How do we find the effects of extreme #space radiation on human health? Answer lies with yeast in your bread! @NASA scientists are launching #BioSentinel later this year. #Astrobiology By @strayologist
Were metabolic pathways established before life emerged? New experiments observe life-like patterns self-propagating on #mineral surfaces. #astrobiology #geobiology
For the past few decades, scientists have been looking at planets outside of our solar system to see if they could host life. Now, scientists have discovered another factor for habitability: radiation from the planet’s central star.
How and why humans exist are questions that have challenged different cultures ever since the dawn of civilization. Many scientists have taken upon their shoulders the duty of answering these fundamental questions, coming up with several especially creative ideas over the past few decades. One prominent idea is that…
Scientists use computer models to simulate what oxygen would look like on far away planets and found a chemical signature that helps us tell the difference between oxygen from life and oxygen from other sources.
Using an environment on Earth that simulates early Mars conditions, researchers found an abundance of bacteria that get their energy from sulfur-containing molecules, suggesting a new focus in the search for biosignatures on the Red Planet.
Since we are currently unable to visit some of the distant places in our solar system, we send probes to visit them for us. Only four spacecraft have visited Saturn, and for roughly 20 years some of the best data we had were images taken during the flybys of Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2. That changed with the…
Experiments on the International Space Station found that lichens, a combination of algae and fungi, survived in space-like, flight, and Mars-like environments.
Blue-green algae's response to different nitrogen pressures may tell us what fossils to look for and what those fossils tell us about ancient air pressure.
Here on Earth, scientists study layers of sediment like dirt and sand to better understand how rocks form. The same contextual clues geologists use to explain how sedimentary rocks form on Earth can also be applied to extraterrestrial planets. Recent studies of Mars, for example, have looked at photos of sedimentary…
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