在地球形成之初，小行星和微行星的频繁撞击塑造了地壳，并创造出可能支持前生物化学反应、甚至可能孕育早期生命的环境。
life as we know it
Posted inResearch & Developments
Perseverance Spots Organic Matter on Mars
The Mars Perseverance rover has detected intact organic molecules near previously-described potential signatures of ancient life, according to a new study published today in Science Advances.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Cosmic Bombardment Created Potential for Prebiotic Chemistry
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.
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.
Posted inNews
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.
Posted inNews
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.
Posted inNews
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.
Posted inResearch & Developments
Perseverance Sample Shows Possible Evidence of Ancient Martian Microbial Metabolisms
A sample collected in July 2024 by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover may be “the closest we’ve actually come to discovering ancient life on Mars,” according to Nicky Fox, the science head of NASA.
Posted inNews
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.