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13,000 feet beneath the surface of Antarctica's vast ice sheet rests the otherworldly Lake Vostok. Home to some of the most extreme conditions on Earth, Vostok has remained isolated from the rest of the world for 20 million years, and completely inaccessible to mankind. Until now. More »
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This is devastating news. The BBC is reporting that ExoMars — a joint program between NASA and the European Space Agency with Martian missions scheduled for 2016 and 2018 — is on the ropes, owing to America's budgetary woes. More »
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Buried over two miles beneath the East Antarctic Ice sheet lurks Lake Vostok — an isolated body of subglacial water, removed from the rest of the world for more than twenty million years. Now, Russian researchers are just a few meters of ice away from entering an environment unlike any we've ever seen... at least, not here on Earth. More »
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There could be over 150 billion planets in our galaxy alone, which makes the chances of life on other words look very solid indeed. But there's one snag: the universe's most common stars might not support life at all. More »
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When you consider the utter vastness of space, it isn't hard to accept that, somewhere out there, extraterrestrial life probably exists. That being said, one can just as soon reason that the Universe is so immense, the odds of us actually finding evidence for the existence of alien organisms are probably pretty slim. Given the mind-boggling hugeness of the cosmos, where would we even begin looking for signs of life? More »
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We've officially found over 700 exoplanets, and with so many worlds to explore the big question is which, if any, could support life. But should we be looking for Earth-like planets — or is life hiding on far more alien worlds? More »
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This past weekend marked the opening of the American Museum of Natural History's brilliant new exhibition, Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration. As part of our ongoing Hardcore Science Interview series, io9 spoke with the show's curator, AMNH astrophysicist Michael Shara, about the exhibit. More »
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There's no surefire way to find evidence of alien civilizations — indeed, they're basically all long shots — but a new method could reveal the existence of aliens just like us. And we've almost got the technology needed to do it. More »
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To get life, you first need organic molecules, and the easiest way to get those is from the compound methanol. Now it seems there are very specific conditions needed to create methanol and, ultimately, life... and most stars don't have them. More »
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There's no way to be absolutely certain, but we're pretty sure that no germs have ever survived the grueling journey from Earth to Mars. But the latest rover to explore the Red Planet might just take along some microscopic colonists. More »
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We've often found trace evidence of DNA on meteorites, but it wasn't clear whether these DNA pieces originated in space, or were accidental byproducts of contamination by scientists. Now we have our best evidence yet that they actually come from space. More »
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Enceladus is home to one of the solar system's most incredible hotspots, churning out 15.8 gigawatts of power. It's even more proof that there's a liquid ocean hiding beneath the ice...but scientists have no clue what's creating all that heat. More »
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If you've been scanning the internet this weekend, chances are you've seen that particular Fox News story about alien bacterial fossils being discovered on meteorites. The findings in the Fox story were published in the Journal of Cosmology, which is less of an academic website and more like watching laser Jethro Tull at your local planetarium. More »
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Why is it that astrobiologists consider water a prerequisite when seeking out alien life? Steve Nerlich of Universe Today has the details. More »
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An oxygen-rich lake, unreachable for the past 14 million years and buried beneath a thick sheet of ice, is about to be penetrated by a drill bit from a faraway place. More »
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This is music video parody heaven, right here — a glitter-lipped songstress sings about the difficulties in finding life in the universe, in a spoof of Ke$ha's "We R Who We R." What rhymes with "prokaryote-ote-ote-otes"? [via Greg Laden] More »
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Every time we send spacecraft to explore the solar system, we send along lots of tiny microbes. In fact, we may have deposited a trillion microbial spores on Mars. How will we ever discover alien life through all that haze? More »
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Thanks to a new remote sensing technique, astronomers may soon be able to detect the presence of multicellular life (like trees) on planets outside of the Solar System. More »
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After the Earth-shaking announcement last week that they'd discovered an arsenic-based life form, NASA researchers are under attack from many in the scientific community. Experts are calling the research shoddy, and wondering if NASA is just desperate for publicity. More »
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NASA is bringing together a geologist, an oceanographer, a biologist, and an ecologist for a press conference on Thursday to talk about an astrobiology discovery that "will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." Yeah, this could be major. More »
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The deliciously named O/OREOS (Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses) project will use cheaper nanosatellites to study the effects of space living on organic molecules. Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams has the details. More »
