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| Acidic Europa May Eat Away at Chances for Complex Life |
| Topic: Europa |
03/01/12 |
| Oxidants from the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa's might react with sulfides and other compounds in the moon's ocean, generating acids. This could make the ocean too acidic to support complex life. |
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| Extending the Habitable Zone for Red Dwarf Stars |
| Topic: Alien Life |
02/23/12 |
| Scientists have long thought that planets had to orbit very close to small and dim red dwarf stars in order to be warm enough for life. New research challenges that assumption. |
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| Breaking Through the Ice at Lake Vostok |
| Topic: Extreme Life |
02/16/12 |
| After more than 15 years of stop-and-go drilling, a team of Russian scientists and engineers have drilled through the ice of Lake Vostok. Scientists are eager to discover what sort of extreme life might lurk in the deep dark waters. |
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| "Baby Fat" on the Young Sun? |
| Topic: Sun |
02/13/12 |
| To deal with the faint young Sun paradox, researchers are taking a fresh look at an old idea: that the Sun started out larger and more luminous than we thought. |
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| High Planetary Tilt Lowers Odds for Life? |
| Topic: Alien Life |
02/06/12 |
| Highly-tilted worlds would have extreme seasons, subjecting life to alternating periods of scorching and subzero temperatures. This could make the development of all but hardiest, simplest creatures a long shot. |
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| Elements of ExoPlanets |
| Topic: New Planets |
02/02/12 |
| By looking at the wavelengths of light from nearby stars, researchers have determined the abundance of certain elements for more than a hundred stars. Trace elements in such stars may influence their habitable zones, where planets with life might dwell. |
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| Earth’s Cloudy Past Could Reveal Exoplanet Details |
| Topic: Spaceship Earth |
01/23/12 |
| The pattern of clouds on Earth is largely determined by the arrangement of the continents below. Now, astronomers are modeling the clouds at different periods in Earth’s past to better understand what alien worlds might look like. |
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