
Study shows how sunlight on Titan yields life-precursor compounds

Study shows how sunlight on Titan yields life-precursor compounds

How did life begin on Earth?

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Data Deluge: Texas Flood Canyon Offers Test of Hydrology Theories for Earth and Mars
A massive overflow from a dam in 2002 carved a channel several meters deep into the bedrock in just days

Mass Transits: Kepler Mission Releases Data on Hundreds of Possible Exoplanets
NASA's planet hunter has identified more than 700 candidate extrasolar worlds that have yet to be confirmed, including some that may be Earth-size

Astrobiologist tries to set the record straight about extraterrestrial life on Titan

Water Spirit: Rover Findings Hint of a Warmer, Wetter Era on Mars
Bountiful carbonate minerals in a rock outcrop on the Red Planet could have formed under watery greenhouse conditions billions of years ago

12 Events That Will Change Everything
In addition to reacting to news as it breaks, we work to anticipate what will happen. Here we contemplate 12 possibilities and rate their likelihood of happening by 2050

Astronomers Could Soon Find Moons Outside the Solar System--Even Habitable Ones
Ewoks and the Na'vi may be pure fiction, but Endor and Pandora, the moons they inhabit, appear closer to reality

Extraterrestrial Specks in Antarctic Snow Yield New Clues to Solar System's Past
Micrometeorites buried under decades of snowfall in Antarctica preserve scraps of cosmic chemistry that hint at how organic molecules made it to Earth

Alien horror: Stephen Hawking hawks Stephen King

Water Ice Found on the Surface of an Asteroid for the First Time
The asteroid 24 Themis has organic material and a layer of frost, bolstering theories that asteroids could have seeded Earth with both water and the precursors to life

Technological Advances Bring Exoplanets into Clearer View
Techniques now coming of age allow astronomers to more easily photograph distant planets rather than inferring their presence indirectly