biosignature
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How the Color Purple Could Lead Us to Alien Life
In a little more than 30 years, we went from knowing only of the planets in our star system to discovering over 5,000 distant worlds spread across the cosmos. So far, none have looked quite like Earth. If an Earth-like planet was orbiting another star, however, it may look different than our precious pale blue…
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NASA’s Perseverance Rover: Its Path to Finding Organics on Mars
Earlier this week, scientists announced that Perseverance found organic molecules on Mars. Not life itself—hardly—but another endorsement of the ancient habitat on Mars as having been suitable for life. Perseverance has been searching for biosignatures—that is, signs of ancient life on Mars—since it landed on the Red Planet in February 2021. But the search for…
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Astronomers Identify a New Type of Planet That Could Harbour Life
Aliens, should they exist, likely inhabit rocky planets like ours, but new research proposes an entirely new type of habitable world — one that scarcely resembles Earth.
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Biosignature Spotted on Venus Could Be From Volcanoes, Not Life
A team of planetary scientists said that if there is phosphine on Venus, it could have geological — not biological — origins. Their findings suggest that phosphine, a chemical often associated with microbes, could come from a reaction in the Venusian sky kicked off by volcanic eruptions on the planet’s surface.