Just as the number of planets discovered outside our solar system is large and growing -- more than 3,700 confirmed at last count -- so too is the number of ingenious ways to find exoplanets ever on the rise. The first exoplanets were found by measuring the "wobble" in their host stars caused by the …
Continue reading "Planets Still Forming Detected in a Protoplanetary Disk"
A decades-long quest for incontrovertible and complex Martian organics -- the chemical building blocks of life -- is over. After almost six years of searching, drilling and analyzing on Mars, the Curiosity rover team has conclusively detected three types of naturally-occurring organics that had not been identified before on the planet. The Mars organics Science …
Continue reading "Breakthrough Findings on Mars Organics and Mars Methane"
The world of biology is filled with labs where living creatures are cultured and studied, where the dynamics of life are explored and analyzed to learn about behavior, reproduction, structure, growth and so much more. In the field of astrobiology, however, you don't see much lab biology -- especially when it comes to …
Continue reading "Joining the Microscope and the Telescope in the Search for Life Beyond Earth"
The world of biology is filled with labs where living creatures are cultured and studied, where the dynamics of life are explored and analyzed to learn about behavior, reproduction, structure, growth and so much more. In the field of astrobiology, however, you don't see much lab biology -- especially when it comes to …
Continue reading "Joining the Microscope and the Telescope in the Search for Life Beyond Earth"
Last month, the European Space Agency's Gaia mission released the most accurate catalogue to date of positions and motions for a staggering 1.3 billion stars. Let’s do a few comparisons so we can be suitably amazed. The total number of stars you can see without a telescope is less than 10,000. This includes visible stars …
Continue reading "Know Thy Star, Know Thy Planet: How Gaia is Helping Nail Down Planet Sizes"
(This column was written by my colleague Elizabeth Tasker, now at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS). Trained as an astrophysicist, she researches planet and galaxy formation and also writes on space science topics. Her book, "The Planet Factory," came out last year.) Last month, …
Continue reading "Know Thy Star, Know Thy Planet: How Gaia is Helping Nail Down Planet Sizes"
When thinking and talking about "astrobiology," many people are inclined to think of alien creatures that often look rather like us, but with some kind of switcheroo. Life, in this view, means something rather like us that just happens to live on another planet and perhaps uses different techniques to stay alive. But as defined …
When thinking and talking about "astrobiology," many people are inclined to think of alien creatures that often look rather like us, but with some kind of switcheroo. Life, in this view, means something rather like us that just happens to live on another planet and perhaps uses different techniques to stay alive. But as defined …
Direct imaging of exoplanets remains in its infancy, but goodness what a treat it is already and what a promise of things to come. Almost all of the 3,714 exoplanets confirmed so far were detected via the powerful but indirect transit and radial velocity methods -- measures of slightly decreased light as a planet crosses …
Direct imaging of exoplanets remains in its infancy, but goodness what a treat it is already and what a promise of things to come. Almost all of the 3,714 exoplanets confirmed so far were detected via the powerful but indirect transit and radial velocity methods -- measures of slightly decreased light as a planet crosses …
Many Worlds 