[Geobiology ] Impact crater hydrothermal systems, formed after asteroid and comet impacts, have been proposed as promising habitats for life on early Earth and as key targets in the search […]
habitability
Posted inMars
Ancient Clays Near The Hellas Basin On Mars
[NASA]. Ancient clay-rich sediments (orangish color and polygonal fractures in our enhanced color cutout) exposed between wind-blown dunes and patches of sand northwest of the giant Hellas impact basin.
Posted inHabitable Zones
A Hydrogen Atmosphere Could Keep Exomoons Habitable For Billions Of Years
[Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics] Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun.
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather
Excess Oxygen Stored In Deep Earth Magma May Help Explain How Earth’s Atmosphere Became Oxygen-rich
[Science China Press] The research team, led by Dr. Yanhao Lin and Dr. Ho-kwang Mao of the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research (HPSTAR), together with Prof. […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather
Simulations Of The Evolving Ozone Layer: Implications For The Early Earth, Exoplanets, And The Search For Life
[astro-ph.EP] Over 4 billion years, Earth’s atmosphere has been transformed from a composition devoid of molecular oxygen (O2) to one where O2 is now 21% of our modern atmosphere by […]
![A heterotrophic ecosystem enabled by fermentation on Enceladus. [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Fermentation.png?resize=1200%2C720&ssl=1)
Posted inEnceladus
Fermentation Heterotrophy Can Reproduce Enceladus’s H2 And CH4 Under Limited Serpentinization
[astro-ph.EP] Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life beyond Earth. Abundant H2 and CH4 in Enceladus’s south-polar plume have been shown to be consistent […]
Posted inTitan
Oxidation Of Photochemical Organic Hazes: A Prebiotic Source of Oxygen-Bearing Organics in Titan’s Atmosphere And Early Earth?
[Astrobiology via PubMed]. Photochemical organic hazes such as those found in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest satellite of Saturn, are mainly composed of reduced chemical components.
Posted inEnceladus
Paleo-heat Flux Estimates Across Enceladus Derived From Flexural Response Of The Ice Shell
[Icarus] Saturn’s moon Enceladus has active plumes suggestive of locally high heat fluxes at present, and the present-day heating is reasonably well characterized. However, the moon’s thermal history is not […]
Posted inExoplanets, -moons, -comets
Hybrid Worlds Are The Commonest Outcome Among The M-dwarf Sub-Neptunes Characterised With JWST
[astro-ph.EP] The sub-Neptunes orbiting M dwarfs are usually assigned to one of two classes: rocky cores beneath primordial hydrogen, or volatile-rich bodies formed beyond the water-ice line.
![Simulated climates and observables for CO2-rich planets near the outer edge of the habitable zone. The illustration on the right depicts a potentially habitable world orbiting a Sun-like star. The teal point in the lower left section of the panel marks the orbital location of such a planet within the OHZ, and the corresponding reflected light spectrum that could be observed via direct imaging is shown in teal in the middle, left section of the panel. The upper left section of the panel shows an illustration of the same planet in a globally frozen state located just beyond the habitable zone. Its orbital position (lower left) and reflected light spectrum (middle) are shown in white. -- [astro-ph.EP]](https://i0.wp.com/astrobiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/High-CO2.png?resize=1200%2C721&ssl=1)
Posted inHabitable Zones
High-CO2 Climates And Observables In The Outer Habitable Zone
[astro-ph.EP] The habitable zone (HZ) is a fundamental concept used to guide our search for temperate exoplanets with stable surface liquid water that would sustain remotely detectable biosignatures.