Search for Life – NeRDs Moonbase

Did NASA’s Viking landers accidentally kill life on Mars? Why one scientist thinks so

November 15, 2024 NeRD

In 1975, NASA’s Viking 1 spacecraft entered orbit around Mars, carrying a mission to unlock the secrets of the Red Planet. Soon, it released twin landers that drifted toward the Martian surface and eventually made history as the first American spacecraft to touch down on the world. For over six years, Viking 1 continued to orbit Mars’ Chryse Planitia region while its landers collected soil samples using robotic arms and onboard laboratories, marking a groundbreaking chapter in humanity’s exploration of the Martian environment. At the time, however, little was known…

‘We are close:’ SETI astrobiologist Nathalie Cabrol on the search for life

September 24, 2024 NeRD

A leading astrobiologist melds her passion with the weighty nature of trying to grasp for answers to two key questions: Are we alone in the universe? How did life on Earth begin in the first place? Nathalie Cabrol’s book, “The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist’s Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life” (Scribner/Simon & Schuster), released last month, offers an insightful and reflective view of the search for life — a mind-stretching quest not only looking “out there” but also right here on Earth. Perhaps part of…

Planets of Milky Way’s most common stars are less habitable than thought, dead NASA telescope reveals

August 6, 2024 NeRD

The most common stars in the Milky Way may be even less friendly to life than previously suspected. New research suggests that red dwarf stars, stellar bodies smaller and less massive than the sun, may blast their planets with intense ultraviolet (UV) light radiation flares that severely reduce their potential habitability. A team of scientists reached this conclusion by analyzing data collected by the now-decommissioned NASA mission Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX). Launched in April 2003, GALEX scanned the universe in UV light, hunting for flares from around 300,000 nearby stars…

Signs of life could survive on solar system moons Enceladus and Europa

July 21, 2024 NeRD

If life exists on the icy ocean moons of Enceladus and Europa, detectable trace molecules could survive just below their frozen surfaces. Scientists have long theorized that both Enceladus, one of Saturn’s 146 known moons, and Europa, one of Jupiter‘s four large Galilean moons among its total 95 moons, could host vast liquid water oceans that harbor life. If this is the case, then complex organic molecules like amino acids and nucleic acids, the building blocks of life as we know it, could serve as “biosignatures” of life on the…

Life after stellar death? How life could arise on planets orbiting white dwarfs

June 18, 2024 NeRD

Planets could survive the death of their star and become capable of supporting life — and now astronomers are going to go hunting for them. Stars do not survive forever, the sun included. In about five billion years, Earth’s star will begin to exhaust its supply of hydrogen used to generate energy via nuclear fusion in its core. The sun’s core will then begin to contract, increasing the temperature so that hydrogen in its outer envelope can then ignite fusion reactions that will cause the sun — and other stars…

Could alien life be hiding in the rings of Saturn or Jupiter?

May 7, 2024 NeRD

The search for life beyond Earth has driven seekers to scout all sorts of potential habitats — not just on the growing list of known Earth-like exoplanets, but in other places within our own solar system. The first choice that comes to mind is likely Mars, which some scientists believe still holds oases of liquid water beneath its barren surface, Not long ago, the detection of phosphine, a possible indicator of biological decay, in the atmosphere of Venus set off debate about whether life could exist in that hellishly hot…

Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus is able to support life − my research team is working out how to detect extraterrestrial cells there

April 21, 2024 NeRD

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Fabian Klenner is a planetary scientist and astrobiologist at the University of Washington (UW). His research focus lies on the exploration of icy moons in the solar system, in particular Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa. Saturn has 146 confirmed moons – more than any other planet in the solar system – but one called Enceladus stands out. It appears to have the ingredients for life. From 2004 to 2017, Cassini –…

Which telescope will be 1st to find alien life? Scientists have some ideas

February 2, 2024 NeRD

A peek into the future of exoplanet science suggests the forthcoming European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is going to give us our best chance in the next two decades of detecting biosignatures on nearby rocky worlds orbiting other stars. Such is the conclusion of a new study that simulated what it will take to characterize worlds outside our solar system with the tantalizing prospect of hosting life, such as Proxima Centauri b. This study will allow astronomers to set their sights on key exoplanetary targets during the 2030s and beyond.…

1st ‘interstellar tourism campaign’ urges aliens to visit Lexington, Kentucky

January 10, 2024 NeRD

Hey, aliens! Lexington, Kentucky would be a good place to spend your next deep-space vacation. This was the message that a group of Kentucky scientists, linguists and scholars recently beamed at the TRAPPIST-1 system, which lies 40 light-years from Earth and harbors multiple potentially habitable planets. The missive represented the very first interstellar travel advertisement, according to VisitLEX, the group behind the effort. Related: The search for alien life VisitLEX’s tourism team at the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau partnered with the Cornett ad agency to devise a playful campaign…

Life beyond Earth may form in the coldest depths of space, Ryugu asteroid samples reveal

December 23, 2023 NeRD

In 2020, the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 visited the asteroid Ryugu and managed to bring precious samples of the space rock back to Earth. And sure enough, years later, we are still gaining insights about this small asteroid and the environment in which it formed thanks to those samples. Today, scientists released the latest findings from Ryugu — that certain organic compounds called PAHs may be able to form in cold areas in space. These results may help us to better understand how planet formation, and eventually life, came to be.…