New research posits that life originated somewhere in the cosmos — and that it traveled through space on tiny particles of cosmic dust.
As we search the heavens for signs of alien life, is it possible that the easiest place to find aliens is to look in the mirror?
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Does life appear independently on different planets in the galaxy? Or does it spread from world to world? Or does it do both?
New research shows how life could spread via a basic, simple pathway: cosmic dust.
One thing scientists have learned in the past few decades is that life on Earth might have had an early start.
PDF | Plasmas up to a kilometer in size, behaving similarly to multicellular organisms have been filmed on 10 separate NASA space shuttle missions, over… | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate.
“New surveys of the sky provide groundbreaking opportunities to search for technosignatures coordinated with supernovae.” said Bárbara Cabrales.
Are we alone in the universe? This longstanding question is what the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute has been trying to answer for decades as its vast array of radio telescopes continues to scan the heavens for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth, also known as technsigatures. Now, a team of researchers led by the Berkeley SETI Research Center have developed the SETI Ellipsoid with the hope it will offer greater opportunities for identifying technsigatures from intelligent civilizations throughout the cosmos. These findings were recently published in The Astronomical Journal and hold the potential to help scientists better understand the necessary criterion for finding intelligent life beyond Earth.
For the study, the researchers began by hypothesizing that intelligent civilizations could use what’s known as a Schelling point (more commonly called a focal point) during supernovae events as an opportunity to broadcast coordinated signals announcing their existence to the cosmos. The researchers then compared this criterion to data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) spacecraft, finding the criterion matched 5 percent of TESS data. After searching through the data using their new SETI Ellipsoid method, the team identified zero technosignatures, but noted this new method could provide unique opportunities for identifying technosignatures in the future.
Continue reading “Unlocking the Cosmos: The SETI Ellipsoid Approach to Technosignature Detection” »
A group of researchers have posed a fascinating — and downright mind bending — thought experiment: If a planet like Earth can be “alive,” can it also have a mind of its own?
The team published a paper exploring this question in the International Journal of Astrobiology. In it, they present the idea of “planetary intelligence,” which describes the collective knowledge and cognition of an entire planet.
Though it seems like something ripped off the screen of a Marvel movie, they believe that the concept might actually help us deal with global issues such as climate change, or even help us discover extraterrestrial life.
SpaceX will become the co-owner of valuable data, biological samples, and possibly even patents and intellectual property related to human spaceflight, according to the terms and conditions of a new program inviting research on crewed Dragon missions.
The company started quietly inviting proposals “for exceptional science and research ideas that will enable life in space and on other planets,” to be executed on orbit using its Dragon spacecraft capsule. Specifically, SpaceX says it’s looking for research studies and experiments focused on fitness, or solutions to increase “efficiency and effectiveness,” and those focused on human health during long-duration spaceflight missions.
Selected research study groups would have access to SpaceX’s crewed Dragon missions, opening up a whole new use case for one of the company’s core products.
SANTIAGO, Chile — Astronomers have traced the source of Earth’s oceans, rivers, and lakes back to a stellar nursery located 1,300 light years away. They’re describing this finding as the “missing link” in the evolution of life as we know it.
“We can now trace the origins of water in our Solar System to before the formation of the Sun,” says lead author Dr. John Tobin of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
The international team discovered gaseous water in a substantial planet-forming disc around the star V883 Orionis. This star, located in the Orion constellation in the southwestern sky, was studied using the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) telescope in Chile. Upon examination, researchers found that the disc contained at least 1,200 times the quantity of water found in all of Earth’s oceans. This discovery could potentially aid researchers in identifying planets or moons that are most likely to harbor extraterrestrial life.
“Not every planet is suitable for direct imaging, but that’s why simulations give us a rough idea of what the ELTs [Extremely Large Telescopes] would have delivered and the promises they’re meant to hold when they are built,” said Huihao Zhang.
What aspects of an exoplanet should astronomers focus on to find signs of extraterrestrial life? Should they focus on the parent star, the exoplanet’s surface, or something else? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers from The Ohio State University (OSU) discuss how astronomers could use the next generation of telescopes, specifically the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and other Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), to conduct more in-depth analyses of an exoplanet’s atmosphere, specifically searching for signs of oxygen and methane, as these are present in the Earth’s atmosphere. This study holds the potential to not only establish criteria for searching for signs of extraterrestrial life, but how astronomers can search for this criterion, as well.
For the study, the researchers used computers models to simulate how an exoplanet’s atmosphere on 10 nearby rocky exoplanets could be analyzed for oxygen, water, methane, and carbon dioxide using what’s known as the direct imaging method with ELTs. The direct imaging method is where astronomers blot out the intense glare from the parent star, making exoplanets orbiting it “appear”, making them easier to identify and study. In the end, the researchers found that GJ 887 b (11 light-years away) was the most promising candidate for detecting biosignatures in its atmosphere while Proxima Centauri b (4.4 light-years away) was found to only be detectable for carbon dioxide.
Is there life on Mars or has life ever existed in its ancient past? What conditions would be the right combination for life to exist there? These questions are what NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers are trying to answer as they continue to explore the barren and dry landscape of the Red Planet in hopes of unlocking its secrets above or buried deep beneath the surface. One such component that could contribute to life is methane, which has been identified by the Curiosity rover to exist on Mars in bursts. Now, a recent study published in Journal of Geophysical Research Letters: Planets (JGR: Planets) hopes to explain why, how, and when these methane gases reach the surface in bursts. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the internal mechanisms of Mars and whether this could lead to life existing on the Red Planet.
2019 news report discussing Curiosity finding methane on Mars.
“Understanding Mars’ methane variations has been highlighted by NASA’s Curiosity team as the next key step towards figuring out where it comes from,” said John Ortiz, who is a PhD Student Researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory and lead author of the study. “There are several challenges associated with meeting that goal, and a big one is knowing what time of a given sol (Martian day) is best for Curiosity to perform an atmospheric sampling experiment.”
