Mining with microbes in space
Can bacteria extract useful materials from rocks?
The first mining experiments in space have revealed that microbes can efficiently extract elements from rocks in zero...
Astrobiology
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Bayesian statistics and the hunt for ET
Astrobiologists ponder what finding a sign might mean.
One of the goals of the next generation of giant telescopes, now rapidly nearing completion, is to scour the nearby h...
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Focus
Is anybody down there?
Paul Davies makes the case for looking Earthward.
The question of whether or not we are alone in the Universe has always fascinated me, but when I was a student the id...
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Bacteria found in solid rock
A decade of work creates the potential for more to come.
Japanese researchers say they have found single-celled creatures living in tiny cracks inside volcanic rocks taken fr...
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SunRISE to learn more about the Sun
NASA selects mission to study causes of solar particle storms.
NASA has selected the mission that will study how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms – known a...
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Ancient water reservoirs inside Mars
Meteorites tell story of Red Planet’s early history.
Mars’s mantle may contain multiple distinct reservoirs of mineral-bound water preserved from the planet’s early histo...
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The simple protein that started all life
And could help NASA find life on other planets.
Scientists believe they have discovered a simple protein that started all life 3.5 to 2.5 billion years ago, publishi...
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Bacteria may have colonised other systems
Microbes might hitch lifts on interstellar asteroids.
Could the Earth be a life-exporting planet? That’s the curious question examined in a recent paper written by Harvard...
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The galaxy might be full of micro-machines
Nanoscale alien robots could be a thing.
It has long been an unspoken tenet of astrobiology that in the absence of confirmed alien technologies it’s necessary...
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Astrobiologists still have eyes for Enceladus
Small it may be, but it excites those looking for life out there.
Although NASA’s new Dragonfly mission to Titan will be the first return to the Saturn system to follow up on the disc...
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Looking for extraterrestrial life
The search for ET is getting more sophisticated.
Astronomers looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence are ramping up a host of new methods far more sophisti...
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Wings may be universal. Smarts, not so much.
Are we alone in the universe? Include science in the discussion.
Although we have no clue how life began, and no way to estimate the odds, many astrobiologists believe life gets goin...