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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All Posts filed under »ASTROBIOLOGY«
NASA’s Kepler Discovers its Smallest ‘Habitable Zone’ Planets to Date
NASA’s Kepler mission has discovered two new planetary systems that include three super-Earth-size planets in the “habitable zone,” the range of distance from a star where the surface temperature of an orbiting planet might be suitable for liquid water. The Kepler-62 system has five planets; 62b, 62c, 62d, 62e and 62f. The Kepler-69 system has […]
Life Before Earth
April 16, 2013
Alexei A. Sharov, Richard Gordon An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a nucleotide. The genetic complexity, roughly measured by the number of non-redundant functional nucleotides, is […]
Why is Curiosity Looking for Organics?
March 7, 2013
What are organic molecules, and what can they tell us about the history of Mars? Learn more in this 60-second video. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Discoveries Suggest Icy Cosmic Start for Amino Acids …
March 1, 2013
… and DNA Ingredients Using new technology at the telescope and in laboratories, researchers have discovered an important pair of prebiotic molecules in interstellar space. The discoveries indicate that some basic chemicals that are key steps on the way to life may have formed on dusty ice grains floating between the stars. The scientists used […]
Future evidence for extraterrestrial life might come from dying stars
February 25, 2013
Even dying stars could host planets with life—and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars. Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white dwarf’s planet much […]
NASA Rover Confirms First Drilled Mars Rock Sample
February 21, 2013
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has relayed new images that confirm it has successfully obtained the first sample ever collected from the interior of a rock on another planet. No rover has ever drilled into a rock beyond Earth and collected a sample from its interior. Transfer of the powdered-rock sample into an open scoop was […]
Life in the Cold and Dark Under Antarctic Ice
February 7, 2013
For the first time, scientists report, they have found bacteria living in the cold and dark deep under the Antarctic ice, a discovery that might advance knowledge of how life could survive on other planets or moons and that offers the first glimpse of a vast ecosystem of microscopic life in underground lakes in Antarctica […]
Curiosity Mars rover hammers into rock
February 4, 2013
The Mars rover Curiosity has used its drill system for the first time… Read more: www.bbc.co.uk
A joint analysis of the Drake equation and the Fermi paradox
February 2, 2013
Nikos Prantzos I propose a unified framework for a joint analysis of the Drake equation and the Fermi paradox, which enables a simultaneous, quantitative study of both of them. The analysis is based on a simplified form of the Drake equation and on a fairly simple scheme for the colonization of the Milky Way. It […]
Curiosity Maneuver Prepares for Drilling
January 30, 2013
The percussion drill in the turret of tools at the end of the robotic arm of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has been positioned in contact with the rock surface in this image from the rover’s front Hazard-Avoidance Camera (Hazcam). The drill was positioned for pre-load testing, and the Hazcam recorded this image during the 170th […]
There’s new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars!
January 20, 2013
Layers with Carbonate Content Inside McLaughlin Crater on Mars This view of layered rocks on the floor of McLaughlin Crater shows sedimentary rocks that contain spectroscopic evidence for minerals formed through interaction with water. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter recorded the image. A combination of clues suggests […]
A Cosmic Holiday Ornament, Hubble-Style
December 18, 2012
This the season for holiday decorating and tree-trimming. Not to be left out, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have photographed a festive-looking nearby planetary nebula called NGC 5189. The intricate structure of this bright gaseous nebula resembles a glass-blown holiday ornament with a glowing ribbon entwined. Planetary nebulae represent the final brief stage in […]
SAM: Sample Analysis at Mars
December 3, 2012
NASA’s Curiosity rover analyzed its first solid sample of Mars with a variety of instruments, including the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite. Developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., SAM is a portable chemistry lab tucked inside the Curiosity rover. SAM examines the chemistry of samples it ingests, checking particularly […]
Alien hunting: how to find DNA on Mars
October 24, 2012
by Lisa Grossman -newscientist.com No one has looked for life on Mars for more than 30 years, ever since NASA’s Viking missions sent back inconclusive results. Genomics maverick Craig Venter wants to change that. Cracker of the human genome and builder of synthetic life, Venter announced at the Wired Health Conference in New York last week that he wants to send a DNA sequencer […]
Mars Rock Touched by NASA Curiosity has Surprises
October 12, 2012
Target: Jake Matijevic Rock This image shows where NASA’s Curiosity rover aimed two different instruments to study a rock known as “Jake Matijevic.” The red dots are where the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument zapped it with its laser on Sept. 21, 2012, and Sept. 24, 2012, which were the 45th and 48th sol, or […]
Scientists could find alien life within 40 years
September 7, 2012
… says royal astronomer Martin Rees, former president of the Royal Society, said evidence of whether beings exist not only beyond earth but beyond our solar system, could be found in that time, a newspaper reported. Lord Rees said he believed that astro-physicists could be able to view images of distant planets outside the solar […]
Communicating with Aliens through DNA
August 19, 2012
By Christina Agapakis DNA encodes the information for all the proteins inside the cell, their amino acid sequence, when and where to turn them on, and a whole lot of other things that we probably don’t fully understand yet. With the ability to write DNA, to synthesize our own arbitrary stretches of A’s, T’s, C’s, and G’s, we can […]
Will we ever… find life elsewhere in the universe?
