Frequent impacts from asteroids and planetesimals in Earth’s earliest days shaped the planet’s crust and created environments that may have supported prebiotic chemistry, and possibly even early life.
life as we know it
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Carbon-Rich Rocks May Have Cooled the Ancient Martian Atmosphere
Data from the Perseverance rover indicate abundant carbonates in Jezero Crater, a finding with implications for Mars’s climatic history.
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Asteroid Hosts All Ingredients for DNA and RNA
Samples collected from asteroid Ryugu contain the four genetic “letters” of DNA, reinforcing the hypothesis that the chemical origins of life were present when the solar system began.
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The Long and the Weak of It—The Ediacaran Magnetic Field
A roughly 70-million-year interval of anomalously weak magnetic field during the Ediacaran period could have triggered atmospheric changes that supported the rise of macroscopic life.
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Speedy Flyby Adds New Organics to Enceladus’s “Primordial Soup”
A new analysis of old Cassini data has also verified past detections of complex organics in Saturn’s E ring, strengthening the chemical ties between the ring and its progenitor.
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A Flash, a Boom, a New Microbe Habitat
After an asteroid struck Finland long ago, microscopic life colonized the impact site within a few million years, new research reveals.
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Asteroid Samples Suggest a Solar System of Ancient, Salty Incubators
The discovery of salty mineral evaporites on Ryugu indicates that watery environments may have been widespread in the early solar system.
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Using Algorithms to Help Find Life on Icy Ocean Worlds
Scientists could use machine learning to analyze atmospheric samples in order to help identify microbes on frozen moons. They’re testing the concept using bottles of brine and smelly bacteria.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Ceres’s Organics Might Not Be Homegrown After All
Scientists have been unable to determine whether the dwarf planet’s organics were produced by its own chemical processes or delivered by asteroids. New evidence implicates asteroids.
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Life’s Building Blocks Found in Bennu Samples
The discovery of amino acids, abundant ammonia, and the bases of DNA and RNA on asteroid Bennu suggest that materials essential to life might be widespread throughout the solar system.