#kepler-22b

#kepler-22b

If a signal gets broadened by its own star's environment, it can slip below our detection thresholds, even if it's there, potentially helping explain some of the radio silence we've seen in technosignature searches. This statement from Dr. Vishal Gajjar highlights how stellar environmental factors may cause detectable signals to become invisible to current SETI instruments.

We found that life is more likely to survive an asteroid impact, so it's definitely still a real possibility that life on Earth could have come from Mars. Maybe we're Martians! The idea that life could have spread through the solar system or even the universe on rocks is known as the lithopanspermia hypothesis.

I think the first thing to remember is: We are right at the beginning of this adventure. There's so much excitement that every little signal - every "wiggle" in a spectrum - gets people saying, "Oh! That might be life!" And then, on the other side, other people respond with, "I don't see enough wiggles, so there's probably not even an atmosphere. Dead planet. Move on." Both reactions are too fast.

V1298 Tau is a young (10-30 Myr), approximately solar-mass star (1.10 ± 0.05  M⊙ ) in the Taurus star-forming region2,4,5,6,7,8. Observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope in its extended K2 mission9 revealed transits of the star by four different planets, each larger than Neptune2,3. The V1298 Tau planets occupy a sparsely populated region of the observed exoplanet period versus radius plane. As a young system of large planets, it provides a crucial snapshot of planetary architecture

It's a plant! It's a fungus! It's... an entirely new type of lifeform hitherto unknown to science? That appears to be the case for a puzzling, spire-shaped organism that lived over 400 million years ago, according to a new study published in the journal Science Advances. After analyzing its internal structures, the authors argue that the mystifying ancient beings known as prototaxites don't belong to any of the existing biological kingdoms.

A global research team has analyzed the prospects for biomineralization on Mars, a process in which bacteria, fungi, and microalgae can create minerals as part of their metabolism, offering a byproduct that could be useful to prospective Martian explorers by providing the raw materials needed to produce aggregates such as concrete. With an extremely thin and mostly carbon dioxide atmosphere, air pressure less than 1 percent of Earth's,

Looking skyward fills us with wonder. Off-world, the Sun, planets, stars, and galaxies all await. Our Solar System encompasses our own cosmic backyard. Farther away, stars and star clusters abound within the Milky Way. Hundreds of billions of stars exist just within our home galaxy. Inside our Local Group, only Andromeda surpasses us in mass, size, and stars. More than 5 million light-years away, galaxies abound in groups and clusters.