#astrobiology

#astrobiology

The expedition, which concluded late last month, explored the eastern part of the Gakkel ridge - part of the global system of submerged mountain chains that play a key part in plate tectonics. A team of scientists took a submersible vessel beneath the Arctic sea ice and completed more than 40 dives, going as deep as 5,277 metres. The analyses are far from complete, but this section of the Gakkel ridge might have hot-water vents that spew from the sea floor.

Astronomers were astonished to find an abundance of phosphine, a molecule produced by microbes on Earth, in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf, an unusual type of object that lives in the grey zone between a giant planet and a tiny star. As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Science, astronomers said they had found "undepleted phosphine," a molecule made up of three hydrogen atoms and one phosphorus atom, in the atmosphere of Wolf 1130C, a brown dwarf 54 light-years from Earth.

The traditional astrophysical recipe for life as we know it involves getting a rocky, gas-shrouded world in a habitable zone where liquid water exists.

When we search for life in the Universe, it makes sense to look for planets that are similar to Earth.

At this point this is a pretty mature concept,