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The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought. Instead, they may have oceans, and the moons may even be capable of supporting life, scientists say. Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft... flew past and sent back sensational pictures of the planet and its five major moons. But what amazed scientists even more was the data Voyager 2 sent back indicating that the Uranian system was even weirder than they thought. The measurements from the spacecraft’s instruments indicated that the planets...

They’re running rings around Uranus. New research suggests a moon orbiting the sophomoric-sounding planet might contain enough natural resources to support alien life. Scientists from Johns Hopkins and the University of North Dakota say the lunar object, named Miranda, has sources of water hidden below its surface. The finding could be a breakthrough in mankind’s ongoing search for the little green men. “To find evidence of an ocean inside a small object like Miranda is incredibly surprising,” said planetary scientist and researcher Tom Nordheim. The findings were published in The Planetary Science Journal. “It helps build on the story that...

NASA is set to launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft to explore Europa, an ocean moon orbiting Jupiter. Europa Clipper’s launch is targeted for no earlier than Monday, Oct. 14, 2024 at 12:06 p.m. EDT (1606 UTC). The spacecraft, the largest NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Europa is one of the most promising places in our solar system to find an environment suitable for life beyond Earth. Evidence suggests that the ocean beneath Europa’s icy surface could contain the...

It’s not every day that humans launch a space mission of such potential as it was done on Monday in Cape Canaveral, Florida. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket was launched on a quest to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean might hold the keys to life. The mission will take the spacecraft Europa Clipper five and a half years to reach Jupiter, orbit around the Solar system’s largest planet and sneak close to its fourth largest moon, Europa. Associated Press reported: “Scientists are almost certain a deep, global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And...

Hubble And New Horizons are 9 billion kilometers (5.6 million miles) apart but they can still work together. Uranus as seen by Hubble (left) and New Horizons (right). Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Samantha Hasler (MIT), Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC), New Horizons Planetary Science Theme Team Image Processing Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI) ===================================================================================== Studying exoplanets is not easy. Despite enormous steps forward in technology, models, and observational tricks, astronomers are still looking at small dots either blocking some starlight or reflecting it while being next to a bright object that easily outshines them. It requires practice, and researchers have...

The earliest life on Earth might have been just as purple as it is green today, a scientist claims. Ancient microbes might have used a molecule other than chlorophyll to harness the Sun’s rays, one that gave the organisms a violet hue. Chlorophyll, the main photosynthetic pigment of plants, absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths from the Sun and reflects green ones, and it is this reflected light that gives plants their leafy color. This fact puzzles some biologists because the sun transmits most of its energy in the green part of the visible spectrum. “Why would chlorophyll have this...

Row erupts over 'life-starter' vents By Paul Rincon BBC science The earliest seafloor hydrothermal vents - supposedly more than three billion years old - may be nothing more than deposits from underground springs active in the last few thousand years. The 'ancient' rocks are exposed on land in South Africa That is the claim of two US geologists who carried out a new analysis of rocks from South Africa which were previously dated to the Archaean period - when life first began to diversify. The findings could have important implications for our understanding of the early Earth and the...

Abiogenesis: The First Frontier There are a number of models and theories out there about how life might have arisen and originated. The goal of this article is educate the reader as to the facts and the myths associated with abiogenesis. The best place to start off on abiogenesis would be the definition. Abiogenesis is the unguided arisal of life from non-living matter. Abiogenesis is basically an attempt to explain the origin of life while nullifying the possibility of a creator. Conditions of the old Earth: There are a number of theories on what the conditions of the prebiotic (pre-life)...

The ancient organisms could help us understand the origins of life on Earth, and may also aid the search for life on other planets. Microbial cells were detected in fractures in the 2-billion-year-old rock sample, stained green, and analyzed. Image credit: Y. Suzuki, S. J. Webb, M. Kouduka et al. 2024/ Microbial Ecology A2-billion-year-old rock has been unearthed in South Africa – and if its advanced age wasn’t enough to knock your socks off, it’s also home to pockets of microbes that are still alive and thriving. Having been around for eons, these are the oldest examples of living microbes...

New research has revealed high-altitude air in Earth’s atmosphere is teeming with living organisms, a discovery that challenges our views on the dispersal of microbes and their relationship to human health. The findings, made by an international collective of climate, health, and atmospheric specialists based in Japan and Spain, has revealed Earth’s atmosphere is populated with a surprisingly diverse array of living bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Discovered at altitudes as high as 1,000 to 3,000 meters, the organisms included several potential human pathogens, revealing their ability to travel over great distances and prompting new concerns about their impact on health...

