The Saturnian moon Enceladus presents a unique opportunity to sample the contents of a subsurface liquid water ocean in situ via the continuous plume formed over its south polar terrain […]
Genetic analyses of an Antarctic octopus show that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) collapsed during the Last Interglacial ~129,000 to 116,000 years ago when temperatures were only about 1 […]
![JWST NIRCam composite image of the Orion Bar, located in the Orion molecular cloud. Red is the 3.35µm emission (F335M NIRCam filter), blue is the emission of Paα (F187N filter subtracted by F182M filter) and green is the emission of the H2 0-0 S(9) line at 4.70 µm (F470N filter subtracted by F480M filter). The inset shows a zoom-in of the d203-506 planet-forming disk where OH lines are detected. Red is the emission of the H2 1-0 S(1) line at 2.12 µm (F212N filter), blue is the [FeII] line emission at 1.64 µm (F164N filter), and green is the emission in the F140M broad-band near-IR filter that traces scattered light around 1.4 µm (F140M broad band filter). The white contours represent the emission of the OH rotational line at 9.79 µm detected with MIRI-MRS (levels are 1.1, 2.5 ×10−5 erg cm−2 s −1 sr−1 ). The bright spot in the northwestern part of the envelope coincides with the region of interaction between a jet and the photoevaporative wind. The brightest OH emission originates from here. The spectra shown in Fig. 2 and 3 are an average over the region delineated by the green circle in order to have the best S/N. Image credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team, pdrs4all.org. -- astro-ph.EP](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/OHAsAProbe.png?resize=1200%2C717&ssl=1)
Water is a key ingredient for the emergence of life as we know it. Yet, its destruction and reformation in space remains unprobed in warm gas.
An international team of scientists has found the first direct evidence linking seemingly random weather systems in the ocean with climate on a global scale.
The addition of a high-gain antenna will enable the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft in August 2023 – set to launch in October 2024 – to communicate with mission controllers hundreds […]
CU Boulder geologist Brian Hynek has helped to document what may be a unique kind of ecosystem on Earth—and a possible window into the earliest stages of life on this […]
Editor’s note: We have mission en route or soon to be launched to visit ice -covered ocean worlds in the Jovian system. Some day we’ll visit Enceladus and other ice-covered […]
The Earth is a wonderful blue and green dot covered with oceans and life, while Venus is a yellowish sterile sphere that is not only inhospitable but also sterile. However, […]
The Saturnian moon Enceladus presents a unique opportunity in our Solar System to search for evidence of life, given its habitable ocean and plume that deposits organic-bearing ocean material onto […]
By mimicking rocky seafloor chimneys in the lab, scientists have produced new evidence that these features could have provided the right ingredients to kick-start life.