August 12, 2012
Phil Plait The idea of aliens may seem absurd. But times change, as does science, says Phil Plait, and this makes the idea far more plausible than it once appeared. One of the reasons I love astronomy is that it doesn’t flinch from the big questions. And one of the biggest is: are we alone? […]
Evidence of Life On Mars Could Come from Martian Moon Phobos
June 29, 2012
A mission to a Martian moon could return with alien life, according to experts at Purdue University, but don’t expect the invasion scenario presented by summer blockbusters like “Men in Black 3″ or “Prometheus.” “We are talking little green microbes, not little green men,” said Jay Melosh, a distinguished professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary […]
How to Find a Meteorite in 5 Steps
May 3, 2012
To start, get permission to keep what you find, find a barren spot like the Mojave Desert or Great Plains, and track down ‘dark flight trajectories’ from recent fireballs By Natalie Wolchover and Life’s Little Mysteries Earth is under constant bombardment by space rocks. When they crash and burn through the atmosphere, most of the […]
Expectation of extraterrestrial life …
April 29, 2012
… built more on optimism than evidence, study finds Recent discoveries of planets similar to Earth in size and proximity to the planets’ respective suns have sparked scientific and public excitement about the possibility of also finding Earth-like life on those worlds. But Princeton University researchers have found that the expectation that life — from bacteria to […]
Is This Proof of Life on Mars?
April 12, 2012
Researchers from universities in Los Angeles, California, Tempe, Arizona and Siena, Italy have published a paper in the International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences (IJASS) citing the results of their work with data obtained by NASA’s Viking mission. The twin Viking 1 and 2 landers, which launched in August and September of 1975, successfully […]
O/OREOS Nanosatellite Success in Orbit
March 22, 2012
Living Organisms (SESLO) experiment, executed by one of the two 10 cm cube-format payloads aboard the 5.5 kg Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses (O/OREOS) free-flying nanosatellite. The O/OREOS spacecraft was launched successfully to a 72° inclination, 650 km Earth orbit on 19 November 2010. This satellite provides access to the radiation environment of space in relatively weak regions […]
Kepler Catalog Adds More Planet Candidates
March 11, 2012
Since science operations began in May 2009, the Kepler team has released two catalogs of transiting planet candidates. The first catalog (Borucki et al, 2010), released in June 2010, contains 312 candidates identified in the first 43 days of Kepler data. The second catalog (Borucki et al, 2011), released in February 2011, is a cumulative catalog containing 1,235 candidates […]
Video: The Most Astounding Fact
March 6, 2012
Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” This is his answer. (subtitles: click CC) http://youtu.be/9D05ej8u-gU
From Cosmos to Intelligent Life: The Four Ages of Astrobiology
February 26, 2012
Marcelo Gleiser The history of life on Earth and in other potential life-bearing planetary platforms is deeply linked to the history of the universe. Since life as we know it relies on chemical elements forged in dying heavy stars, the universe needs to be old enough for stars to form and evolve. Current cosmological theory […]
Scattered Light Could Reveal Alien Atmospheres
February 20, 2012
