Telescope launching this autumn could spot biosignatures on other planets within three days. Research shows that a new telescope could detect a potential signature of…
Oxygen in the atmosphere may not be an entirely reliable ‘biosignature,’ but there are ways to distinguish false positives from signs of life, scientists say….
A technique for scanning Mars rocks for microscopic fossils of ancient life is also being developed to hunt for microbes in the deep ice of…
To confirm life on other planets, we need to detect far more molecules in their atmospheres than we currently do to rule out non-biological chemical…
We are made of stardust, the saying goes, and a pair of studies including University of Michigan research finds that may be more true than…
Using both transit and radial velocity data, researchers discovered Gliese 486 b — a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 486. At…
In the quest for habitable planets beyond our own, NASA is studying a mission concept called Pandora, which could eventually help decode the atmospheric mysteries…
Challenging assumptions about the possibility of modern life on Mars. In a comment recently published in Nature Astronomy, Dr. Nathalie Cabrol, Director of the Carl…
Lightning strikes were just as important as meteorites in creating the perfect conditions for life to emerge on Earth, geologists say. Minerals delivered to Earth…
Layers of ice and rock obviate the need for “habitable zone” and shield life against threats. SwRI researcher theorizes worlds with underground oceans may be…
Experimental microbially assisted chemolithotrophy provides an opportunity to trace the putative bioalteration processes of the Martian crust. A study on the Noachian Martian breccia Northwest…
Lightning strikes — perhaps a quintillion of them, occurring over a billion years — may have provided sparks of life for the early Earth. A…
University of Chicago study finds way that hot, rocky planets in other systems could form and keep atmospheres. An atmosphere is what makes life on…
An international research team with members from ETH has developed a new method for directly imaging smaller planets in the habitable zone of a neighboring…
The weathering of silicate rocks plays an important role to keep the climate on Earth clement. Scientists led by the University of Bern and the…
A rocky planet discovered in the Virgo constellation is an astronomer’s dream. A newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky…
In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina…
Can super-Earth interior dynamics set the table for habitability? New research led by Carnegie’s Yingwei Fei provides a framework for understanding the interiors of super-Earths…