Scientists have found exceptionally preserved microbial remains in some of Earth’s oldest rocks in Western Australia – a major advance in the field, offering clues for how life on Earth […]
Biosignatures
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Studying Microbial Mats to Understand Ancient Biosignatures
A recent study supported in part by the NASA Exobiology Program provides further details about lipid biomarkers in stromatolites. The research focuses on microbial mat communities in ponds at Guerrero […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
An Empirical Infrared Transit Spectrum Of Earth: Opacity Windows And Biosignatures
The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment’s Fourier Transform Spectrometer on the SCISAT satellite has been measuring infrared transmission spectra of Earth during Solar occultations since 2004. We use these data to build […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
New Method For Studying Early Life In Ancient Rocks
Scientists have developed a new method for detecting traces of primordial life in ancient rock formations using potassium. The method relies on searching for high concentrations of potassium in ancient […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Expanding the Timeline for Earth's Photosynthetic Red Edge Biosignature
When Carl Sagan observed the Earth during a Gallileo fly-by in 1993, he found a widely distributed surface pigment with a sharp reflection edge in the red part of the […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Carbon Monoxide Detectors Could Warn Of Extraterrestrial Life
Carbon monoxide detectors in our homes warn of a dangerous buildup of that colorless, odorless gas we normally associate with death. Astronomers, too, have generally assumed that a build-up of […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Remote Detectability of Earth's Biosphere Through Time
Thousands of planets beyond our solar system have been discovered to date, dozens of which are rocky in composition and are orbiting within the circumstellar habitable zone of their host […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Reliable Method For Detecting Extraterrestrial Life Is Used On Earth For The First Time
Dutch scientists have developed an instrument capable of detecting the presence of living plants kilometres away. In future, the technique could be used in the search for extraterrestrial life. The […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
Searching for Biosignatures in Exoplanetary Impact Ejecta
With the number of confirmed rocky exoplanets increasing steadily, their characterisation and the search for exoplanetary biospheres is becoming an increasingly urgent issue in astrobiology. We aim to investigate the […]
Posted inBiosignatures & Paleobiology, Press Release
NASA Awards Grant for New Life Detection Project
NASA has awarded funding for a new interdisciplinary project called the Laboratory for Agnostic Biosignatures (LAB). The award, totaling nearly $7 million dollars, will be used to develop new, non-Earth […]