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| Living with a Red Dwarf |
| Topic: Cosmic Evolution |
04/09/09 |
| Not astrobiologists' first choice, red dwarf stars have now gained acceptance as potential hosts for habitable planets. They may not be great to live by in the first couple billion years, but they eventually settle down into relatively pleasant stars. |
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| How Life Shatters Chemistry's Mirror |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
04/06/09 |
| Handedness, or "chirality," is when molecules come in two forms that are mirror images of each other, like right- and left-handed gloves. Even though chiral molecules are produced equally in nature, life seems to prefer one hand over the other. The reason for this is a mystery that scientists are struggling to answer. |
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| Life Out of the Tropics |
| Topic: Biosphere |
04/02/09 |
| The diversity of life on Earth is concentrated near the equator, with a steep falloff towards the poles. A recent study finds this is because new species tend to form in the tropics and then migrate out. This historical pattern might point to a fundamental property of life. |
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| Welcome to the Red Planet |
| Topic: Mars |
03/26/09 |
| Looking for someplace inexpensive to go on your next vacation? Consider Mars. Now that Google Earth 5.0, with its built-in Mars mode, has been released, you can check out the most stunning vistas the Red Planet has to offer – and you won´t have to spend a dime. |
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| Life´s Crystal Code |
| Topic: Origin & Evolution of Life |
03/19/09 |
| What do we have in common with a crystal chandelier? We´re both made of material that replicates its own structure. In our case it´s DNA, while the crystals in the chandelier grew from minerals like quartz. One scientist thinks for early life on Earth, certain mineral crystals played the role that DNA does for us today. |
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| Cometary Life Limit |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/12/09 |
| Large debris disks around certain stars may imply a high rate of killer comets that wipe out any chance of life forming in these stellar systems. |
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| Starlight, Star Bright |
| Topic: New Planets |
03/09/09 |
| On March 6, NASA launched Kepler, a telescope that will search for distant Earths by studying 100,000 stars simultaneously. But to examine the atmospheres of distant Earths for signs of life, says Sara Seagar of MIT, NASA may need to build a fleet of hundreds of tiny orbiting telescopes. |
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| Could Life on Earth Have Come From Ceres? |
| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/05/09 |
| The dwarf planet Ceres is rarely mentioned as a candidate for habitability, but the possible presence of an ocean and hydrothermal vents suggests it is plausible. If life developed on Ceres long ago, could it have seeded the young Earth? |
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| Finding Earth's Twin: No Easy Task |
| Topic: Alien Life |
03/02/09 |
| Are there other Earths out there -- rocky planets capable of supporting life, orbiting sun-like stars at comfortable distances? NASA is about to launch a telescope designed to find the answer. |
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| A Sliver of a Chance for Life on Mars |
| Topic: Mars |
02/26/09 |
| The Phoenix Mars Lander witnessed water vapor adsorbing into the martian soil each night. Researchers suspect the films of water that resulted are probably too thin for life now, but they may have been thick enough millions of years ago. |
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