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Sure, that's maybe the most ridiculous question we've posed. But a new theory suggests life's building blocks did originate in outer space, although they couldn't have survived traveling to Earth. And with an awesome name like necropanspermia, it's worth considering. More »
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Even if we do discover incontrovertible proof that there was once life on Mars, that might not mean we actually found alien life. Ancient microbes from Earth could have colonized the Red Planet millions of years ago. More »
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Beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt, a massive asteroid belt twenty times the size of the one between Mars and Jupiter. In this frigid, unforgiving environment, organic molecules might still survive, suggesting life's building blocks are everywhere in the universe. More »
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Buckyballs are huge molecular conglomerations of carbon atoms in the shape of soccer balls, and it turns out space is absolutely teeming with them. It's quite possible that life on Earth couldn't have happened without these wonderfully-named buckyballs. More »
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Saturn's moon Titan could hold life's building blocks in its hazy atmosphere. New simulations reveal amino acids and nucleotides could be forming there - and that perhaps we should look to the atmosphere for the source of life on Earth. More »
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NASA's Viking probes were colossally disappointing for those looking for life on Mars - not only were there no signs of life, we didn't even find its essential building blocks. Or maybe we just didn't know what to look for. More »
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Mud volcanoes are unusual geological structures that blast up sediments from deep underground. Such volcanoes are doubly perfect places to look for life on Mars - they spew out secrets of ancient Mars while providing the perfect environment for life. More »
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A basic property of Earth's organic molecules could be caused by supernova explosions. That means massive stellar explosions indirectly governed the building blocks of life on Earth...and could be doing it elsewhere in the cosmos. More »
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In the Bahamas' submerged inland caverns, or "blue holes," a thin layer of fresh water separates oxygen from salt water. This creates a submerged, oxygen-free environment that could resemble underground water pockets on Mars or the seas of Europa. More »
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Are signs of life on Mars floating in the atmosphere? Scientists have been searching for the source of methane on Mars, and their search has put them on the hunt for methane-producing microorganisms. More »
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Thirteen years ago, a team of researchers studying the Allan Hills meteorite found evidence that the rock might contain fossils of Martian bacteria. Now, fresh evidence makes a stronger case that Mars once contained life very similar to Earth bacteria. More »
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Water on out moon might make lunar colonization possible, but it appears that Jupiter's satellite Europa is better suited for life. A new study suggests Europa could support not just microorganisms, but complex life — and a lot of it. More »
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Many space age dreams involve humans spreading out into the far reaches of the galaxy, but our extraterrestrial breeding program might need a little help. Scientists in Japan have found microgravity may function as a form of birth control. More »
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While our sun and Earth have allowed for the development of a relative bounty of life, many astronomers are starting to believe that the conditions they provide aren't unique, or even ideal, suggesting we may not be alone after all. More »
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Critics of exogenesis note that the proper conditions to maintain life are rare in the universe, and would not likely survive the trip inside Earth's atmosphere. But new data on comets offers evidence that our ancestors were, indeed, extraterrestrial. More »
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Extremophiles challenge everything we thought we knew about the existence of life on Earth. Now, astrobiologists are questioning if some extremophiles are actually aliens living among us. Just who are these incredible creatures, and what can we learn from them? More »
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Astronomers have made a sweet discovery in their search for life on other planets. A team at University College London has detected a sugar molecule that has long been associated with the origin of life in a potentially-habitable region of the galaxy. This could increase our chances of finding distant planets with life. More »
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Most of the the search for life on other planets has focused on finding a world just like ours: rocky and covered in liquid water. But as astronomers learn more about exoplanets, some are beginning to suspect that life can evolve under a wider range of conditions than anyone had thought before. Far from being unique, Earth could be just one world in a universe teeming with truly diverse breeds of life. More »
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We long ago declared Saturn's moon Titan the one of the awesomest moons in the solar system (though this assertion was controversial). Granted, it’s freezing cold, but its Earth-like features have set astrobiologists dreaming and made it one of the most popular extraplanetary settings in science fiction. And a new discovery about this infamous lunar body further suggests that Titan has the capacity to produce life. More »
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