astrochemistry Archives

This artist’s impression shows how Mars may have looked about four billion years ago. The young planet Mars would have had enough water to cover its entire surface in a liquid layer about 140 metres deep, but it is more likely that the liquid would have pooled to form an ocean occupying almost half of Mars’s northern hemisphere, and in some regions reaching depths greater than 1.6 kilometres. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Habitable Zones, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Meteorites & Asteroids, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Mars Once Had Salty Oceans – Just Like Earth

by Keith CowingJune 25, 2000April 14, 2024

On the same day that NASA was announcing the apparent presence of liquid water near the surface of Mars, another research team announced that Mars once had salty oceans like […]

This is an artist's concept depicting the presence of buckyballs in space. Buckyballs, which consist of 60 carbon atoms arranged like soccer balls, have been detected in space before by scientists using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The new result is the first time an electrically charged (ionized) version has been found in the interstellar medium. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Impact events, Interstellar, Meteorites & Asteroids, Press Release

Researchers Discover Extraterrestrial Gases in Buckyballs

by Keith CowingMarch 20, 2000June 13, 2024

Extraterrestrial gases, including helium, are trapped in “buckyball” molecules in a layer of sedimentary clay found in many places on Earth, according to a paper to be published March 28, […]