

NASA announced last week that it had selected the Dragonfly mission to explore the prebiotic organic chemistry and look for signs of life on Titan, the...

This enhanced-color view of Enceladus is largely of the southern hemisphere and includes the south polar terrain at the bottom of the image. Ancient craters remain somewhat pristine in some locales, but have clearly relaxed in others. Northward-trending fractures, likely caused by a change in the moon’s rate of rotation and the consequent flattening of the moon’s shape, rip across the southern hemisphere. The south polar terrain is marked by a striking set of ‘blue’ fractures and encircled by a conspicuous and continuous chain of folds and ridges, testament to the forces within Enceladus that have yet to be silenced. The mosaic was created from 21 false-color frames taken during Cassini’s close approaches to Enceladus on March 9 and July 14, 2005. Images taken using filters sensitive to UV, visible and IR light (spanning wavelengths from 338 to 930 nm) were combined to create the individual frames. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.

Enceladus’ Ocean Contains High Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen, Scientists Say

Jun 25, 2019 by News Staff

Saturn’s small icy moon Enceladus contains a global subsurface ocean. According to new research from the University of Washington, the ice-covered ocean...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Curiosity Detects Transient Methane Plume on Mars

Jun 25, 2019 by News Staff

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) tunable laser spectrometer onboard Curiosity last week detected surprisingly high levels of the gas methane at Gale Crater:...

Artist’s impression of a potentially habitable exomoon orbiting a giant planet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Exomoons Could Host Alien Life, Astrophysicist Says

Jun 6, 2019 by News Staff

Exomoons — natural satellites of planets outside our Solar System — could offer another clue about the pool of alien worlds that may be home...

This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of Proxima b orbiting Proxima Centauri. Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around its star, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Our Closest Neighboring Exoplanets Could Be Habitable After All

Apr 11, 2019 by News Staff

Proxima b, TRAPPIST-1e, Ross-128b and LHS-1140b — the closest potentially habitable exoplanets — orbit a different kind of star than our Sun:...

An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hungarian Researchers Claim to See Biosignatures in Martian Meteorite

Apr 4, 2019 by Natali Anderson

ALH-77005, a Martian rock found in Antarctica, contains numerous mineralized ‘biosignatures,’ including coccoidal, filamentous structures and organic...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Methane on Mars: New Discovery or Just Lot of Hot Air?

Apr 3, 2019 by The Conversation

The discovery of life on Mars would get pretty much everyone excited. But the scientists hunting for it would probably be happy no matter what the outcome...

An artist’s concept of a planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a K-type star. Image credit: NASA Ames / JPL-Caltech / Tim Pyle.

Exoplanets around K-Type Dwarf Stars are Promising Targets in Search for Alien Life: Study

Mar 11, 2019 by News Staff

K-type dwarf stars are dimmer than the Sun but brighter than the faintest stars. These stars live a very long time — 17 billion to 70 billion years,...

This illustration shows the structure of hachimoji DNA, which uses the four informational ingredients of regular DNA (green, red, blue, yellow) in addition to four new ones (cyan, pink, purple, orange). Image credit: Indiana University School of Medicine.

Researchers Create Eight-Letter Genetic System: Hachimoji DNA

Feb 25, 2019 by News Staff

DNA is naturally composed of four basic molecules called nucleotides (commonly known as ‘letters’) — A (adenine), T (thymine), C (cytosine) and...

An artist’s rendering of the Europa ‘tunnelbot.’ Image credit: Alexander Pawlusik, LERCIP Internship Program, NASA’s Glenn Research Center.

Nuclear-Powered Tunneling Probe to Search for Extraterrestrial Life on Europa

Dec 17, 2018 by News Staff

A liquid ocean in contact with a silicate interior makes Jupiter’s icy moon Europa a prime location for life. This possibility is compounded if geologic...

A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s Earth-observing satellite Suomi NPP (named in honor of Verner E. Suomi of the University of Wisconsin). This composite image uses a number of swaths of the Earth’s surface taken on January 4, 2012. Image credit: NASA / NOAA / GSFC / Suomi NPP / VIIRS / Norman Kuring.

