Salt pools can guide our search for life on other planets
Pink, green, and square-shaped microbes can help us understand the limits of life on Earth and guide our search for life outside the planet.
Category: Astrobiology
Bacteria found with superpowers that let them survive in space
Scientists who study how humans might travel through space found a handful of specific genes that give bacteria some cool superpowers.
A detailed look at a rare meteorite
A carbonaceous meteorite that fell in Costa Rica holds organic compounds that are preserved from the earliest stages of our solar system,…
Microbes that eat iron are a cause of bedrock erosion
Are microscopic mineral-eating microbes breaking down our mountains? They may be behind bedrock erosion.
How can we search for life as we don’t know it?
It's hard to look for signs of life beyond Earth. It's a little easier if we assume that life out there is like Earth life. But what if it…
Researchers propose making concrete with human bodily fluids
Imagine what it would be like to be an astronaut landing on Mars for the first time. The red planet has little more than dust and rocks as…
Mars could host a deep underground biosphere
Scientists estimate that parts of Mars’ would be able to support up to one million microbes per kilogram of rock deep underground.
Deep-ocean rocks mimic early Mars
It’s no secret that humans have their eyes on the Red Planet. Since the surface of Mars is really different from Earth, a lot of…
Tardigrades help us understand if rocks can be vehicles for life
Have you heard of Panspermia? The hypothesis says that life originated somewhere else and travelled to Earth on rocks through space.…
Intelligent life might be rare
How hard is it for evolution to produce intelligent life like humans? We don't really know, but some computational modelers tried to answer…