What set the stage for the emergence of life on early Earth? There will never be a single answer to that question, but there are many partial answers related to the global forces at play during that period. Two of those globe-shaping dynamics are the rise of the magnetic fields that protected Earth from hazardous …
Continue reading "Clues About Conditions on Early Earth As Life Was Emerging"
This story was written by Nicholas Siegler, Chief Technologist for NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory with the help of doctoral student Markus Gogouvitis, at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Georg-August-University in Gottingen, Germany. This past July I joined a group of geologists, geochemists, microbiologists, and fellow …
Continue reading "Time-Traveling in the Australian Outback in Search of Early Earth"
Along the edge of an inlet on a tiny Japanese island can be found– side by side – striking examples of conditions on Earth some 2.4 billion years ago, then 1.4 billion years ago and then the Philippine Sea of today. First is a small channel with iron red, steaming and largely oxygen-free water – …
Continue reading "2.5 Billion Years of Earth History in 100 Square Feet"
Along the edge of an inlet on a tiny Japanese island can be found– side by side – striking examples of conditions on Earth some 2.4 billion years ago, then 1.4 billion years ago and then the Philippine Sea of today. First is a small channel with iron red, steaming and largely oxygen-free water – …
Continue reading "2.5 Billion Years of Earth History in 100 Square Feet"
A version of this article first appeared in Astrobiology Magazine, http://www.astrobio.net. Life on early Earth seems to have begun with a paradox: while life needs water as a solvent, the essential chemical backbones of early life-forming molecules fall apart in water. Our universal solvent, it turns out, can be extremely corrosive. Some have pointed to …
A version of this article first appeared in Astrobiology Magazine, http://www.astrobio.net. Life on early Earth seems to have begun with a paradox: while life needs water as a solvent, the essential chemical backbones of early life-forming molecules fall apart in water. Our universal solvent, it turns out, can be extremely corrosive. Some have pointed to …
We all know that life has not been found so far on any planet beyond Earth -- at least not yet. This lack of discovery of extraterrestrial life has long been used as a knock on the field of astrobiology and has sometimes been put forward as a measure of Earth's uniqueness. But the more …
We all know that life has not been found so far on any planet beyond Earth -- at least not yet. This lack of discovery of extraterrestrial life has long been used as a knock on the field of astrobiology and has sometimes been put forward as a measure of Earth's uniqueness. But the more …
Many Worlds 