Modern Mars is a desolate husk of a planet, as far as life is concerned. But it’s not completely uninhabitable, since microbes could be hiding in the cracks of rocks and dirt. And now a new study has found a possible food source for these organisms – space dust.
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The Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa 2 has successfully pulled off a second touchdown on the surface of the distant asteroid Ryugu. The risky dive saw the probe collect material that had been exposed during the creation of an artificial crater on April 5.
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A new study from UCL may have brought us a step closer to understanding how life arose. The team may have solved a long-standing chicken-and-egg riddle related to how different types of peptides and proteins interact to give rise to life.
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It’s been suggested in the past that life could hitch a ride on asteroids or comets to jump from world to world – a process known as panspermia. Now, a Harvard team has calculated just how likely that scenario would be throughout the Milky Way. In short: extremely.
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After studying proteins that are key to metabolism in modern cells, researchers reverse engineered a simplified protein that may have been responsible for kickstarting the process in ancient times. And to prove the idea, they then implanted it into living bacteria and found that it works just fine.
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Evolution is usually gradual, but half a billion years ago it took off at a gallop in an event that’s now known as the Cambrian Explosion. One of the leading theories is this came from a huge spike in oxygen levels, and now a team may have found where all that oxygen come from – plate tectonics.
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Alien life is almost certainly out there somewhere, but because it’s most likely microscopic, it won’t be easy to spot. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois have come up with a new and fairly obvious sign of life: pasta-shaped rocks.
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Curiosity has begun investigating one of the most interesting regions so far – the clay-bearing unit. After drilling two new samples last month, the rover has confirmed high amounts of clay minerals, providing further proof that ancient Mars was once much wetter.
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Within a relatively short period of time, life burst forth into an incredible diversity of forms, in an event that has since come to be known as the Cambrian explosion. Now, an international team of scientists has found clues to what may have caused that – spikes in oxygen levels.
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How did life emerge from non-living matter? The prevailing hypothesis is that life got started in the ocean, where hydrothermal vents provided just the right chemical reactions. But a new MIT study has found that ancient oceans probably didn’t have enough nitrogen – but shallow ponds might have.
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