The light scattered off distant worlds could help reveal details about their atmospheres that no other method could uncover, scientists find. Nearly all the information astronomers have of the atmospheres of alien planets or exoplanets comes from worlds whose orbits happen to be precisely aligned from our vantage point. Once per orbit, these exoplanets go […]
Time to give SETI a chance
February 12, 2012
by Jill Tarter - newscientist Earth 2.0 is in our sights. Checking it for signs of life will be the next big issue THE thousands of probable worlds discovered in orbit around other stars are making our corner of the universe appear a lot friendlier to life these days. The Kepler space telescope, which has its […]
Mars is too dry to support life on its surface…
February 5, 2012
… but it could be lurking in the depths Scientists have virtually ruled out the possibility of life on Mars having revealed the planet experienced a 600 year water drought. Samples of soil found that the surface had been starved of any moisture that might enhance the view that there are living organisms on the […]
Elements of ExoPlanets
February 2, 2012
Summary: 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 habitable zones, where planets with life might dwell…. Read more:astrobio.net
Is this life on Venus?
January 23, 2012
Russian scientist claims to have seen ‘scorpion’ in probe photographs Scientist sees shapes in 1982 Soviet probe pictures No previous records of life on the hottest planet in solar system http://youtu.be/RYKbIbqtYTM A Russian scientist claims to have discovered life on Venus after analysing photographs taken by a Soviet probe that landed on the planet’s surface […]
New evidence for complex molecules on Pluto’s surface
December 20, 2011
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) The new and highly sensitive Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on Pluto’s surface, providing new evidence that points to the possibility of complex hydrocarbon and/or nitrile molecules lying on the surface, according to a paper recently published in the Astronomical Journal by […]
Primordial Planets Explain Interstellar Dust, the Formation of Life
December 16, 2011
…. and Falsify Dark Energy Carl H. Gibson (University of California at San Diego), N. Chandra Wickramasinghe (Cardiff University and Buckingham University, UK), Rudolph E. Schild (Harvard University) Hydrogravitional-dynamics (HGD) cosmology of Gibson/Schild 1996 predicts proto-globular-star-cluster PGC clumps of Earth-mass planets fragmented from plasma at ~0.3 Myr. Protogalaxies retained the ~0.03 Myr baryonic density existing […]
The Periodic Table of Exoplanets
December 5, 2011
This table summarizes in eighteen thermal-mass categories most of the current known exoplanets (as of October 2011). Planets are divided in six mass classes as mercurians, subterrans, terrans, superterrans, neptunians, and jovians. Planets in the hot zone (first row) are too close to the stars to support liquid water. Planets in the habitable zone (second row) […]
The ChemCam system of Curiosity rover
November 29, 2011
Light on Mars? Curiosity rover to fire ‘million bulb torch’ at planet’s surface to see if it’s habitable The Mars lander will fire a laser beam with the energy of a million lightbulbs at the surface of the red planet to see whether or not it could have supported life. The international team of space […]
Most liveable alien worlds ranked
November 24, 2011
A Two-Tiered Approach to Assessing the Habitability of Exoplanets EARTH SIMILARITY INDEX Earth – 1.00 Gliese 581g – 0.89 Gliese 581d – 0.74 Gliese 581c – 0.70 Mars – 0.70 Mercury – 0.60 HD 69830 d – 0.60 55 Cnc c – 0.56 Moon – 0.56 Gliese 581e – 0.53 PLANET HABITABILITY INDEX Titan – […]
Detection Technique for Artificially-Illuminated Objects ….