Researchers Estimate Total Mass of Earth’s Deep Life: 15-23 Billion Tons of Carbon

Dec 11, 2018 by News Staff

An international collaboration of researchers from the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) has made several important discoveries, including how much and what...

James Clark and Dr. Kerri Cahoy propose that laser technology on Earth could emit a beacon strong enough to attract attention of alien astronomers from as far as 20,000 light-years away. Image credit: A. Fitzsimmons, ESO / Sci-News.com.

Megawatt-Class Lasers from Earth Could Attract Alien Astronomers, Says New Study

Nov 9, 2018 by News Staff

A new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal, suggests that if a 1- to 2-megawatt (MW) laser were focused through a 30- to 45-m telescope and aimed...

Mosaic of the Valles Marineris hemisphere of Mars projected into point perspective, a view similar to that which one would see from a spacecraft. The distance is 1,550 miles (2,500 km) from the surface of the planet. The mosaic is composed of 102 Viking Orbiter images of Mars. The center of the scene shows the entire Valles Marineris canyon system, over 1,240 miles (2,000 km) long and up to 5 miles (8 km) deep, extending form Noctis Labyrinthus, the arcuate system of graben to the west, to the chaotic terrain to the east. Many huge ancient river channels begin from the chaotic terrain from north-central canyons and run north. The three Tharsis volcanoes (dark red spots), each about 15.5 miles (25 km) high, are visible to the west. South of Valles Marineris is very ancient terrain covered by many impact craters. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Salty, Oxygenated Water on Mars Could Host Simple Aerobic Life

Oct 23, 2018 by News Staff

Caltech researcher Vlada Stamenković and co-authors calculated that if liquid water exists on the Red Planet, it could contain more oxygen than previously...

An artist’s impression of a habitable exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. Image credit: Sci-News.com / NASA.

Ultraviolet Superflares May Threaten Exoplanet Habitability near Young Red Dwarfs

Oct 19, 2018 by News Staff

Stellar superflares from young red dwarfs may make conditions uninhabitable on fledgling planets, according to the new results of the Habitable Zones and...

If the development of life on other inhabited worlds follows a similar timeline to life on Earth, vegetation red edge (VRE) biosignatures are only present for a fraction of a planet’s habitable lifetime once vegetation covers the surface; a VRE biosignature similar to that on the present-day Earth would be difficult to detect without very high-precision instruments; however, the team’s models show that the VRE signature increases with geological time, as well as with increasing vegetation surface fraction and decreasing cloud coverage. Image credit: Jack O’Malley-James / Wendy Kenigsberg / Brand Communications.

Earth’s Natural History May Serve as Guide for Astrobiologists to Spot Inhabited Exoplanets

Sep 27, 2018 by News Staff

By looking at Earth’s natural history, Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute astrobiologists Jack O’Malley-James and Lisa Kaltenegger have found...

An artist’s impression of a terraformed Mars. Image credit: Daein Ballard / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ancient Mars Had Ample Chemical Energy to Support Subsurface Microbial Colonies

Sep 25, 2018 by News Staff

Mars had right conditions for subsurface life some 3.7 to 4.1 billion years ago (Noachian period), according to new research from Brown University. An...

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

AI Helps Astronomers Detect New Pulses from Mysterious Repeating Radio Source

Sep 14, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers at Breakthrough Listen, a scientific program in search for signs of intelligent life in the Universe, have applied machine-learning techniques...

An artist’s impression of a water-world exoplanet. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Water-World Exoplanets Could Be Friendly to Life

Sep 3, 2018 by News Staff

Astronomers have largely assumed that water-world exoplanets would not support the cycling of minerals and gases that keeps the climate stable on Earth,...

An artist’s impression of a habitable exoplanet orbiting a red dwarf. Image credit: Sci-News.com / NASA.

Stellar Flares: Life Givers or Sterilizers of Worlds?

Aug 15, 2018 by James Romero

Have Carl Sagan and astrobiologists been too hard on stellar flares? A new study imagines an alternative scenario where they power photosynthesis around...

Researchers Identify Exoplanets with Optimal Chemical Conditions for Life’s Origin

Aug 2, 2018 by News Staff

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK, have identified a group of exoplanets where the same chemical...

© 2011-2025. Sci.News. All Rights Reserved. | Back to top