A multi-institute team of scientists have proposed a new method of assessing the likelihood of life on alien worlds (exoplanets) while another group is mulling the possibility that alien space probes might currently be residing in our solar system. Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, from Washington State University, believes that a method for quantifying the probability of […]
SETI’s (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) quest to find radio signals transmitted by extraterrestrial civilizations has so far failed to locate any alien shock jocks, so two astronomers have suggested a new technique for finding aliens: look for their city lights. In their paper, Avi Loeb, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Edwin Turner, of […]
NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites say that the extraterrestrial biological molecules brought to Earth by meteorite impacts could help explain why the chemistry of life on Earth is left-handed. Proteins are used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions. Just as the 26 […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star, a possible indicator of extraterrestrial life. In this case, the Jupiter-sized planet (called HD 189733b) is too hot for life, but astronomers say that the observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can […]
Scientists have detected glycolaldehyde (an organic sugar molecule that is directly linked to the origin of life) 26,000 light years from Earth in a region of our galaxy where habitable planets may exist. The international team of astronomers used the IRAM radio telescope in France (pictured) to detect the molecule and they have reported their […]
Snack food company Doritos is sponsoring a competition in the UK to beam a user-created advertisement (using a 2-billion watt transmitter) at the 47 Ursae Majoris solar system 42 light years away from Earth. Entrants have to shoot a 30-second ad about what they perceive life on earth to be. On the 12th June, the […]
Amino acids have been found in interstellar clouds and in meteorites – but with some enigmatic omissions and tantalizing similarities to life on Earth. Just why some amino acids are present in meteorites and others are absent, and why they seem to prefer the same “left-handed” molecular structure as Earth’s living amino acids are questions […]
