Astrobiology

4.5 billion years ago was an interesting time for Earth. The atmosphere was thick and what we would now think of as toxic. The moon, which was freshly formed, looks…

Life exists because elements combine to form complex organic molecules. Astrochemistry studies this process, trying to understand how nature creates carbon-based molecules critical for life. One source for these types…

Past research has indicated Mars's largest northern basin, Utopia Planitia, was once the location of a large body of water, but details surrounding when this body of water may have…

About a billion years ago, Earth started to come into its own. It was past the awkwardness of its younger years full of growing pains and turmoil: comet strikes and…

Mars holds a special place in the solar system. It represents marginal habitability. This means it transitioned from warm and wet and potentially hospitable, to cold and dry and inhospitable.

The thinking around exoplanet habitability is mostly concerned with a planet's distance from its star. Too close, and any surface water is boiled away into space. Too far, and surface…