The study of extremophilic microorganisms has sparked interest in understanding extraterrestrial microbial life.
When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons. Now nearly 40 years later, NASA plans to send another spacecraft to Uranus, […]
A model of a tiny, wedge-shaped robot designed to explore subsurface oceans of icy moons, right, sits beside a large waterproof capsule containing electronics and sensors for testing below glacial […]
Keith’s note: Astrobiologist Dale Andersen is back in Antarctica at Lake Untersee in October-December 2024 for another field season of research (preview). Dale’s work is coordinated through the SETI Institute. We’ll be posting […]
Two prototypes for a NASA mission concept called SWIM (short for Sensing With Independent Micro-swimmers) are arranged beside a much smaller nonfunctioning model representing the final envisioned size of the […]
Southwest Research Institute is working to expand software normally used to model electrolytes and predict corrosion and turn it into a tool that can help determine whether ice-covered worlds have […]
We explore ocean circulation on a rotating icy moon driven by temperature gradients imposed at its upper surface due to the suppression of the freezing point of water with pressure, […]
Keith’s note: Astrobiologist Dale Andersen is back in Antarctica at Lake Untersee in October-December 2024 for another field season of research (preview). Dale’s work is coordinated through the SETI Institute. We’ll be posting […]
Serpentinization, the collective set of geochemical reactions initiated by the hydration of ultramafic rock, has occurred throughout Earth history and is inferred to occur on several planets and moons in […]
The search for life in our solar system often involves efforts to detect organic molecules, which have been found on many extraterrestrial bodies, including planets, moons, meteorites, comets, and asteroids. […]
