astrobiology

Ancient asteroid craters may have been safe havens for Earth’s earliest oxygen-producing life. Scientists in South Korea have uncovered evidence suggesting that asteroid impact craters may have played an important role in the rise of oxygen-producing life on early Earth. A research team from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) discovered stromatolites [...]

Scientists explore how beneficial fungi could make Martian regolith fertile enough to grow crops, opening doors for future space settlements.

Somehow, on this beautiful blue marble we call Earth, the astonishing phenomenon we call life...

Himachal Pradesh is an Indian state located in northwestern part of the Himalaya, a global biodiversity hotspot. An up-to-date checklist of orchids is provided for this state, along with the plains of five states/ Union territories (Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand), surrounding it from northwest to southeast. The study area lies between 29°34´–33°12´ N latitude and …

Suppose there are signs of extraterrestrial life and we have not yet been able to detect them. What does that mean? In the renowned journal Nature Astronomy, researchers discuss the consequences of these so-called false-negative results. “We are currently investing a great deal of money in missions that might need to be designed differently.” One […] The post Missed Opportunities In The Search Fo…

Researchers have uncovered traces of alien space matter within an ancient impact site in South Korea, a discovery that could fundamentally alter our understanding of how life began on Earth. The team examined the Hapcheon crater, the sole verified asteroid-strike site on the Korean Peninsula, where they identified stromatolites bearing extraterrestrial signatures. These distinctive layered rock f…

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02883-w Recent advances from exoplanetary atmospheric characterization and sample return are ushering the search for life into a data-rich but more complex era. Accounting for false positives and negatives and defining the abiotic baseline will be crucial to interpreting increasingly ambiguous biosignatures.

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02867-w Experimental investigations of biomorphs — abiotic structures that mimic the morphology of life — provide essential control data for biosignature interpretation. On planets where chemistry never quite became life, these experiments may hold the key for detecting and understanding extraterrestrial origin of life scenar…

Nature Astronomy, Published online: 21 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02861-2 Asteroid Ryugu contains all of the five nucleobases utilized in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). A new analysis links chemistry within primitive accreting planetary bodies to the distributions of key prebiotic molecules.

Science Symposium at NASA Ames Save the Date: July 20th, 2026 The live streamed Science Symposium will highlight the contributions of Ames scientists whose work reflects the interdisciplinary spirit that Viking embodied. Hear from Viking scientists, learn about future missions to Mars, and experience the legacy of astrobiology at NASA. Time: 12:00 PM – 3:00 […] The post Mars Viking 50th Anniversa…

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from SciX blog post By Jenny Koch (SciX Digital Librarian) and Jennifer Lynn Bartlett (SciX Project Scientist for Astrophysics) Keeping track of scientific publications sounds straightforward – until you’re working in a field as interdisciplinary as astrobiology. Astrobiology sits at the intersection of astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, and planetary […] Th…

There are (at least) two kinds of habitable objects that could realistically exist: Earth-like planets. Earth-like moons around a large planet. Is the habitable zone the same in both cases? Or will ...

A recovered meteorite fragment revealed something researchers never expected to find inside the rock.

For many years, scientists searching for life beyond Earth have focused on one main question: what kinds of molecules should they look for on other planets? Molecules such as amino acids and fatty acids are important for life on Earth, so finding them elsewhere has often been seen as a possible sign of life. But […] The post Scientists discover a new way to spot alien life by looking for hidden p…