Lifeboat Foundation

“There’s a connection between the shape of the ice shell and the temperature in the ocean,” said Dr. Britney Schmidt. “This is a new way to get more insight from ice shell measurements that we hope to be able to get for Europa and other worlds.”

While Earth remains the only known world with bodies of liquid water on its surface, there are a myriad of worlds within our own solar system that have liquid water oceans beneath thick surfaces of ice. But what is the temperature of those interior oceans, and could the thickness of its ice shell determine it? This is what a recent study published in Journal of Geophysical Research Planets hopes to address as a team of researchers led by Cornell University investigated how a process called “ice pumping” could determine the temperature of the interior ocean underneath thick icy shells, also known as ice-ocean interaction. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the conditions for finding life beyond Earth with a focus on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, and Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.

“If we can measure the thickness variation across these ice shells, then we’re able to get temperature constraints on the oceans, which there’s really no other way yet to do without drilling into them,” said Dr. Britney Schmidt, who is an Associate Professor of Astronomy & Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and a co-author on the study. “This gives us another tool for trying to figure out how these oceans work. And the big question is, are things living there, or could they?”

Continue reading “Exploring Ice-Ocean Interactions on Alien Moons” »

Last year, scientists discovered a mathematically perfect star system — and now, they’re looking into whether it might contain signs of alien tech.

Dubbed HD 110067, the star system located just 100 light-years from Earth has six exoplanets that are each perfectly spaced apart in the sort of mathematical harmony rarely seen in our chaotic Universe. In a paper published in the journal Nature last November, scientists listed off the astounding attributes of the system, which unfortunately did not include any planets in the so-called “habitable zone,” or distance from the orbit-inducing star that could support life as we know it here on Earth.

All the same, scientists aren’t done looking, and as radio astronomer and alien life-seeking expert Steve Croft of the University of Berkeley told Space.com, there’s no reason that advanced civilizations may not have visited HD 110,067 and potentially left some of their technology behind.

The search for habitable exoplanets involves looking for planets with similar conditions to the Earth, such as liquid water, a suitable temperature range and atmospheric conditions. One crucial factor is the planet’s position in the habitable zone, the region around a star where liquid water could potentially exist on the planet’s surface. NASA’s Kepler telescope, launched in 2009, revealed that 20–50% of visible stars may host such habitable Earth-sized rocky planets. However, the presence of liquid water alone does not guarantee a planet’s habitability. On Earth, carbon compounds such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH4), and carbon monoxide (CO) played a crucial role in shaping the climate and biogeochemistry and could have contributed to the emergence of life.

Taking this into consideration, a recent study by Associate Professor Kazumi Ozaki from Tokyo Institute of Technology, along with Associate Researcher Yasuto Watanabe from The University of Tokyo, aims to expand the search for habitable planets. Published in the Astrophysical Journal(External site) on 10 January 2024, the researchers used atmospheric modeling to identify conditions that could result in a CO-rich atmosphere on Earth-like planets that orbit sun-like (F-, G-, and K-type) stars. This phenomenon, known as CO runaway, is suggested by atmospheric models to have possibly occurred in early planetary atmospheres, potentially favoring the emergence of life.

“The possibility of CO runaway is critical in resolving the fundamental problem regarding the origin of life on Earth because various organic compounds suitable for the prebiotic chemistry are more likely to form in a CO-rich atmosphere than in a CO2-rich atmosphere,” explains Dr. Ozaki.

There are plenty of life-friendly stellar systems in the Universe today. But at some point in the far future, life’s final extinction will occur.

An abundant type of hot ocean exoplanet, despite being decidedly un-Earth-like, could have the right stuff for hosting microbial life.

NASA ’s Roman Space Telescope ’s Coronagraph Instrument, designed to observe distant exoplanets by blocking stellar light, has passed essential tests, marking a significant advancement in space observation technology and the search for extraterrestrial life.

A cutting-edge tool to view planets outside our solar system has passed two key tests ahead of its launch as part of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope by 2027.

The Coronagraph Instrument on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will demonstrate new technologies that could vastly increase the number of planets outside our solar system (exoplanets) that scientists can directly observe. Designed and built at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, it recently passed a series of critical tests ahead of launch. That includes tests to ensure the instrument’s electrical components don’t interfere with those on the rest of the observatory and vice versa.

Science Fiction has long contemplated the idea that alien life not based on carbon chemistry such as silicon might exist on distant and strange worlds, or might be made to exist advanced biological engineering. What would such life be like?

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A European Space Agency satellite is expected to reenter and largely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday morning.

The agency’s Space Debris Office, along with an international surveillance network, is monitoring and tracking the Earth-observing ERS-2 satellite, which is predicted to make its reentry at 3:53 p.m. ET Wednesday, with a 7.5-hour window of uncertainty. The ESA is also providing live updates on its website.

“As the spacecraft’s reentry is ‘natural’, without the possibility to perform manoeuvers, it is impossible to know exactly where and when it will reenter the atmosphere and begin to burn up,” according to a statement from the agency.

How the governing forces of the universe shape human and organizational life.