Tag: Astrobiology
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21-year-old readings boost the case for water plumes spraying out from Europa
An artist’s conception shows the Galileo spacecraft passing through a plume erupting from the surface of Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter. A new computer simulation gives us an idea of how the magnetic field interacted with a plume. The magnetic field lines (depicted in blue) show how the plume interacts with the flow of…
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‘Eggs’ for alien Earths? At 94, physicist Freeman Dyson’s brain is still going strong
Physicist Freeman Dyson’s latest book is “Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters.” (Dan Komoda / Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ USA) Alien megaspheres … rockets powered by nuclear bombs … freeze-dried life in outer space: These are just some of the ideas that have flowered in the brain of physicist Freeman Dyson, and…
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SETI Institute gives Drake Award to Univ. of Washington astrobiologist Vikki Meadows
University of Washington astrobiologist Victoria Meadows holds up a rock sample. (UW Photo) University of Washington astrobiologist Victoria Meadows has become the first woman to receive the SETI Institute’s Frank Drake Award, named after a pioneer in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Meadows directs UW’s graduate program in astrobiology and is the principal investigator for…
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Breakthrough Discuss turns spotlight on search for life elsewhere in solar system
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco shows a graphic that compares the size of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, with the British Isles. (Breakthrough Initiatives Photo) STANFORD, Calif. — Are there microbes falling in the snows of Enceladus? Could a drone fly to biological hot spots on Titan? Is life floating in the sulfurous clouds of Venus?…
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What if scientists find signs of alien life? Experiment suggests we won’t freak out
An artist’s conception shows the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, monitoring a distant star and its planets. (NASA Illustration) AUSTIN, Texas — If extraterrestrial life exists, there’s a chance we’ll detect it sometime in the next 20 years. And then what? A recently published study suggests that most folks will take the news calmly, if…
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Scientists fine-tune the formula for finding the signature of life in alien atmospheres
An artist’s conception shows the light of an alien star shining through a planet’s atmosphere. (NASA Goddard via YouTube) Is the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere of an alien world the only sure-fire sign that life is present? Not necessarily: Scientists say the chemical signature of biological activity is likely to be more subtle,…
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How scientists are expanding the spectrum for SETI and the search for alien life
This map from the University of Puerto Rico’s Planetary Habitability Laboratory shows the known planetary systems within about 100 light-years from Earth, plotted on a logarithmic scale. The systems with potentially habitable exoplanets are highlighted with red circles. (PHL @ UPR Arecibo) BERKELEY, Calif. — Twenty years after the movie “Contact” brought the search for…
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Ross 128 redux: Red dwarf sparks interest as a potentially not-so-weird locale for life
This artist’s impression shows the temperate planet Ross 128 b, with its red dwarf parent star in the background. (ESO Illustration) A red dwarf star that was previously thought to be the source of a weird signal from aliens turns out to have a temperate Earth-sized planet, astronomers reported today. The “Weird! Signal,” detected this…
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Billionaire Yuri Milner discusses his plan to look for life on Saturn moon – and his Russian connections
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, at right, chats with The Economist’s Oliver Morton during the “New Space Age” conference at Seattle’s Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle) Russian billionaire Yuri Milner today laid out his vision to send the first privately funded interplanetary space mission to look for life at the Saturnian moon Enceladus —…
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Why these scientists argue that we are turning Earth into an alien planet
Imagery from the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership satellite shows Earth’s lights at night. In a newly published study, researchers argue that planets could be classified based on the effects of energy on the environment. (NASA Photo / Joshua Stevens / Miguel Roman) A trio of scientists has just laid out a new classification scheme…