Snow algae form extensive blooms within Antarctica’s coastal snowpacks and are a crucial contributor to its scarce terrestrial ecosystems.
Glaciers are important regulators of the Earth’s climate system, affecting the hydrological cycle, energy balance and the development of downstream ecosystems. Other than the polar regions, the Tibetan Plateau stands […]
Visit ancient Mars—a surprisingly temperate planet where snow or rain falls from the sky, and rivers rush down valleys to feed hundreds of lakes.
NASA-supported scientists have reported how interactions between viruses and bacteria during algal blooms could affect snowmelt in polar and subpolar regions on Earth.
Supraglacial environments mainly consist of four main types of habitats for microbes and viruses, including snow, ice, meltwater, and cryoconites (the granular sediment on glacier surfaces).
Editor’s note: Astrobiologists are often focused on how a planet’s life history shapes the life on it and how that life can, in turn, alter a planet’s life history. Life […]
Valley networks branching across the Martian surface leave little doubt that water once flowed on the Red Planet. But where that ancient water came from — whether it bubbled up […]