Artist’s impression of the white dwearf star WD1054–226 orbited by clouds of planetary debris and a major planet in the habitable zone. Credit: Mark A. Garlick / markgarlick.com. ============================================================================== The lifespan of the Sun is 12.3 billion years. This is 1.5 billion years shorter than the age of the Universe, 13.8 billion years. If the Sun happened to be born in the first 1.5 billion years of cosmic history, or equivalently at a cosmological redshift above 4 when the first several percent of all stars formed, then it would have turned into a white dwarf by now. There are about...

Scientists have revealed that graphite in the ancient Saglek-Hebron iron formations of Nunatsiavut, once thought to indicate the earliest life on Earth, likely has abiotic origins.Early Life on EarthThe isotopic composition of carbon in iron formations from the Saglek-Hebron Complex in Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador) has been seen as evidence of the earliest traces of life on Earth. But a new study by the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, and University College London suggests otherwise.The study shows that the petrographic, geochemical, and spectroscopic features in the graphite (the crystalline form of carbon) found in the Saglek-Hebron chemical sedimentary rocks are in...

The planet is as cold as ice and orbits far from its star. The observations from JWST of this cold giant planet. Image Credit: T. Müller (MPIA/HdA), E. Matthews (MPIA) ========================================================================== JWST has imaged a new planet directly and it is quite a fascinating object. It orbits one of the three stars in the Epsilon Indi system and it weighs six times the mass of Jupiter. This super-Jupiter is 20 to 40 times further from its star than Earth is from the Sun – so it is very cold. It also doesn't help that the star, Eps Ind A, is...

An international team of researchers, including a chemist from Northwestern University, has discovered that metallic minerals on the deep-ocean floor can produce oxygen at depths of 13,000 feet. This finding challenges the traditional belief that only photosynthetic organisms, such as plants and algae, generate Earth's oxygen. The discovery suggests oxygen can also be produced at the seafloor, supporting aerobic sea life in complete darkness. The study will be published on Monday, July 22, in the journal Nature Geoscience. Andrew Sweetman from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) discovered this "dark oxygen" during ship-based fieldwork in the Pacific Ocean. Franz...

A survey of five million distant solar systems, aided by "neural network" algorithms, has discovered 60 stars that appear to be surrounded by giant alien power plants...Ever since theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed the idea at Princeton in 1960, astrophysicists have speculated that advanced extraterrestrials might have constructed massive solar energy collectors around one star or more. [Illustration in Comment #1]

(NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have successfully mapped the weather on a planet 280 light years away. Earlier detections made by older space telescopes had hinted at the presence of an atmosphere on WASP-43b, however, the instruments aboard the JWST are the first to measure the actual weather in the planet’s atmosphere. “With Hubble, we could clearly see that there is water vapor on the dayside. Both Hubble and Spitzer suggested there might be clouds on the nightside,” explained Taylor Bell, a researcher from the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute...

The latest discoveries were made by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instrument as part of the James Webb Observations of Young ProtoStars (JOYS+) program and revealed key chemical ingredients astronomers are looking for in the search for distant worlds that could be home to life.Given that they are young protostars, IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385 do not appear to have planets in orbits around them yet. However, the detections of organic molecules around them are promising indicators for regions of future habitability.Along with the detection of ethanol, MIRI has also detected what astronomers believe is probably acetic acid, an ingredient commonly...

Titan, as seen by Cassini. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Arizona/Univ. Idaho ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anew study looking at impact cratering on Titan has found bad news in the search for life on the moon, and potentially other icy moons of the Solar System as well. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is often thought of as a potential candidate for life. The moon is the only place in the Solar System – other than Earth – where liquids are known to be present on the surface, making up rivers, lakes and seas. These water features are made of liquid hydrocarbons, the bulk of which is...

Could a recently discovered "super-Earth" have the potential temperature and conditions to sustain life? The new exoplanet is situated "fairly close to us" -- only 137 light-years away -- and orbits within a "habitable zone," according to NASA. Astronomers say the planet, dubbed TOI-715 b, is about one and a half times the width of Earth and orbits a small, reddish star. The same system also might harbor a second, Earth-sized planet, which, if confirmed, "would become the smallest habitable-zone planet discovered by TESS [the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite] so far," NASA said in a Jan. 31 press release.

It turns out space helmets serve a dual purpose - to keep air in and stink out. Just like Earth, the universe emits various smells from every corner of the never-ending universe, often of which are generally unpleasant, Space.com reported, citing numerous space expeditions over the decades. Although it is impossible to take a whiff of the cosmos without facing certain death, astronauts have long described strong odors clinging to their space suits after they return to their air-locked chambers. Metallic, burnt meat Those aboard the Apollo moon landings described the scent as gunpowder-like, while others who traversed the International...