A NASA spacecraft is providing new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars that adds to an increasingly complex picture of the Red Planet’s early evolution. This view of layered rocks on the floor of McLaughlin Crater shows sedimentary rocks that contain spectroscopic evidence for minerals formed through interaction with water. Image Credit: [continue reading]
In their search for habitable worlds, astronomers have started to consider exomoons, or those likely orbiting planets outside the Solar System. In a new study, a pair of researchers has found that exomoons are just as likely to support life as exoplanets. Artist’s conception of two extrasolar moons orbiting a giant gaseous planet. Image Credit: [continue reading]
Astronomers find planets in strange places and wonder if they might support life. One such place would be in orbit around a white or brown dwarf. While neither is a star like the Sun, both glow and so could be orbited by planets with the right ingredients for life. A comparison between the white [continue reading]
An Anglo-German team of astronomers has discovered a new planet orbiting a nearby star at just the right distance for an Earth-like climate that could support life. This artist’s impression shows HD40307 g in the foreground (on the left hand side), with its host star HD40307 and two other planets in the system (on [continue reading]
NASA’s car-sized rover, Curiosity, has taken significant steps toward understanding how Mars may have lost much of its original atmosphere. If the atmosphere of Mars contains methane, various possibilities have been proposed for where the methane could come from and how it could disappear. Potential non-biological sources for methane on Mars include comets, degradation [continue reading]
NASA’s Curiosity rover mission has found evidence a stream once ran vigorously across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but this evidence — images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels — is the first of its kind. NASA’s Curiosity rover [continue reading]