November 1, 2011
….in the Outer Solar System and Beyond Abraham Loeb and Edwin L. Turner Existing optical telescopes and surveys can detect artificially-illuminated objects comparable in total brightness to a major terrestrial city at the outskirts of the Solar System. Orbital parameters of Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) are routinely measured to exquisite precisions of <10<sup>-3</sup>. Here we […]
Astronomers discover complex organic matter in the universe
October 26, 2011
In today’s issue of the journal Nature, astronomers report that organic compounds of unexpected complexity exist throughout the Universe. The results suggest that complex organic compounds are not the sole domain of life but can be made naturally by stars. Prof. Sun Kwok and Dr. Yong Zhang of the University of Hong Kong show that […]
Exotic Photosynthesis in Binary Star Systems
October 18, 2011
Light and Life J. T. O’Malley-James, J. A. Raven, C. S. Cockell, J. S. Greaves The potential for hosting photosynthetic life on Earth-like planets within binary/multiple stellar systems was evaluated by modelling the levels of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) such planets receive. Combinations of M and G stars in: (i) close-binary systems; (ii) wide-binary systems […]
WHERE DO ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS HANG OUT?
October 6, 2011
NASA’s Kepler space telescope is finding lots and lots of extrasolar planets. But how many might support intelligent life? And, is there a “sweet spot” in the galaxy where SETI astronomers should aim their telescopes? I’d say we have already stumbled across that sweet spot three decades ago, but more on that later. SLIDE SHOW: Top 10 […]
Living in the Galactic Danger Zone
September 23, 2011
Summary: Although stars closer to the galactic center are exposed to more radiation, new research finds that there are more chances to find habitable planets there than in the outer regions of our galaxy We know for certain that life exists in the Milky Way galaxy: that life is us. Scientists are continually looking to understand […]
Possible life in the Martian trenches?
September 21, 2011
A team of scientists at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, have drawn attention to a couple of small mineral-rich depressions on Mars that, perhaps relatively recently in the red planet’s history, could have been places for life. The troughs were discovered at Noctis Labyrintus, also known as ‘the labyrinth of the night’ – […]
Life in the Universe by Stephen Hawking
August 28, 2011
In this talk, I would like to speculate a little, on the development of life in the universe, and in particular, the development of intelligent life. I shall take this to include the human race, even though much of its behaviour through out history, has been pretty stupid, and not calculated to aid the survival […]
New Fossils Show Sulfur-Based Microbes Lived on Earth 3.4 Billion Years Ago
August 21, 2011
…Presenting a New Target for Astrobiology Clusters of islands poked through hot oceans 3.4 billion years ago, when the world still had no oxygen and the seas churned under a pallid, overcast sky. But life thrived on Earth even then, scientists say — and now they have the world’s oldest fossils to prove it. There […]
DNA Building Blocks Can Be Made in Space
August 9, 2011
NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin […]
How Astronomers May Hunt for Life on Alien Planets
July 28, 2011
Any sulfurous molecules that astronomers spot on alien worlds might be a way to reveal whether or not those distant planets host life, researchers suggest. On Earth, microbes can live off the energy available in sulfurous molecules that volcanoes release, essentially “breathing” these compounds the way humans breathe oxygen. If a similar kind of metabolism […]
Probability of ET Life Arbitrarily Small, Say Astrobiologists
July 25, 2011
Astronomers have always thought that because life emerged quickly on Earth, it must be likely to occur elsewhere. That thinking now turns out to be wrong. The Drake equation is one of those rare mathematical beasts that has leaked into the public consciousness. It estimates the number of extraterrestrial civilisations that we might be able […]
Sugar Molecule in Milky Way’s Habitable Zone Hints at Possibility of Life
July 21, 2011
Scientists recently detected an organic sugar molecule that is directly linked to the origin of life, in a region of our galaxy where habitable planets could exist. Glycolaldehyde, (HOCH 2 -CH = O) the simplest of the monosaccharide sugars, can react with the substance propenal to form ribose, a central constituent of Ribonucleic acid (RNA), thought to be […]
Was Earth’s Original Water Delivered by Ice-Covered Asteroids?
July 19, 2011
Contrary to preconceived notions, the atmosphere and the oceans were perhaps not formed from vapors emitted during intense volcanism at the dawning of our planet. Francis Albarède of the Laboratoire des Sciences de la Terre (CNRS / ENS Lyon / Université Claude Bernard) suggests that water was not part of the Earth’s initial inventory but […]
April 18, 2013
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