Biosignatures Archives

Portrait of Fabian Klenner, assistant professor of planetary sciences, with a Raman Spectrometer in his lab. (UCR/Stan Lim)

New UC Riverside Lab Focuses on Cutting Edge Astrobiology Tools

by Keith CowingAugust 25, 2026August 25, 2026

[UC Riverside] The Planetary Geochemistry and Astrobiology Laboratory is led by Assistant Professor Fabian Klenner, a new faculty member in UCR’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His research focuses […]

Heat transforms clusters of RNA into liquid-like droplets. The study found that temperature can alter the physical properties of RNA condensates, allowing a more networked structure to relax into rounded droplets. Credit Priya Banerjee/University at Buffalo

Origin & Evolution of Life

RNA Droplets May Have Helped Start life on Earth

by Keith CowingAugust 21, 2026August 21, 2026

[University at Buffalo] It’s one of the origins of life’s chicken-or-the-egg problems: How could RNA have helped give rise to the first cells before there were cells to contain them?

A Sulawesi Island with location of the Malili Lake System (insert

Origin & Evolution of Life

Metagenomics Deciphers Diagenetic Processes Of Ferruginous Mineralization In The Deep Biosphere

by Keith CowingAugust 20, 2026August 20, 2026

[Nature Communications Earth & Environment] Ferruginous conditions in the Precambrian oceans gave rise to ancient iron formations that contain the oldest recognized traces of life in the form of mineral […]

Life And Space 2026

by Keith CowingAugust 17, 2026

Three days. Six major topics. One question connecting them all: what can science tell us about life in the Universe? From 4–6 December 2026, the Polish Astrobiology Society invites you […]

Left: Spatial distribution of the ROIs within the Red, Transitional, and Blue units used to extract the data.

Phobos

Infrared-to-visible Albedo Ratio Of Phobos: Comparison With Primitive Asteroids

by Keith CowingAugust 17, 2026August 17, 2026

[astro-ph.EP] Aims. The ratio between infrared and visible albedo, pIR/pV, provides a simple proxy for the spectral slope of asteroid surfaces between the visible and near-infrared wavelength ranges. The aim […]

Mapping of the science cases proposed by the Science Working Groups (center) to the questions and discovery areas identified by Astro2020 (left and right). The transparencies of the lines indicate the number of connections with darker lines indicating stronger links between the SWG and the Astro2020 topic. -- [astro-ph.IM]

Astronomy & Telescopes

Early Exploration Of The Scientific Discovery Space For The Habitable Worlds Observatory

by Keith CowingAugust 14, 2026August 14, 2026

[astro-ph.IM] The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a future NASA flagship mission concept identified by the Astro2020 Decadal Survey as the highest priority for large space missions. HWO should conduct […]

Graphical illustration showing planetary bodies (not to scale) where H2O2 has been detected, the major production pathways of H2O2, and its role in a few examples of prebiotic chemical networks. -- [Fundamental Research]

Biosignatures & Paleobiology

Hydrogen Peroxide On Mars And Icy Moons: Implications For The Search For Extraterrestrial Signatures Of Prebiotic Chemistry

by Keith CowingAugust 13, 2026August 13, 2026

[Fundamental Research]. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is increasingly recognized as an important molecule in prebiotic chemistry that potentially had a large impact on life’s early evolution.

Regolith Examination for Validating Extraterrestrial Astrobiological Life (REVEAL) mission design. The framework for our science payload relies on accessing the subsurface of Mars (Tosi et al., 2026) and to assess the sedimentary strata as we exhume regolith in a vertical transect. Biogenicity measurements with respect to any martian ecology (Nisson et al., 2026) would be determined on the aforementioned MORPH framework and as a function of an independent Last Universal Common Ancestor separate from our terrestrial biosphere (Schopf, 2026). Moreover, any positive, negative, or ambiguous biological signal would still be subject to the same design of experiments (Cockell, 2026) such that a collective census was reached based on the payload datasets for geochemical gradients as deeper sediments were analyzed. Image courtesy: Chuck Carter. -- Astrobiology (Journal)

Mars

Biological Validation and Agnostic Experiments For Extant And Extinct Microbial Life Within The Martian Subsurface

by Keith CowingAugust 11, 2026August 11, 2026

[Astrobiology (Journal)] Over the last several decades, investigations of Earth’s subsurface and other extremely low-biomass systems have refined our understanding of the environmental limits of life, driven by methodological advances […]

The Rozel tar seeps examined in this study, described in Table 1. Big seep is shown in the left panel, Volcano seep in the middle, and Entrapment seep on the right. The red circles show the remains of pelicans, which can be used for visual scale; American White Pelicans are 127–165 cm long with a wingspan range of 244–290 cm (Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2025). Drone image credit: Utah Department of Natural Resources. -- Frontiers in Microbiology

Biosignatures & Paleobiology

Biosignature Reservoirs In The Rozel Point Tar Seeps At Great Salt Lake, Utah

by Keith CowingAugust 10, 2026August 10, 2026

[Frontiers in Microbiology] On the north shore of Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA, naturally occurring tar seeps at Rozel Point provide an opportunity to study a petroleum-rich environment adjacent to […]