As we are rapidly approaching the end of the end of this stage of the Astrobiology Strategy planning, we would like to thank everyone that has participated as a presenter or author, commented on a white paper or at a webinar, or even just listened in to one of the presentations.
A recent study indicates that water ice and simple molecules of carbon and nitrogen might form the seed material for more complex substances, some of which might ultimately be involved in the origin of life.
While the origin of life remains mysterious, scientists are finding more and more evidence that material created in space and delivered to Earth by comet and meteor impacts could have given a boost to the start of life.
While astronauts might dream of discovering unknown life one day in their future career, ESA's Planetary Protection Officer oversees activities that achieve it on a regular basis.
Last year schoolchildren were invited to dig up some earth in search of creepy-crawlies and underground life. Astronauts taking part in ESA's underground training course CAVES joined the worldwide experiment from deep under Sardinia, Italy, and the results from their survey have revealed new habitats and rare species.
@ESA-CAVES just tweeted another pair of Earth and space images. One is Supernova remnant W49B. The other is an unidentified benthic colonial organism. The similarities in color and shape are undeniable.
The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a December 4 hearing to assess the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of astrobiology research.
A new analysis of data from Galileo has revealed clay-type minerals at the surface Europa that appear to have been delivered by a spectacular collision with an asteroid or comet.
"We stand on a great threshold in the human history of space exploration."
"For thousands of years, humans have looked up at the stars and wondered whether life exists beyond our home planet."
"Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the subject of the past and future of astrobiology."
In the redshift range 100<(1+z)<110, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) had a temperature of 273-300K (0-30 degrees Celsius), allowing early rocky planets (if any existed) to have liquid water chemistry on their surface and be habitable, irrespective of their distance from a star.
Using the powerful eye of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, two teams of scientists have found faint signatures of water in the atmospheres of five distant planets.
The future biosphere on Earth (as with its past) will be made up predominantly of unicellular microorganisms.
A House Science Committee hearing titled "Astrobiology: Search for Biosignatures in our Solar System and Beyond" will be held on Wednesday, 4 December.
The biosignatures of life on Earth do not remain static, but change considerably over the planet's habitable lifetime.
Life originated as a result of natural processes that exploited early Earth's raw materials. Scientific models of life's origins almost always look to minerals for such essential tasks as the synthesis of life's molecular building blocks or the supply of metabolic energy.
My research team and I are now camped on the shores of Lake Obersee, a few km NE of Lake Untersee in the mountains of Queen Maud Land.
A rare, recently discovered microbe that survives on very little to eat has been found in two places on Earth: spacecraft clean rooms in Florida and South America.
Please join us in welcoming science historian Steven J. Dick as he begins his term today as the second Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. He will be in residence for one year.