NASA scientists have discovered a new planet orbiting around a nearby star that is in a habitable zone. But does this planet have liquid oceans that can support life?
Quentin Wheeler, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry; Antonio G. Valdecasas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) et Cristina Cánovas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
If you go by editorial cartoons and T-shirts, you might have the impression that evolution proceeds as an orderly march toward a preordained finish line. But that’s not right at all.
A modern arthropod (the centipede Cormocephalus) crawls over its Cambrian ‘flatmate’ (the trilobite Estaingia).
Michael Lee / South Australian Museum and Flinders University
Modern animals took over our planet much more quickly than previously thought. This has both welcome and disturbing implications for the future of life on our rapidly changing planet
Fossilised burrows are changing what we know about the evolution of life.
Newly found fossils point to a link between a rise in atmospheric oxygen and the first emergence of complex life on Earth.
An artist’s impression of Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. It is the first planet that NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed to orbit in a star’s habitable zone - the region around a star where liquid water, a requirement for life on Earth, could persist.
NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech
Josh Calcino, The University of Queensland et Jake Clark, University of Southern Queensland
Life could exist in another solar system in a different part our galaxy. Or in another galaxy far away. We don’t have the perfect technology yet to study such far away places but we’re still trying.
There is an urgent need to reconsider the importance of diversity. It is not a simple wealth. It is both a property of the living and an essential condition for its survival.
An ancient sexual conflict over mitochondrial inheritance may be responsible for the evolution of the two sexes as we know them.
Here, an alien crew member, Saru on Star Trek: Discovery. We often rely on science fiction to guide our expectations of alien life. We can hope lessons about accepting beings very different from yourself can be extracted by the series end.
(Courtesy of CBS Studios)
Star Trek: Discovery explores our corner of the block – just a fraction of the galaxy. Some stars are better candidates for intelligent alien life, and it may not be anything like we imagine.
It’s happened before: why we need to plan for the next doomsday event that could wipe out much of life on Earth.
Shutterstock/solarseven
NASA says there are ten “potentially hazardous” asteroids close to Earth. Good reason to make sure we have a backup plan should any catastrophic event wipe of much of life on Earth.
Ridges in the Dresser Formation in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia that preserve ancient stromatolites and hot spring deposits.
Kathleen Campbell
Life on the land could have started millions of years earlier on Earth than first thought. This could change the way we think about life developing elsewhere in the universe.
Can technology help us to beat death?
Shutterstock/Zwiebackesser
Earth is a relatively dry planet compared to some of the other ocean worlds in our Solar system. Life needs water so what about life on these other places?
We continue to search for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. But if we find ET there are those who question whether we should make contact or not.