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Can scientists detect life without knowing what it looks like
Atlanta GA (SPX) Dec 16, 2025 When NASA scientists opened the sample return canister from the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample mission in late 2023, they found something astonishing. Dust and rock collected from the asteroid Bennu contained many of life's building blocks, including all five nucleobases used in DNA and RNA, 14 of the 20 amino acids found in proteins, and a rich collection of other organic molecules ... read more |
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Clues to the migration path of hot Jupiters in their orbitsTokyo, Japan (SPX) Dec 16, 2025 The first exoplanet discovered in 1995 was a hot Jupiter, a Jupiter mass planet orbiting its star every few days. Today, models indicate that hot Jupiters form far from their stars, similar to Jupit ... more 
Hidden circumbinary giant planet emerges from decade old Gemini dataBerlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 14, 2025 Astronomers have directly imaged a giant exoplanet orbiting a pair of stars, in a configuration reminiscent of the fictional Tatooine system but with the closest-known directly imaged planet to its ... more 
Ultra hot super Earth shows dense atmosphere over magma oceanLos Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 14, 2025 A Carnegie-led team using NASAs James Webb Space Telescope has obtained the strongest evidence so far for an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet, detecting a substantial gaseous envelope around the ... more 
RISTRETTO spectrograph cleared for Proxima b atmospheric huntGeneva, Switzerland (SPX) Dec 09, 2025 The RISTRETTO project at the University of Geneva has reached a key stage, with several core elements of its high-precision spectrograph now prototyped and tested for observations of the nearby exop ... more |
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TRAPPIST 1 flares mapped to probe planetary habitabilityBoulder CO (SPX) Dec 05, 2025 TRAPPIST-1, a small star about 40 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius, produces flares roughly six times per day, and this activity complicates efforts to evaluate whether its plane ... more 
SPHERE debris disk survey maps hidden asteroid and comet belts in young planetary systemsBerlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 05, 2025 Observations with the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope have produced a large gallery of debris disks around nearby young stars, revealing where unseen asteroid- and comet-scale bodies ... more 
SwRI opens NOUR lab to track chemical pathways from nebulae to planetary systemsLos Angeles CA (SPX) Dec 03, 2025 Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has established the Nebular Origins of the Universe Research (NOUR) Laboratory to investigate how the chemistry of interstellar material leads to the formation of ... more 
Gels may have given early Earth chemistry a place to organize into lifeBerlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 03, 2025 An international team from Japan, Malaysia, the UK, and Germany has proposed that life on Earth may have emerged within sticky, surface-bound gels that formed before the first cells. The researchers ... more 
Helium escape mapped from superpuff exoplanet WASP 107b by JWSTBerlin, Germany (SPX) Dec 03, 2025 An international team including astronomers from the University of Geneva and the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS has used the James Webb Space Telescope to study helium escaping f ... more |
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Machine learning tool distinguishes signs of life from non-living compounds in space samples
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2025 Researchers developed LifeTracer, a machine learning framework, to analyze mass spectrometry data from space and terrestrial samples. They used advanced two-dimensional gas chromatography and high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry to study eight carbonaceous meteorites and ten terrestrial rock samples. LifeTracer applies logistic regression to compound-level features and achieved 87 percent classification accuracy, distinguishing samples derived from meteorites and Earth rocks. In their ... read more 
Moss spores withstand long term exposure outside space stationTokyo, Japan (SPX) Nov 21, 2025 Researchers have demonstrated that moss sporophytes can withstand nine months of direct exposure to outer space and remain reproductively viable upon return to Earth. The study, published November 2 ... more |
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Water production on exoplanets revealed by pressure experimentsLos Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 20, 2025 Researchers led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory postdoctoral scientist Harrison Horn have demonstrated a pathway for producing water on sub-Neptune exoplanets. The team recreated the bound ... more 
Exoplanet map initiative earns NASA support for University of Iowa physicistLos Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 14, 2025 University of Iowa physicist David Nataf will lead a NASA-funded research project focused on producing detailed three-dimensional maps for the study of exoplanets and their host stars. Nataf a ... more 
How to spot life in the clouds on other worldsIthaca NY (SPX) Nov 12, 2025 An exoplanet with dense or even total cloud cover could help astronomers searching for signs of life beyond our planet. Cornell University researchers have created the first reflectance spectr ... more 
3I/ATLAS Highlights Scale and Significance of Interstellar Objects Passing Through the Solar SystemSydney, Australia (SPX) Nov 08, 2025 3I/ATLAS, the third confirmed interstellar object tracked within our solar system, has brought renewed attention to the dynamic range of cosmic material moving through the Sun's domain. Detected by ... more
Ageing stars found to destroy nearby giant planetsLondon, UK (SPX) Nov 06, 2025 Astronomers from University College London and the University of Warwick have discovered that ageing stars may be responsible for destroying giant planets in close orbits. When stars similar to the ... more |
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