There may be life in Enceladus’ deep sea plumes.
The Cassini probe revealed a subsurface ocean beneath Enceladus’ icy surface that may be habitable. A new analysis shows that the chemistry has the right stuff.
A free-floating planet (FFP) is a planetary-mass object that orbits around a non-stellar massive object (e.g. a brown dwarf) or around the Galactic Centre. The presence of exomoons orbiting FFPs has been theoretically predicted by several models. Under specific conditions, these moons are able to retain an atmosphere capable of ensuring the long-term thermal stability of liquid water on their surface. We model this environment with a one-dimensional radiative-convective code coupled to a gas-phase chemical network including cosmic rays and ion-neutral reactions. We find that, under specific conditions and assuming stable orbital parameters over time, liquid water can be formed on the surface of the exomoon. The final amount of water for an Earth-mass exomoon is smaller than the amount of water in Earth oceans, but enough to host the potential development of primordial life.
Life on Mars may be freeze-dried.
But there’s a solution: freeze-dry it.
In a first-of-its-kind experiment, a team of Japanese researchers freeze-dried samples of mice sperm and sent them aboard the ISS to see how well this crucial element of human life (and, well, a lot of life on Earth) will fair against the harsh radiation of space.
Continue reading “Freeze-dried sperm: The future of space colonies is being tested on the ISS” »
They’ve only gone and upended a widely held scientific idea.
Lilia Koelemay, a graduate researcher at the University of Arizona, said in a statement about the study that “the detection of these organic molecules at the galactic edge may imply that organic chemistry is still prevalent at the outer reaches of the galaxy, and the [galatic habitable zone] may extend much further from the galactic center than the currently established boundary.”
Koelemay also said, “The widely held assumption was that in the outskirts of our galaxy, the chemistry necessary to form organics just doesn’t occur.”
The Science of Aliens, Part III: Have they overcome their savage past or might they want to eat us?
Reviewing our own species’ behavior suggests a cautious approach to contact with extraterrestrials.
In about three years, NASA plans to launch a robotic orbiter that will study Jupiter’s mysterious moon Europa.
In three years, NASA will launch an orbiter to study Jupiter’s mysterious moon Europa. It is possible that Europa harbors hydrothermal vents and even life.
5. Mars meteorite ALH 84001
These space “mushrooms” were not the first claim of alien life. On August 7, 1996, the then-President Bill Clinton stood on the White House lawn and announced the possibility that scientists had discovered the ancient, fossilized remains of micro-organisms in a meteorite that had been recovered from Antarctica in 1984.
Continue reading “Five times we thought we found aliens but probably didn’t” »
What is time? What is humankind’s role in the universe? What is the meaning of life? For much of human history, these questions have been the province of religion and philosophy. What answers can science provide?
In this talk, Sean Carroll will share what physicists know, and don’t yet know, about the nature of time. He’ll argue that while the universe might not have purpose, we can create meaning and purpose through how we approach reality, and how we live our lives.
Continue reading “The Passage of Time and the Meaning of Life | Sean Carroll” »
Don’t panic, but mysterious sources have been sending radio signals to Earth for years. Now, scientists have tracked down some of their origins — and they were surprised by what they found.
And no, it’s still not aliens.
Continue reading “NASA traces source of mysterious fast radio bursts sending signals to Earth” »
Origin of Information —“Something Very Old, Very Powerful and Very Special has Been Unleashed on Earth” | The Daily Galaxy.
“Humans are strange…We are the aliens,” observes Columbia University astrophysicist, Caleb Scharf, noting that humans are a striking anomaly in the natural world. “We also have a truly outsize impact on the planetary environment without much in the way of natural attrition to trim our influence (at least not yet).
